Word: jesus
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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When her womb was touched by eternity 2,000 years ago, the Virgin Mary of Nazareth uttered a prediction: "All generations will call me blessed." Among all the women who have ever lived, the mother of Jesus Christ is the most celebrated, the most venerated, the most portrayed, the most honored in the naming of girl babies and churches. Even the Koran praises her chastity and faith. Among Roman Catholics, the Madonna is recognized not only as the Mother of God but also, according to modern Popes, as the Queen of the Universe, Queen of Heaven, Seat of Wisdom...
Mary may also be history's most controversial woman. For centuries Protestants have vehemently opposed her exaltation; papal pronouncements concerning her status have driven a wedge between the Vatican and the Eastern / Orthodox Church. Conflict surrounds the notions that she remained ever a virgin, that she as well as Jesus was born without sin and that her sufferings at the Crucifixion were so great that she participated with her son in the redemption of humanity...
...very next year Mikhail Gorbachev's rise to power inaugurated the Soviet collapse. Says Father Robert Fox of the Fatima Family Shrine in Alexandria, S. Dak.: "The world will recognize in due time that the defeat of communism came at the intercession of the mother of Jesus...
Virginal Conception. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke state that Mary was a virgin and that Jesus was conceived miraculously without a human father. This belief is also included in the ancient creeds, and traditional Christians insist upon it. Some liberal Catholic scholars, however, increasingly follow liberal Protestant thinkers and doubt that this was literally true. Father Raymond Brown, the leading U.S. Catholic authority on the Bible, has declared the issue "unresolved." Jane Schaberg, who chairs the religion department at the University of Detroit, goes further. She contends, to traditionalist scorn, that the unwed Mary was impregnated...
Perpetual Virginity. A Catholic and Orthodox tradition 15 centuries old holds that Mary was ever virgin, meaning that she and Joseph never had sex and that the "brothers" of Jesus mentioned in the Bible were cousins. This idea consolidated the tradition of celibacy for priests and nuns. Protestants reject the belief as antisexual and lacking in biblical support. Liberal Catholic theologian Uta Ranke-Heinemann of Germany contends that the notion of a celibate clergy demeaned women by robbing Mary of sexuality and normal motherhood. This is, Ranke-Heinemann declares, "a monstrous product of neurotic sexual fantasy." Responds a Vatican official...