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T h e A p o l o g i s t ’ s E y e
Say Three Ave Marias and Call Me in the Morning
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This Rock
Volume 13, Number 2
 February 2002 
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Praying the rosary may be a health practice as well as a religious practice. That’s the conclusion reached by researchers who published their findings in the British Medical Journal’s Christmas 2001 issue.
Luciano Bernardi and his colleagues recorded breathing rates in twenty-three healthy adults during normal talking, during recitation of the Ave Maria and yoga mantras, and during six minutes of controlled breathing.
Normal talking reduced the breathing rates more irregularly. Breathing was much more regular during controlled breathing, the Ave Maria, and the mantra. Both the Ave Maria and the mantra slowed breathing to around six breaths per minute, inducing a favorable effect on the heart’s rhythm.
The benefits of breathing exercises in the practice of yoga have long been reported, and mantras may have evolved as a simple device to slow respiration, improve concentration, and induce calm. Similarly, the rosary may have partly evolved because it synchronized with the body’s natural heart rhythms, thus giving a feeling of well-being and perhaps an increased responsiveness to the religious message, suggest the authors.
E-Catholics
Catholics in the United States are more likely than other Americans to have access to the Internet, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate’s quarterly newsletter, CARA Report. While fifty-six percent of all Americans have Internet access as measured by one recent national study, CARA found that sixty-four percent of Catholics have Internet access. It also found that younger Catholics who go online are more likely than older Catholics to connect to web sites about religion. Traffic to religious sites is especially high among teen-agers, including those who do not attend church often.
CARA is an independent Catholic research agency based at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
Helping Hand, U.N. Style
On January 8, Vatican Radio reported that the U.N. Population Fund had launched a campaign to promote abortion among Afghan refugees. The news was confirmed by the Pakistani agency Online.
In the days preceding the report, abortion kits with instruments and medications were distributed among Afghan refugees who had fled their war-torn country. Vatican Radio’s source reported that the campaign had been carried out in Pakistan, where over three million Afghans live, as well as in Iranian refugee camps, which shelter another two million people.
According to Vatican Radio, a spokesman for the camps in the Peshawar region said that the initiative was a "bad surprise" for refugees. Instead of abortion instruments, the refugees expected "food, water, blankets, and first-aid medications." He added, "Abortion is an offensive act under Islamic law." This is why some refugees confiscated the UNFPA material, which included contraceptives and the morning-after pill, which can cause early abortions.
Sources close to the U.N. agency contended that UNFPA is concerned primarily with "family planning," and that abortions are not "imposed" but "proposed."
It’s not difficult sometimes to see why Muslims view Western culture as corrupt: In many ways, it is.
E.T. Phone Rome
Scientific studies on the possibility of intelligent life on other planets are not against the Christian faith, says the director of the Vatican Astronomic Observatory.
Emphasizing that he was not speaking officially for the Church, Fr. George Coyne told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera January 7, "For the time being, there is no scientific evidence of life. However, we are gathering observations that point to this possibility. The universe is so large that it would be folly to say that we are the exception. The debate is ongoing and complex."
Father Coyne suggested as a hypothesis that we imagine that there is life beyond the earth. "If I were to meet an intelligent being from another world who revealed to me a spiritual life and told me that his people have also been saved by God through sending his only Son, he would ask me how it is possible that his only ‘Son’ was present in different places. Thoughts of this kind are a great challenge," the priest said. "Jesus Christ is true God and true man. Can this true man also appear on another planet? I don’t know. The possibility of extraterrestrial intelligent and spiritual life poses many questions. Anyway, science does not destroy the believer’s faith but stimulates it."
The origins of the Vatican Astronomic Observatory go back to the time of Pope Gregory XII. He created a scientific commission responsible for studying the elements necessary for the reform of the liturgical calendar that took place in 1582. The observatory now has two headquarters. One, in Castel Gandolfo, serves as an archive and library and is located twenty-one miles from Rome. The other, the Vatican Observatory Research Group in Tucson, Arizona, is located in one of the most important astronomic centers of the world.
No Peace Without Forgiveness
Since forgiveness is the subject of our cover story, it seems appropriate to let the Holy Father weigh in on the issue. In his "Message for the World Day of Peace, January 1st 2002," the Pope spoke at length of the need to forgive, addressing primarily the September 11 terrorist attack on the U.S.
"What does forgiveness actually mean?" he asked. "And why should we forgive? A reflection on forgiveness cannot avoid these questions. Returning to what I wrote in my ‘Message for the 1997 World Day of Peace,’ I would reaffirm that forgiveness inhabits people’s hearts before it becomes a social reality. Only to the degree that an ethics and a culture of forgiveness prevail can we hope for a ‘politics’ of forgiveness, expressed in society’s attitudes and laws, so that through them justice takes on a more human character.
"Forgiveness is above all a personal choice, a decision of the heart to go against the natural instinct to pay back evil with evil. The measure of such a decision is the love of God who draws us to himself in spite of our sin. It has its perfect exemplar in the forgiveness of Christ, who on the cross prayed: ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do’ (Luke 23:34). . . .
"Forgiveness therefore, as a fully human act, is above all a personal initiative. But individuals are essentially social beings, situated within a pattern of relationships through which they express themselves in ways both good and bad. Consequently, society too is absolutely in need of forgiveness. Families, groups, societies, states, and the international community itself need forgiveness in order to renew ties that have been sundered, go beyond sterile situations of mutual condemnation, and overcome the temptation to discriminate against others without appeal. The ability to forgive lies at the very basis of the idea of a future society marked by justice and solidarity.
"By contrast, the failure to forgive, especially when it serves to prolong conflict, is extremely costly in terms of human development. Resources are used for weapons rather than for development, peace and justice. What sufferings are inflicted on humanity because of the failure to reconcile! What delays in progress because of the failure to forgive! Peace is essential for development, but true peace is made possible only through forgiveness. . . .
"No peace without justice, no justice without forgiveness: This is what in this message I wish to say to believers and unbelievers alike, to all men and women of good will who are concerned for the good of the human family and for its future.
No peace without justice, no justice without forgiveness: This is what I wish to say to those responsible for the future of the human community, entreating them to be guided in their weighty and difficult decisions by the light of man’s true good, always with a view to the common good.
No peace without justice, no justice without forgiveness: I shall not tire of repeating this warning to those who, for one reason or another, nourish feelings of hatred, a desire for revenge or the will to destroy."
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