In The New Year

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Merry Christmas

 

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US healthcare establishment is due for cultural shift

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A “River of Light” in New York

 

To the right of the main altar in St Patrick’s Cathedral, in a privileged place, for several years there has been a painting of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on display, for the veneration of the devotees.

How the painting got there, who the protagonists of this feat were, and what events happened until the image of the Lady of Tepeyac reached the special place of veneration that it has today in New York is a story that deserves to be told and recorded in writing. It is my purpose, in these lines, to tell that story.

The painting is authored by an anonymous artist from the 18th Century. It is believed that he was a disciple of the great Mexican artist and teacher, Miguel Cabrera. It is a gift from the Archdiocese of Mexico to the Cathedral Seat of Catholics in New York City, obtained from the Enrique Romero Art Gallery in Mexico City, and brought here personally by the then Archbishop and Primate of Mexico, the most Eminent Cardinal Ernesto Corripio.

On the 8th of December of 1991, in the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, is the Marian date in which Cardinal Corripio presented to his brother, the then Cardinal of New York John O’Connor, in solemn liturgical celebration, the painting in mention of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Present at that liturgical act were the Consul General of Mexico, Mr. Manuel Alonso, and Mrs. Rosa María Quijano, who was the protagonist, driving force, and main donor that made this celebrated event possible.

The original painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe, printed in the tilma of the Indian Saint Juan Diego in an appearance occurred on the 12th of December of 1531, is permanently displayed in the new Basilica built in its honor and for its veneration in Mexico City.

The word “Guadalupe” means “river of light”. Today we can say that there are rivers of faithful devotees who come daily to honor the Mother of God and our Mother under the invocation of the Virgen Morena (the dark Virgin,) Mexican, Latin-American, American and Amerindian, in the beautiful colonial painting in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. For the visit of Pope John Paul II to New York, the aforementioned painting of the Guadalupana was transferred and hung over the main altar to preside over the visit of the Holy Father to the Cathedral, and for the praying of the Holy Rosary, which was guided by the universal Shepherd before the revered image.

But the prominent location that the painting has today -in the Cathedral context- is the place that was the tabernacle of the Cathedral, to the right of the main altar. It also has its story interwoven with signs, with wonders, in which it seems that -after a series of difficulties around the display of the painting in the Cathedral, given the inconsistency between the painting and the marble and stone that prevail in the construction of Saint Patrick’s- the Virgin herself found a prominent place where to be venerated and from where to accompany the lives of her children.

Mrs. Margarita Perusquia is the front-page protagonist in this story. As founder of the organization “Mensajeros de María de Guadalupe” she has dedicated herself with her institution to spread in New York and throughout the Americas the devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, Marian devotion that embodies what is Latin-American and that brings together the most valuable of our origins, our story, our faith, and our culture.

It was the request from Margarita Perusquia to the then Archbishop of New York, Terence Cardinal Cook, to allow her to erect an altar in the Cathedral where to venerate the Guadalupana, which originated this story that today inspires and attracts so many devotees, not only in New York, but also in the whole continent and beyond the seas.

The same request, with the best example of patience and Christian devotion, was made by Margarita on several occasions to Cardinals Cook and O’Connor. They, at the moment, sent her to speak with the successive rectors of the Cathedral, who, in turn, denied her request, as I previously stated, given the painting’s inconsistency with the materials, architecture, and art of the Cathedral church.

It was, as it was said, on the 8th of December of 1991, when the Mexican Cardinal Ernesto Corripio, celebrating the solemn Eucharist in the Cathedral, presented and donated the painting to Cardinal John O’Connor, who excitedly asked the crowd: “Where would you like this painting to be displayed: in his house, office or Cathedral?” The faithful people responded aloud: “Here, in the Cathedral.”

For a year and a half, the painting of Guadalupe wandered through inadequate corners of the Cathedral, but -soon- the regular crowd of pilgrims, the offerings, the candles, and the flowers pressured the authorities to find a better and more appropriate place for the veneration of the image of the Virgen Morena.

