Mary Page News

October 5, 2001

Mary Page News items give insight into our interest areas, our outreach, and the myriad ways people honor Our Lady. We welcome your input and your comments.

• The Liturgical Season with Mary
• News from the ML/IMRI
• News from Around the World
• Marian Events
• New Resources
• Documents, Pronouncements (Magisterial, doctrinal)
• Mary in the Secular Press
• Prayer Corner
• Marian Themes in Magisterial Documents
• News Archive

For more information, click into Parents Weekend.

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Schedule of IMRI Courses for the Fall Semester

The International Marian Research Institute will be offering a selection of seminar courses in Theology on the University Dayton campus during the Fall 2001 Semester.  For more details, click into Current Courses.

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Congratulations to the Mary Page!

We just learned that our Mary Page web site was featured in St. Anthony Messenger magazine's "Web Catholic" column, in both the print and the online editions.  St. Anthony Messenger, of course, is the national Catholic family magazine that has been in print since 1893 (340,000 subscribers) and on the Web since 1996.  It's a ministry of the Franciscans. The column is a one-year effort to highlight trends on the Internet for Catholics and to show them exemplary sites.  Mary Page was featured in the May, 2001 edition of the magazine and at the on-line link below:

http://www.americancatholic.org/Messenger/May2001/Web_Catholic.asp

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Personal thoughts and reflections about Mary from our readers 

We've added a section to our Research and Publications section showing selected personal comments from our readers about the Virgin Mary.  Click here to see comments received within the past month.  From this page, feel free to submit your own personal thoughts on Mary.  

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Marian Events

This section lists all of the current Marian Events by geographical position.

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Mary in the Secular Press

The director and editors of Mary Page under the auspices of the International Marian Research Institute do not necessarily endorse or agree with the events and ideas expressed in this feature. Our sole purpose is to report on items about Mary gleaned from a myriad of papers representing the secular press.

Commentary on Mary in various news articles from September 20-30.

• The "anti-Muslim racism" evidenced in the wake of the September 11 attacks prompted William Dalrymple to write about his experience in Seidnaya in The London Independent on September 25. The Greek Orthodox convent in Syria, three hours’ walk from Damascas, was founded, legend says, in the sixth century after the Byzantine Emperor Justinian chased a stag onto the top of the hill during a hunting expedition. Just as Justinian was about the draw his bow, the stag changed into the Virgin Mary, who commanded him to build a convent on the rock. The abbey quickly became a place of pilgrimage and to this day streams of Christian, Muslim and Druze pilgrims trudge their way there. Dalrymple attended an evening service where the congregation in the church consisted not principally of Christians but almost entirely of heavily bearded Muslim men and their shrouded wives. He writes of religious tolerance that existed in the Mughul and Ottoman Empires as late as the 18^th century, the massacre of 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995 by Christians, and says Islam is no more cohesive than Christendom.

• Worshipers at an Ecuadorean church claim their statue of the Virgin Mary has started crying tears of blood and that the wooden statue reportedly started crying days before the US terror attacks, the Nationwide News reported on September 25. Priest Alfredo Viera says the tears show Mary’s distress at mankind’s sinful nature. Scientists suggest the "tears" are a result of a change in temperature, making the wooden statue exude sap, but can’t explain why the tears are red rather than white.

• The bones of St. Therese of Lisieux, whose popularity pales only next to the Virgin Mary, will find only temporary rest in Canada, both the Edmonton Sun and Montreal Gazette said on September 23. The remains of the French Carmelite nun, which have toured 22 countries since 1997, will be in Victoria, Kamloops and Prince George, B.C., Alberta and Toronto until December 14, when they leave for Asia.

• "Our Lady," a digital image of the Virgin Mary with a bare midriff, has survived a public outcry from many Roman Catholics and will remain on display through October 28 at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, the Associated Press said on September 26. The attorney general’s office informed Museum of New Mexico regents that a lawsuit would result if the artwork by Alma Lopez were removed any earlier. The closing date for the show is four months earlier than the original closing date, Museum officials said.

• A Little Rock man has pleaded innocent to a felony charge involving the theft of a sculpture of the Virgin Mary from the grounds of Mount St. Mary Academy, the Arkansas-Democrat-Gazette said on September 23. The 5-foot tall cast aluminum state of Mary, stolen September 14, had been marred by graffiti and its head had been sawed off. A September 19 story reporting the loss said the statue was painted white and modeled on "Our Lady of Lourdes."

• A brief item in News of the World on September 23 says a controversial new statue of the Virgin Mary in Ely Cathedral has failed to grow on visitors. They moan the strawberry blonde Madonna looks just like bra-less TV gardener Charlie Dimmock.

• A County Armagh man stopped for drunk driving told cops he was the "Virgin Mary," The People reported on September 30. Gary Clarke, who gave a false address, was fined pounds 300 and banned from driving for 18 months.

• The Blessed Virgin Mary of Czestochowa Church planned to hold a cabaret on September 30, the Albany NY Times Union said on September 28. The program was to be dedicated to the victims of the terrorist attack and proceeds from a free-will offering would be donated to a national organization providing emergency relief.

• Titles like "Makes Me Wonder (Virgin Mary on a Chain)" and "If I Were a Weapon" by singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega were among those scheduled for release on new CDs, the Albany NY Times Union said on September 20.

• A shrine to the Virgin Mary is among the photos Walker Evans took to illustrate American journalist Carleton Beals’s book, ‘The Crime of Cuba." In his essay on "Walker Evans: Cuba," Andrei Codrescu says that while Beals wrote a fervent expose of American complicity with the practices of the oppressive Machado Regime, Evans captured more of the formal beauty of Havana. "He tried to photograph misery, but shapeliness got in the way." Reported in the New York Times, September 30.

• Classical music listings for September 27, posted by the Time Out Group, included: Music, theatre and film exploring medieval Spain’s obsession, sacred and profane, with the Virgin Mary.

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News from Around the World

Rosary Revival 

“The rosary devotion is definitely on the upswing, says Father Thomas Feeley of the Congregation of the Holy Cross and national director of the Family Rosary, headquartered in Easton, Mass. He notices a hunger in people for a deeper prayer life that’s been answered with the rosary. Recent sales of rosaries have been quadrupled in the United States.”  (NCR, 9,30,2001)

More than 140 countries are expected to participate in World Rosary Day this October 6. For more information go to: http://www.churchforum.org.mx/rosario/eng2001.htm.