Fatima and the Government's Contraception Mandate

Today, the Church celebrates the feast day of the humble shepherd children of Fatima, Blessed Francisco and Blessed Jacinta. Given the various many attacks on the Church and the Catholic Faith by government, most recently the assault on religious liberty and conscience by the Obama Administration, we need to remember what Our Lady told us at Fatima -- although the faithful will suffer, and the Church will be persecuted, her Immaculate Heart will triumph.

The Mission of Fatima Continues

On October 13, 1917, a reported 70,000 people were present for the "Miracle of the Sun" outside the small town of Fatima, Portugal, where a radiant Lady in white had appeared to three humble shepherd children. The Lady had spoken of the war then raging in Europe (World War I) and had warned of an even greater war to follow (World War II), and she asked that people pray for the conversion of Russia to prevent its errors (e.g. Communism) from being spread throughout the world. A third "secret" involved the suffering and shooting of a "bishop in white," who has since been interpreted as being the pope.

The world wars are over, the Soviet Union is no more, and Eastern Europe is free. Pope John Paul II was in fact shot on May 13, 1981, the anniversary of the first apparition, and he suffered greatly before his death. Now that so much of the prophetic message of Our Lady has come to fruition, does that mean that Fatima is now relegated to the past? Are those events and the message of Our Lady of Fatima now merely a historical curiosity? Or perhaps we ought to ask: What really is The Message of Fatima?

We would be mistaken to think that Fatima’s prophetic mission is complete. Here there takes on new life the plan of God which asks humanity from the beginning: "Where is your brother Abel . . . Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground!" (Gen 4:9). Mankind has succeeded in unleashing a cycle of death and terror, but failed in bringing it to an end... In sacred Scripture we often find that God seeks righteous men and women in order to save the city of man and he does the same here, in Fatima, when Our Lady asks: "Do you want to offer yourselves to God, to endure all the sufferings which he will send you, in an act of reparation for the sins by which he is offended and of supplication for the conversion of sinners?" (Memoirs of Sister Lúcia, I, 162).

At a time when the human family was ready to sacrifice all that was most sacred on the altar of the petty and selfish interests of nations, races, ideologies, groups and individuals, our Blessed Mother came from heaven, offering to implant in the hearts of all those who trust in her the Love of God burning in her own heart. At that time it was only to three children, yet the example of their lives spread and multiplied, especially as a result of the travels of the Pilgrim Virgin, in countless groups throughout the world dedicated to the cause of fraternal solidarity. May the seven years which separate us from the centenary of the apparitions hasten the fulfilment of the prophecy of the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to the glory of the Most Holy Trinity.

--Pope Benedict XVI, Fatima, May 13, 2010

What is The Message of Fatima? What is the ultimate message given to us, the ultimate meaning?

There is great hardship and suffering in the world. Yet, we do not despair because Jesus came to save us from death and destruction. We have hope. Not the "hope" of wishes and grasping at straws, but of trustworthy confidence and assured expectation of salvation. (Spe Salvi) But Jesus asks for our help in the work of salvation, which comes through the Cross. We are called to, among other things, pray for others, make a gift of self in love to others, and to help Him carry the Cross, taking upon ourselves what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ and suffering with Him. (Col 1:24).

The ultimate message of Fatima is this: Humanity will necessarily suffer great hardship in this world, but God has not abandoned us. The Lady in white, clothed as with the sun, asks us to help her Son in the work of salvation, including prayer, penance, and redemptive suffering, not merely for ourselves, but for the salvation of others, for their conversion away from sin to embracing holiness. The faithful will suffer and even be hated and persecuted, but all this is beatitude (Mt. 5:3-10). In the end, notwithstanding all of the great evils that are thrust upon us, her Immaculate Heart will triumph.

The Heart open to God, purified by contemplation of God, is stronger than guns and weapons of every kind. The fiat of Mary, the word of her heart, has changed the history of the world, because it brought the Saviour into the world — because, thanks to her Yes, God could become man in our world and remains so for all time.