May these lines serve to leave a written record of this story, to praise and thank those who made this religious feat possible, and to congratulate all my Catholic Mexican and Latin-American brothers, who on the 12th of December joyfully celebrate the solemnity of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patron Saint of Mexico and Primate of America.

The Hope to Give Thanks

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The need for a push to innovate Medicaid at the national level

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Tapping Medicaid funds to tackle SDH

 

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FOR HAITI

 

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Abundant Life Versus the “Culture of Death”

For over five decades, our North American society has upheld legislation that defends the heinous crime of abortion. This legislation comes with the appearance and excuse - among other things - of protecting a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body and of supporting poor women so that they do not seek abortions in the darkness of illegality, with all the serious risks that this entails for their health and life. Yet this legislation forgets and tramples over, yes, the rights of the unborn, adding us – thereby – to the “culture of death” that, in so many ways, imposes itself on all of humanity.

We live in this historical and socio-cultural juncture of postmodernity. After two world wars, pessimistic accounts of “deconstruction” and “no-future” have appeared and the easy and fast, transitory, temporary, disposable, and ephemeral have prevailed. This is a historical and social moment in which individual freedoms and rights appear to take precedence over the common good and in which the truth has become “what is useful to me,” with the consequent predominance of subjectivism and sentiment, where each person assembles “a la carte,” his own manual of “truths” and constructs his own life project.

This is a world of permissiveness and moral laxity, of appearances, and where the unbridled search for happiness is confused with momentary and physical pleasure as an end, regardless of the means to achieve it. This is a hedonistic and pansexualist society in which sexuality, also “light,” is lived without love, without exclusivity, without commitments, reduced to genitality, and the frenzy of orgasms. This is a society and culture without convictions and without meaning, that has traded the transcendent value of life in exchange for all that be enjoyed here and now amidst the easy and immediate.

Issues such as abortion, divorce, euthanasia, etc., have gained resonance and power. In this “light” world and culture, a world of relativism and half-truths, and under the pretext of respect for plurality and differences, the truth is diluted or hidden. Feminist movements are acquiring rising power in all areas of our life in society, here and throughout the rest of the world. It is in this postmodern and “light” socio-cultural context that I will dare in these lines to give some opinions on the issue of abortion, at a time when our society is talking about the possible repeal, by the Supreme Court, of the federal law on abortion, to leave the legal decisions in this regard in the hands of each State of the American Union.

I write from the point of view of the Christian humanism that I profess because I understand that these teachings have universal validity insofar as the tendencies toward life, peace, justice, and truth are the intrinsic and inborn heritage of every human being whether or not we affirm the existence of the God of Christians and the consequent truths, values, and principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

An ethical-moral reflection on abortion cannot and should not be approached or appropriated exclusively by the humanistic and theological vision of Christianity. This appropriation or attribution of the discourse on the defense of life in abortion impoverishes and reduces the scope that the issue has for all humanity, because the appreciation, respect, and defense of the gift of life is the heritage of all humanity, insofar as that life is a value, inscribed in nature and in the heart of every human being and valid for every man and woman of any race, people, creed, ideology, etc.

The following reflections, great principles to consider on the subject of abortion and consigned here as concisely as possible, are only to foster an initial understanding that in no way exhausts the abundant and complex moral, ethical, legal, religious, psychological, political, and social controversies related to this topic:

• Christian and Catholic Moral Theology has always affirmed that the existence of the human person begins “from its conception. That is to say, from the moment in which the human sperm cell penetrates the human egg and fertilizes it, the moment in which the set of biological phenomena that lead to syngamy (union of the male and female pronuclei) begins, where the genome of the human being itself, the one that is unalterable, is definitively organized. In the union of the ovum with the sperm, the human nature of the new being is established and at that same moment, the genetic sex is also established.” (Dr. Rafael Pineda, Comentarios sobre los proyectos consensuados de fertilización asistida, translated from Spanish)

• All this means that Christian humanism maintains, at the same time, that human life is a biological process in permanent development: from conception to biological death, and that said process constitutes a personal identity, a human being. Therefore, “from the first moment of his existence, the human being must see his personal rights recognized, among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.” (From the Instrucción Donum Vitae 1,1 en el Catecismo de la Iglesia Católica 2270, translated from Spanish)

• For Catholic moral theology, the "direct and voluntary" elimination of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral. “Direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being” (John Paul II - Encyclical Evangelium Vitae of March 25, 1995 - N. 62). If the embryo is a person – who, like all human beings, is constantly developing from conception until death – then abortion is, bluntly, murder and the worst of crimes if we consider that parents and relatives (beings called to protect the life of the murdered innocent) lend themselves to take the life of an innocent and defenseless human being.

