The CatholiCity Message
Volume XII, Number 8 – August 28, 2008
Dear CatholiCity Citizen,
Let's get right to it.
1. ALASKAN TIGRESS
We are certain you know by now that Senator McCain has chosen Sarah Palin, a mother of five, as his running mate. Governor Palin's fifth child has Down's Syndrome, a condition of which she was well aware before her child was born in April. Regardless of your political affiliation, Catholics everywhere should take heart that this truly pro-life mom will play such a prominent role in the presidential race. Hundreds of millions of people around the world will learn about her fifth child.
Is it a coincidence that her vice-presidential candidacy was announced on August 28, the Feast of Saint Augustine, the man who most famously rejected a deep-seated lifestyle of fornication? St. Augustine (and the Catholic Church) pointedly honored his mother, St. Monica, whose intercession, patience, and holiness fostered his difficult conversion. St. Monica's feast day was yesterday, August 29. We would all do well to ask for her and her son's intercession for God's will to be manifest during the presidential election.
CatholiCity Citizens do not need our advice on how to vote, and we have never endorsed a particular candidate. Our role here is spiritual, and you can rest assured that we will continue with our practice of inviting you to pray with each other for the United States, especially during election time.
2. OLYMPIC HOPES
Like the vast majority of people around the world, we rooted with special fervor for athletes from our home country during the Olympics. For those of us with more than a few decades under our belts, the setting of the games in a Communist dictatorship revived memories and emotions of the 1970s and 1980s and the era when the United States and the Soviet Union vied to win the most medals. Just as Red Sox fans root against the Yankees, many Americans rooted against China this time around. We do not recall feeling animus towards the athletes of the dictatorial regimes, per se, so much as an inchoate disgust toward the tyrannies they labor under.
There was little doubt that China's rulers viewed these games as a political opportunity, and the worldwide press was replete with stories of spectacularly "fake" images and heavy-handed suppression of dissent and reporters, despite promises to the contrary by the Chinese dictators when China was chosen several years ago. You are surely familiar with the human rights abuses and staggeringly pro-death abortion policies of the People's Republic of China. Unlike the Red Sox/Yankee rivalry, we all sense that something much more important is at stake during the Olympics.
For our purposes, it is important to recall that we may have somewhere between one hundred to two hundred million baptized Christian brothers and sisters in China, a sizable portion of whom are Catholics.
Experts confidently predict that China, like the Soviet Union during its heyday, will pass the United States in total medals at the 2012 Olympics in London. Out of curiosity, we looked up the all-time medal count, and discovered that China has won 419 medals all-time in modern Summer and Winter Olympic competition. Out of a possible 16,602 medals awarded since the modern games began in the late 1800s, the United States has won more than twice as many medals as any other country, 2514. The Soviet Union is second with 1204 all-time medals.
Why bring this up at all?
Because the atheistic, communist dictatorship known as the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore.
The International Olympic Committee no longer credits any medals to the defunct regime that by credible accounts murdered or imprisoned over 100,000,000 of its own citizens in less than a century. Did you know that the Soviet Union was the first country to legalize abortion, and did so in 1919? Nowadays, Olympic medals are credited to Russia. By the way, Russia and its numerous former satellite nations (such as Ukraine) combined would have easily outstripped the United States or China in total medals in the 2008 games.
But the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore. Perhaps someday, in no small part due to our prayers and the prayers of its longsuffering Christian people, Communist China will no longer be credited with Olympic medals, either.
3. QUOTATIONS
"What tigress is there that does not purr over her young ones, and fawn upon them in tenderness."
Saint Augustine
"There is no leisure about politicians, for they are ever seeking an end outside political science, for instance power and fame. Political life neither provides our final end nor contains the happiness we seek for ourselves or others."
Saint Thomas Aquinas
"No man should govern but he who would willingly live in subjection."
Thomas a Kempis
"Christianity introduced no new forms of government, but a new spirit, which totally transformed the old ones."
Lord Acton
"The citizens of America are its monarch. No country deserves so well of its people as America, and none is so dependent upon them."
Archbishop Ireland
"True democracy cannot exist and thrive except in an atmosphere of respect for God and observance of His commandments, as well as for the Christian solidarity of brotherhood."
4. LET'S PRAY TOGETHER
There are tens of thousands of us, CatholiCity Citizens all, reading this. Let us pray together, comforted in our belief that God is author of nations, and that He loves every single soul on earth infinitely more than the most loving mother loves her own children. Here is our favorite prayer for praying for nations:
"Saint Michael, the Archangel, defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host,
by the power of God
cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits
who prowl throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen."
Until next time, we remain...
Yours in Christ,
Your Friends at CatholiCity