The Evil One has power in this world, as we see and experience continually; he has power because our freedom continually lets itself be led away from God. But since God himself took a human heart and has thus steered human freedom towards what is good, the freedom to choose evil no longer has the last word. From that time forth, the word that prevails is this: “In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart; I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33). The message of Fatima invites us to trust in this promise. (Theological Commentary on Fatima, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith)

Evil will not have the last say, the good will prevail. "He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain." (Rev. 21:1-8)

Ultimately, The Message of Fatima is hope.

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Here is a really interesting documentary from Italy on Fatima --

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See also -
--Timeline of the Events of Fatima
--Theological Commentary on Fatima by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
--Church Teaching on Marian Apparitions and Other Private Revelations
--Beatification of Francisco and Jacinta and the Message of Fatima
--The Truth of Sin and Suffering, and Our Helping Jesus in the Work of Salvation
--Other Source Material on Fatima

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Faith, Hope, and Love, and the Conscience of Sophie Scholl

If we have a love of truth, rather than a self-centered will, then we open ourselves to the transcendent, we open ourselves to God. And if we place our faith in God, rather than placing our faith in un-Godly men and things, then we will have hope, a trustworthy expectation that harm will not prevail over us, rather than despairing that all is lost.

The hunger for truth in love is something present within all of us because it is imprinted upon our very nature, by God, to love and be loved in truth, to do what is right and good and avoid evil, even if some people act to the contrary. These theological virtues of faith, hope, and love also open us up to grace, the power of God Himself. Grace-infused faith, hope, and love provide the fortitude to listen to that voice of conscience within us and to actually do the right thing.

Conscience is not the same as one’s opinions or feelings, rather, it is a judgment of reason in the application of objective moral truth to a particular case. The word "conscience" comes from the Latin "con-scientia," meaning "with knowledge." Knowledge of what? Knowledge of something other than ourselves, something that is beyond the self -- knowledge of truth, knowledge of the voice of He who is Truth itself, the God who exhorts us to love in truth.

One cannot justify his conduct merely by saying that, because he does not feel bad or think it wrong, such conduct does not violate his “conscience,” as if he could choose or create his own conscience. That is not the conscience, that is the will.

The Nazi leader Hermann Goring proclaimed, "my conscience is Adolf Hitler." Others proclaim, "my conscience is myself." But the foundation of conscience is not man, but God.

Rightly understood, conscience is not the voice of self, but the voice of God within our hearts, our very souls, it is the light which is given us so that we might make our way in the dark. In this, God speaks even to the hearts of atheists and, if they are otherwise of good faith, they can hear Him even if they do not realize that it is His voice speaking to them.

We ourselves are not the light, God is the Light. The task of conscience is not to create moral truth, but to perceive it. The judgment of conscience does not establish the law or decide for itself what is right or wrong; rather it bears witness to the authority of the natural law, it is the voice of Truth within the person calling him to act in conformance with truth, to do good and avoid evil.

A good conscience does not restrict human freedom, but instead calls a person to genuine freedom in truth, for only in truth will one be set free. A poorly formed "conscience" is not one that is "with knowledge," but is instead one that is "with ignorance." So the obligation to follow one’s conscience is an obligation to follow a good conscience, one that is "with knowledge" of transcendent truth, and not a bad or erroneous or malformed counterfeit "conscience."

In journeying through life, now and then we come to a crossroads and must choose between the good or the evil. When confronted with evil, we have an obligation in conscience, written as law upon our hearts, to do the good and resist and fight the evil. One cannot stand idly by in the face of evil. To simply go along and avoid having to confront evil can quickly become cooperation with evil, especially since evil often will not leave you alone, but will demand your involvement and approval. Many otherwise "good" Germans merely went along with the Nazis, afraid of the consequences if they were to resist that evil, but not Sophie Scholl.

Her love of what is right and good and just, building on rock by placing her faith in God, rather than in a twisted anti-God despot whose hatred for the inherent dignity of man offered only the hopelessness of Hell to the people of the world, gave Sophie the grace and fortitude to defiantly shine the light of truth on the evils of the Nazi regime. Inspired by the words of Blessed John Henry Newman, Blessed Clemens August von Galen, Catholic Bishop of Münster, and other Catholic scholars and thinkers, Sophie sought to awaken the conscience of the German people so that they might liberate themselves from the great evil of Adolf Hitler and National Socialism.