• Abortion is a crime. However, it is not only the woman who is involved in abortion. The woman who undergoes an abortion is the product of a social structure (family and legal) that influences and conditions her. Along with her, others are equally or more guilty (the father, the family, society...). The degree of culpability (whether the woman who should have been a mother acts with more or less malice) will depend on her degree of awareness, knowledge, etc. But, at the same time, nothing justifies the death of a human being, much less an innocent and defenseless one in the womb.

• Medical science serves life and never death. This is its first vocation, its reason for being.

• Naturally, the vast majority of human beings are born in a situation that – medically – can be considered “normal.”

• Any form of life is preferable – however precarious it may seem – to any form of death, however sophisticated it may be.

• The experience of parents and entire families who have accepted the existence of a child born sick affirms – also – the child’s value within the family and society and, furthermore, the moral value that accepting evil, suffering, and pain says about human existence. All this sounds contrary to a hedonistic and postmodern society in which pain and suffering are avoided in the unbridled pursuit of solely pleasure, regardless of the means to achieve it.

• If medicine fulfills its vocation and mission—that of promoting life and improving the quality of life of human beings—no one can decide to eliminate the life of a human being who—in the future—could experience an improved quality of life due to advances in medicine.

• The application of a greater evil (that of killing the child) does not solve the traumas and consequences left behind by a moral and physical evil such as rape. On the contrary, common sense allows us to understand that abortion adds greater evils and traumas to the woman who was raped and her life. 

• The same society that encourages abortion also abandons the woman undergoing an abortion to her own fate. Also, this same society, instead of punishing the rapist, punishes the woman who was raped and doubles her experience of evil by converting her, through abortion, into the murderer of an unborn child and adding "the physical and psychological complications that abortion already has in itself." (Cf. Dr. Cameron, Paul in Aciprensa).

• When we discuss abortion, we speak, first of all, of innocent people whose life is taken from them in the womb. But, we are also talking about the entire social, academic, scientific, medical, cultural, religious, political, legal, cultural, and family structure that directly affects the occurrence of all abortions.

• The woman’s body is the “lodging” that—during pregnancy— houses the body and the personal and distinct identity of the child: another being who is morally, psychologically, and legally independent, unique, and different than the mother. That the mother grants herself or is given the right to attack the child and kill him because he is lodged in her body is comparable to—for example—a homeowner believing he has the right to kill anyone who lives in his house.

What should be done, given the controversy and the political and public debate in our society about abortion? Let us return to valuing life as the sacred gift on which all other individual, group, and social values are based because political-social peace, social justice, and the progress and development in justice and the freedom of peoples are not built on death and cemeteries. Let’s work comprehensively, through all our actions, words, and attitudes, toward a “culture of life” and against a “culture of death.” Let’s not use legal devices to calm the twists of our consciences.

The clandestine practice or the decriminalization-legalization of abortion is hardly coherent in societies incapable of social justice, freedom, respect for human rights, equity, solidarity, and peace; that is, in societies where the “culture of death” is fostered. It is hypocritical to throw up our hands in horror at the murder of the innocent unborn, if, at the same time, we are not moved by the hunger and by the so many forms of injustice, violence, and death that surround us and also threaten the gift of life, and whose victims are the so many millions of our brothers here and beyond our borders. 