In her activity with the White Rose, and at her interrogation and trial, from her faith, hope, and love, we see in Sophie Scholl a whole panoply of virtue and grace and beatitude at play, from justice, fortitude, prudence, and temperance, to wisdom, counsel, knowledge, understanding, piety, and fear of the Lord, to goodness, kindness, faithfulness, joy, and peace, to being poor in spirit and mournful, hungry and thirsty for righteousness, and persecuted for that righteousness’ sake.

This is a good lesson to learn. Although we might not live in a totalitarian regime such as Nazi Germany, there are other evils in the world, other attacks on the inherent dignity of the human person.

Can we, in all good conscience, do nothing or merely go along? Or should we, like Sophie, be a light to a dark world?
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Suffering and Faith, Hope, and Love

What should our response be to the unfortunate, those enduring some hardship or suffering?

We could ignore them, pretend that they do not exist. And that is a popular way to deal with such problems. To simply be blind to them. Or, we could take notice of them, but only for a moment, only long enough to banish the person who suffers, as happened to the "lepers" who were sent to the settlement at Kalaupapa on Molokai, only to be forgotten or thought of as already dead.

Another response is, instead of thinking of them as dead, to make them really dead. To eliminate the problem by eliminating the one who is causing us the discomfort of having to consider how to deal with them. That is, we could simply abort the problem away. Or euthanize the problem. Eliminate suffering by eliminating the one who suffers. An overdose of morphine, forced starvation and dehydration, a brick upside the head, the use of Zyklon-B -- problem solved.

If we recognize that the unfortunate sufferer needs assistance, here too, there are different alternatives.

We can simply say, "let someone else do it." That too is a popular response. "Let the government deal with them; after all, it's the government's job. Besides, government has 'experts.' And we'll simply take someone else's money -- the rich -- to pay for it." Or, a similar sentiment is to let some private charitable institution do it.

But are these really the only answers? Are these the best answers? No. They are not. Rather, the Church offers another answer to the question of how to respond to the unfortunate, the one who suffers, and the unwanted -- the "lepers" of our time. And that answer is the individual gift of self in faith, hope, and love. This is the answer that Father Damien, the leper priest, gave to the people of Molokai.

Faith in Government Programs and Institutions is Not Sufficient
Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate

11. In the course of history, it was often maintained that the creation of institutions was sufficient to guarantee the fulfillment of humanity's right to development. Unfortunately, too much confidence was placed in those institutions, as if they were able to deliver the desired objective automatically. In reality, institutions by themselves are not enough, because integral human development is primarily a vocation. . . .

34. Charity in truth places man before the astonishing experience of gift. . . . The human being is made for gift, which expresses and makes present his transcendent dimension. . . .

53. One of the deepest forms of poverty a person can experience is isolation. If we look closely at other kinds of poverty, including material forms, we see that they are born from isolation, from not being loved or from difficulties in being able to love. . . . All of humanity is alienated when too much trust is placed in merely human projects, ideologies and false utopias. Today humanity appears much more interactive than in the past: this shared sense of being close to one another must be transformed into true communion. The development of peoples depends, above all, on a recognition that the human race is a single family working together in true communion, not simply a group of subjects who happen to live side by side. . . .

Personal Service with Love is Necessary
Pope Benedict, Deus Caritas Est

28. Love — caritas — will always prove necessary, even in the most just society. There is no ordering of the State so just that it can eliminate the need for a service of love. Whoever wants to eliminate love is preparing to eliminate man as such. There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and help. There will always be loneliness. There will always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love of neighbor is indispensable. The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person—every person—needs: namely, loving personal concern. . . . The Church is one of those living forces: she is alive with the love enkindled by the Spirit of Christ. This love does not simply offer people material help, but refreshment and care for their souls, something which often is even more necessary than material support. . . .

34. Practical [charitable] activity will always be insufficient, unless it visibly expresses a love for man, a love nourished by an encounter with Christ. My deep personal sharing in the needs and sufferings of others becomes a sharing of my very self with them: if my gift is not to prove a source of humiliation, I must give to others not only something that is my own, but my very self; I must be personally present in my gift.

35. This proper way of serving others also leads to humility. The one who serves does not consider himself superior to the one served, however miserable his situation at the moment may be. Christ took the lowest place in the world—the Cross—and by this radical humility he redeemed us and constantly comes to our aid. Those who are in a position to help others will realize that in doing so they themselves receive help; being able to help others is no merit or achievement of their own. This duty is a grace. The more we do for others, the more we understand and can appropriate the words of Christ: “We are useless servants” (Lk 17:10). We recognize that we are not acting on the basis of any superiority or greater personal efficiency, but because the Lord has graciously enabled us to do so. There are times when the burden of need and our own limitations might tempt us to become discouraged. But precisely then we are helped by the knowledge that, in the end, we are only instruments in the Lord's hands; and this knowledge frees us from the presumption of thinking that we alone are personally responsible for building a better world. In all humility we will do what we can, and in all humility we will entrust the rest to the Lord. It is God who governs the world, not we. We offer him our service only to the extent that we can, and for as long as he grants us the strength. To do all we can with what strength we have, however, is the task which keeps the good servant of Jesus Christ always at work: “The love of Christ urges us on” (2 Cor 5:14). . . .

39. Faith, hope and charity go together. . . . Faith tells us that God has given his Son for our sakes and gives us the victorious certainty that it is really true: God is love! It thus transforms our impatience and our doubts into the sure hope that God holds the world in his hands and that, as the dramatic imagery of the end of the Book of Revelation points out, in spite of all darkness he ultimately triumphs in glory. Faith, which sees the love of God revealed in the pierced heart of Jesus on the Cross, gives rise to love. Love is the light—and in the end, the only light—that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working. Love is possible, and we are able to practice it because we are created in the image of God.

Providing Hope in Suffering
Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi

26. It is not science that redeems man: man is redeemed by love. This applies even in terms of this present world. When someone has the experience of a great love in his life, this is a moment of “redemption” which gives a new meaning to his life. . . .

27. Whoever is moved by love begins to perceive what “life” really is. . . . Life in its true sense is not something we have exclusively in or from ourselves: it is a relationship. And life in its totality is a relationship with him who is the source of life. If we are in relation with him who does not die, who is Life itself and Love itself, then we are in life. Then we “live.”

38. The true measure of humanity is essentially determined in relationship to suffering and to the sufferer. This holds true both for the individual and for society. A society unable to accept its suffering members and incapable of helping to share their suffering and to bear it inwardly through “com-passion” is a cruel and inhuman society. Yet society cannot accept its suffering members and support them in their trials unless individuals are capable of doing so themselves; moreover, the individual cannot accept another's suffering unless he personally is able to find meaning in suffering, a path of purification and growth in maturity, a journey of hope. Indeed, to accept the “other” who suffers, means that I take up his suffering in such a way that it becomes mine also. Because it has now become a shared suffering, though, in which another person is present, this suffering is penetrated by the light of love. The Latin word con-solatio, “consolation”, expresses this beautifully. It suggests being with the other in his solitude, so that it ceases to be solitude. Furthermore, the capacity to accept suffering for the sake of goodness, truth and justice is an essential criterion of humanity, because if my own well-being and safety are ultimately more important than truth and justice, then the power of the stronger prevails, then violence and untruth reign supreme. Truth and justice must stand above my comfort and physical well-being, or else my life itself becomes a lie. In the end, even the “yes” to love is a source of suffering, because love always requires expropriations of my “I”, in which I allow myself to be pruned and wounded. Love simply cannot exist without this painful renunciation of myself, for otherwise it becomes pure selfishness and thereby ceases to be love.