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THE WORD OF GOD and our words

The magisterium of the Catholic Church is vast on the value of the Word of God contained in Sacred Scripture and Christian life. Specifically, the magisterium is very rich and extensive in the - nearly - nine years of the pontificate of Pope Francis that he has given to the current life of the Church and world on this same subject, from which I will highlight the following three documents:

• The Apostolic Letter “Misericordia et misera,” at the conclusion of the extraordinary jubilee of mercy on November 20, 2016, in which the Pope expressed the wish that “every Christian community, on one Sunday of the liturgical year, could renew its efforts to make the Sacred Scriptures better known and more widely diffused. It would be a Sunday given over entirely to the word of God, so as to appreciate the inexhaustible riches contained in that constant dialogue between the Lord and his people.” (7)

• The Apostolic Letter, “Aperuit Illis” issued Motu Proprio on September 30, 2019, in Liturgical Memory of Saint Jerome at the beginning of the 1600th anniversary of his death, with which Pope Francis institutes that longing for the: SUNDAY OF THE WORD OF GOD: “I hereby declare that the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time - which this year is celebrated on January 23, 2022 - is to be devoted to the celebration, study and dissemination of the word of God. This Sunday of the Word of God will thus be a fitting part of that time of the year when we are encouraged to strengthen our bonds with the Jewish people and to pray for Christian unity. This is more than a temporal coincidence: the celebration of the Sunday of the Word of God has ecumenical value, since the Scriptures point out, for those who listen, the path to authentic and firm unity.” (3) 

• The Apostolic Letter “Scripturae sacrae affectus,” on the sixteenth centennial of the death of Saint Jerome, on September 30, 2020, with which he invited us all to “love what Jerome loved”: the Word of God. It is a letter with which – as I wrote at the time – “in addition to paying tribute to the life and work of this great human and Christian being, the Pope reaffirms the doctrine of the Catholic Church on Sacred Scripture, the primary source for faith and religion of all believers in Christ, of Catholics and, furthermore, for the experience and human activity of every man and woman of good will.” Because in all his teachings and, especially, with the SUNDAY OF THE WORD OF GOD, "Pope Francis - in tune with the great reforms made, in the Church and for its mission in the World, by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, invites us – once again – to return to the source, to drink and feed our faith from the primordial source of God's Revelation that is Jesus himself - Word of the Father - and his gospels and to place the Holy Scriptures in the centrality of our personal Christian experience and in the life of the whole Church, of its existence and acts.”

In a world where we increasingly pursue connection, and where we, paradoxically, communicate less, perhaps, with tons of words, through the messages that technological advances allow today, it is possible that the word is being devalued, that it is losing its human and original value and power, which could explain, for example, the phenomenon of so many men and women who – amid so much telecommunication – experience, at the same time, so much loneliness and so much suffering due to isolation. Because the word has the power to communicate, to bring us closer, to make us known. Through the word we create, build, form lives, make knowledge, instruct, illuminate and transform our lives and the lives of others. But misused, mishandled, manipulated, and abused, the word also has the power to destroy lives, to harm, to kill.

The Christian, the man and woman who follow Christ, must know and recognize the immense value of the Word that creates and builds as in the biblical account of creation, when – through the Word – God creates. “And God said, “let there be...” (Cf. Gen 1:1ss; Jn 1:1ss) and of the Word that reveals, that makes known: what we confess about Jesus of Nazareth, as the Son of God and the Word of the Father, because, with all his actions and words, he shows the compassionate and merciful face of God the Father: “Whoever has seen Him has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9).

May this SUNDAY OF THE WORD OF GOD be a space and time for us to reflect on the value and role of the word in our lives and our daily interpersonal relationships. May we ask ourselves if our words build or destroy. May we ask ourselves – in short – if, in our daily lives, we are aware of the power and value of the word. 

But as Christians, especially, we have to ask ourselves what word or words we follow and if we follow THE WORD OF GOD that is CHRIST himself: the Word that feeds and sustains us, the Word that strengthens us and illuminates our lives with his life. 

May we ask ourselves if – as disciples of Christ, through our deeds and words, we make known the love of the Father, if we manifest with our lives the goodness of God, if each one of us is a revelation of God, in the image and likeness of the Son. In conclusion, on this SUNDAY OF THE WORD OF GOD and always, as believers, we must ask ourselves about the position and value that we give to the WORD OF GOD in the life and works of the Church.