39. To suffer with the other and for others; to suffer for the sake of truth and justice; to suffer out of love and in order to become a person who truly loves—these are fundamental elements of humanity, and to abandon them would destroy man himself. Yet once again the question arises: are we capable of this? Is the other important enough to warrant my becoming, on his account, a person who suffers? Does truth matter to me enough to make suffering worthwhile? Is the promise of love so great that it justifies the gift of myself? In the history of humanity, it was the Christian faith that had the particular merit of bringing forth within man a new and deeper capacity for these kinds of suffering that are decisive for his humanity. The Christian faith has shown us that truth, justice and love are not simply ideals, but enormously weighty realities. It has shown us that God —Truth and Love in person—desired to suffer for us and with us. Bernard of Clairvaux coined the marvelous expression: Impassibilis est Deus, sed non incompassibilis —God cannot suffer, but he can suffer with. Man is worth so much to God that he himself became man in order to suffer with man in an utterly real way — in flesh and blood — as is revealed to us in the account of Jesus's Passion. Hence in all human suffering we are joined by one who experiences and carries that suffering with us; hence con-solatio is present in all suffering, the consolation of God's compassionate love — and so the star of hope rises. Certainly, in our many different sufferings and trials we always need the lesser and greater hopes too—a kind visit, the healing of internal and external wounds, a favorable resolution of a crisis, and so on. In our lesser trials these kinds of hope may even be sufficient. But in truly great trials, where I must make a definitive decision to place the truth before my own welfare, career and possessions, I need the certitude of that true, great hope of which we have spoken here. For this too we need witnesses—martyrs—who have given themselves totally, so as to show us the way—day after day. We need them if we are to prefer goodness to comfort, even in the little choices we face each day—knowing that this is how we live life to the full. Let us say it once again: the capacity to suffer for the sake of the truth is the measure of humanity. Yet this capacity to suffer depends on the type and extent of the hope that we bear within us and build upon. The saints were able to make the great journey of human existence in the way that Christ had done before them, because they were brimming with great hope.

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Damien Today: A Saint for Our Times

Today, May 10, is the feast day of St. Damien. As stated in a letter from the General Superiors to the Brothers and Sisters of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary on the occasion of the canonization of Father Damien,

Damien is a universal brother, a model of humanity, apostle of those with leprosy, a hero of charity, an inspiration for anyone wanting to serve the excluded and forgotten, a source of pride for Belgians and Hawaiians, a glory for the whole Church. The power of Damien and his influence in peoples’ lives extend far beyond the limits of our Congregation. . . .

As in the Suffering Servant of Isaiah, in Damien we discover the face of God where people seem to have lost even a human face. The dedication of Damien to those with leprosy and his becoming a leper himself proclaim loudly the infinite dignity of each person and the love of God for his children. For that reason we praise God in his saints, who are reflections of his glory. We praise God in Saint Damien who is his son, the work of his hands, his gift to the Church and the world. . . .

Damien is not “ours”. He belongs to God. He can only really be understood as belonging to the Lord of life who shaped him and made him his own. Holiness is the work of the Lord. His love is what justifies us. From this perspective, the canonization becomes a confession of hope-filled faith. The love of God is at work among us, as it was active in the life of Damien. The love of God can continue to transform us in spite of our weakness and our shadow side. . . .

"The trouble with many saints is that their lives are presented as so holy, so astonishing, so out of the reach of ordinary mortals that our only response is to venerate them and to ask for their intercession. Similarly, the recounting and embellishment of so many miracle stories associated with their lives on earth, adds further distance between them and us. This cannot be said of Damien, whose only miracle on Molokai was the miracle of Gospel love. Someone once said that to save another person, you first have to love them. From an initial natural revulsion to diseased flesh, Damien grew to love his beloved lepers to an extraordinary degree, identifying so much with them that he became one of them. How could he have lived such heroic love for all those years? The answer lies in ways that are all available to us: prayer, scripture, Eucharist, sacraments, adoration and the awareness that what Damien did for his sisters and brothers he did for Christ. He once wrote that it was at the foot of the altar he received the strength to love those he ministered to. The First Letter of John asks us how can we love God who we cannot see and not love our sisters and brothers who we can see. Damien’s life and example proves that such love is possible, and reminds us of how to live such love."

--Narration in the film

For more information, go to this website of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary Ireland and England.
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A Prayer

St. Joseph, pray for those who walk in the valley of death.
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A World Without Babies . . .

. . . is a world without hope.

What would it be like if there were no more babies? What if every woman in the world were infertile and could no longer get pregnant? What if it had been over 18 years since the last baby was born?

That is not too fantastic or preposterous a question to ask in this post-Roe, anti-child age of abortion, which has claimed the lives of 50 million innocents in the last 38 years in the United States alone. What if the abortion mentality and contraceptive mentality were realized to the fullest degree? What if there were no more babies?

(spoiler warning)


Theo (played by Clive Owen): I can't really remember when I last had any hope, and I certainly can't remember when anyone else did either. Because really, since women stopped being able to have babies, what's left to hope for?

Miriam (Pam Ferris*): As the sound of the playgrounds faded, the despair set in. Very odd, what happens in a world without children's voices.

The truth is -- it is a baby who is the savior of the world.

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* I saw Children of Men a few years ago and never realized that this is the same woman who played the ghastly Miss Trunchbull in Matilda. I recognized Clare-Hope Ashitey immediately though when she was in Beyond the Gates.
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The Power to do the Impossible

The film Beyond the Gates is about one of the great atrocities and horrors of the 20th century, the Rwandan genocide of 1994, during which an estimated 800,000 people were butchered to death (see further descriptions in the movie reviews posted below). The film is very disturbing, with its graphic depictions of violence, but in the end, it is just a film, and it pales in comparison to the evil of the real thing. If it is difficult for the viewer of the movie to watch it, how much worse was it to live through it -- or die in it.

Some hardships are simply so great, some calamities and evils cause so much suffering and anguish, that it is impossible for us to carry on, it is impossible for us to persevere through them. And some crimes are simply too awful, some hurts are simply too large, some injuries are just too great (or sometimes we allow ourselves to get so self-centered that even little injuries seem great) that it is impossible for us to move beyond it once it is over, it is impossible for us to do that which Jesus asks of us, to forgive the wrong-doers. How could one forgive such evil?

Or, perhaps, what we should say is that is it impossible for us to endure on our own, it is impossible for us to forgive by ourselves. But with God, all things are possible, and by His grace, we can do that which is “impossible” too.

The theme of Cinema Catechism for Winter/Spring 2011 is the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love (charity). The Greek word “Theo” means “God,” so these virtues relate directly to God. (CCC 1812-1829, 2087-94) They are intended to lead us to Him, and we should always strive to live these virtues.

But in leading a virtuous life, God does not leave us to struggle to do this on our own; being related to God, the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love open us up to grace. At the same time, in conferring such grace, God does not simply wipe out our humanity; He does not treat us as puppets or impose Himself upon us against our will. Rather, grace builds on our nature and works within it to heal, perfect, elevate, and transform that nature. Thus, it is necessary that we do what we can, as much as we can, ourselves, but then we must ask God for help to do the rest.

The theological virtues involve especially sanctifying grace, which adapts our faculties for participation in the divine nature, that is, it helps us to be more like Christ. They are the foundation and energizing force of the Christian’s moral activity, and they give life to the human virtues, including prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. They are the pledge of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in the faculties of the human being.

Fortified by grace, the power of God Himself, the virtues of faith, hope, and love provide the disposition to not only do that which is good and avoid evil, but they allow us to do things that otherwise would be unthinkable. With grace-infused faith, hope, and love, the weak and terrified Apostles, who had gone into hiding after the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus, were empowered to go out and bravely and loudly proclaim the Gospel; the persecuted, such as Saints Lawrence and Polycarp and Perpetua and Felicity and Isaac Jogues, were able to gladly endure the suffering of martyrdom, sometimes in gruesome ways.

The theological virtues, which combine the will and effort of the person with the power of the Holy Spirit, allows us to what we otherwise could not humanly do, including that which is perhaps the most impossible thing to do at times — endure with fortitude in the face of horrific evil, love our enemy, and forgive the unforgiveable, forgive the debt that can never be paid.

An excellent example of this is described in the book Left to Tell, by Immaculée Ilibagiza, who survived the Rwandan genocide while the rest of her family was hacked to death, along with hundreds of thousands of others. Eventually, the man who had led the group that killed members of her family was caught, and the jailer who held him allowed Immaculée to confront him (and take her revenge).

She writes in her book that, as the murderer knelt before her, she

"wept at the sight of his suffering. Felicien had let the devil enter his heart, and the evil had ruined his life like cancer in his soul. He was now the victim of his victims, destined to live in torment and regret. I was overwhelmed with pity for the man."

And when the jailer shouted at the killer and hauled him to his feet, Immaculée touched his hands lightly and quietly said, "I forgive you."

The jailer was stunned and furious. After the killer was dragged out, he said,

"What was that all about, Immaculée? That was the man who murdered your family. I brought him to you to question . . . to spit on if you wanted to. But you forgave him! How could you do that? Why did you forgive him?"

She says that she "answered him with the truth: 'Forgiveness is all I have to offer.'"

But the forgiveness she gave did not come entirely from Immaculée. As she says in the Introduction, her book "is the story of how I discovered God during one of history's bloodiest holocausts." And this discovery, this lesson, forever changed her.

"It is a lesson that, in the midst of mass murder, taught me how to love those who hated and hunted me -- and how to forgive those who slaughtered my family."

Forgiveness is sometimes easy for us, but sometimes it is impossible for us. Some crimes are simply too great. But God gives us the power to do the impossible. With faith, hope, and love, the graces of the Holy Spirit allow us to endure and withstand hardship and carry those crosses which are far too heavy for humans to carry.

These graces allow us to do the impossible of accepting suffering, the power to do the impossible of forgiving the "unforgiveable," of loving our enemy, of reconciling with those who have done great evil to us. In this way, by the transformative power of the Cross, we are redeemed from such pain and suffering and hardship, not merely in some far off life in the next world, but here and now. We are able to move on, we are able to heal. We are saved.

Coming Soon: Beyond the Gates

Beyond the Gates (originally titled Shooting Dogs)
Based on true events and filmed in Rwanda at the Ecole Technique Officielle and other actual locations.


Movie Review
Catholic News Service

"Beyond the Gates" (IFC) towers above most current films, with even the more worthy ones seeming like fluff in comparison. It's a gripping film about one of recent history's most regrettable episodes: the international community's failure to come to the aid of the thousands of men, women and children who lost their lives during the Rwandan genocide.

This dramatization focuses specifically on the 1994 siege of a secondary school there. Father Christopher (John Hurt), a dedicated Catholic priest who runs the Ecole Technique Officielle and Joe Connor (Hugh Dancy), an idealistic young British teacher who hopes to "make a difference" -- both fictional characters -- view with growing alarm the escalating violence just outside their gates by the Hutu majority against their Tutsi brethren whom they regard as mere "cockroaches."

Father Christopher is inspired by an actual Bosnian priest named Father Vjeko Curic who sheltered Tutsis during the genocide.

The school grounds -- guarded by Belgian security forces on the behest of the United Nations (but only to maintain the peace, not enforce it) -- become a sanctuary against the violence just outside its gates. Among the students is a sensitive young Tutsi girl, Marie (Clare-Hope Ashitey), to whom the priest and Joe form a paternal attachment.

When the violence reaches a critical stage, Father Christopher finds hundreds more Tutsis begging for shelter. The U.N. security forces are inclined to refuse entry, but Father Christopher insists they be let in.

Some 2,500 Tutsi citizens ultimately found refuge there, but it would only be temporary.

Even with machete-wielding Hutus hovering with deadly intent, the U.N. -- which refused to label the Rwandan atrocities "genocide" as it would oblige them to intervene (a stance echoed by the United States and the United Kingdom) -- would recall its troops, leading to a hasty evacuation, but shamefully, of only the white people. The decisions made by Father Christopher and young Joe at this point are pivotal to the film's theme of personal choice.

The Catholic element here is strong. Father Christopher believes in saying Mass no matter what the outside danger, and throughout, is shown carefully explaining the significance of Catholic doctrine and rituals. Despite a short-lived despair, stemming from his helplessness at the violence he's powerless to alleviate, his character is one of the most positive cinematic depictions of a priest in recent memory.

Hurt -- in real life, a clergyman's son and monk's brother -- gives a wonderfully committed and believable performance, and Dancy -- currently winning raves on Broadway for his terrific performance in the classic World War I drama "Journey's End" -- convincingly conveys the growing horror and disillusionment of his character.

Director Michael Caton-Jones has shot the film (from a compelling script by David Wolstencroft) at the actual locations of the horrific events with survivors among the cast and crew, some of whom are poignantly showcased in the closing credit sequence.

This important film -- with its cautionary reminder of worldwide indifference that must not be allowed to happen again -- is acceptable for mature teens, despite the primarily adult classification.

The film contains much disturbing if discreetly handled violence, description of atrocities, images of dead and wounded, some rough language and mild profanity uttered under duress, and a childbirth scene. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III -- adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.