Catholic Replies
Q. I noticed that when the priest was celebrating benediction at the end of eucharistic adoration, he wrapped a vestment around his hands before he picked up the monstrance to bless the people. Why did he do this? — T.S., Massachusetts.
A. The vestment is called the humeral veil and the priest covers his hands with it before elevating the monstrance to show that it is Jesus Himself who is blessing the people and not the priest.
Q. In a column some time ago, you said that lay people should not anoint others with blessed oil. But I am sending you a packet of St. Anne’s blessed oil from St. Anne’s Shrine in Cleveland, Ohio. The card accompanying the oil says that “anointing with Saint Anne’s Blessed Oil is called a sacramental. A sacramental is meant to prepare for or prolong the sanctifying effects of the sacraments. It is a blessing or prayer of the Church in which members join….Jesus blessed the sick. He laid hands on them. He healed many sick persons. This sacramental of anointing of the sick is an extension of His blessing and healing. The anointing of the sick with Saint Anne’s Oil can be done by any person and does not replace the Sacrament of the Sick.” Could you please clear this up? — H.N., Texas.
A. All we can do is quote again from the 1997 Vatican document entitled On Certain Questions Regarding the Collaboration of the Non-Ordained Faithful in the Sacred Ministry of Priests. That document said that “in using sacramentals, the non-ordained faithful should ensure that these are in no way regarded as sacraments, whose administration is proper and exclusive to the bishop and to the priest. Since they are not priests, in no instance may the non-ordained perform anointings either with the oil of the sick or any other oil.”
Unless some reader has an official statement of the Church that contradicts this paragraph, we would rely on this document that was issued by eight Vatican offices — the Congregation for the Clergy, the Pontifical Council for the Laity, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the Congregation for Bishops, the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, and the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts.
Q. Could you please say something about “blood moons” and other heavenly signs that some people believe are tied in to key historical events? I don’t believe this stuff, but some people find it pretty convincing. — M.G., Alabama.
A. M.G. enclosed a flier for a book entitled Blood Moons: Decoding the Imminent Heavenly Signs by Mark Blitz. The flier says that “in 2007, Blitz first discovered the correlation between blood moons that fell on feast days and key historical world events. He found the divine link between prophecy, heavenly signs, and historical events, and what has happened when they intersect. Throughout history, God, the Master Timekeeper, has used the heavenly bodies to communicate to us when significant events would happen. If you want to understand the timing of the Lord, you have to understand the seasons of the Lord, the feasts of the Lord, and the calendar of the Lord.”
There are three places in Scripture where the moon is said to turn to blood. In Joel 3:4, the Lord is quoted as saying that when He comes on “the great and terrible day” at the end of the world, “the sun will be turned to darkness,/ and the moon to blood.” In his inaugural sermon on the first Pentecost, St. Peter quoted this passage from Joel and compared what the prophet had said about “wonders in the heavens above/ and signs on the earth below” to the “mighty deeds, wonders, and signs” which God worked through Jesus while He was on Earth (cf. Acts 2:22).
And in Rev. 6:12, John talked about watching the Lamb “while he broke open the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; the sun turned as black as sackcloth and the whole moon became like blood.”
These apocalyptic texts are not meant to be taken literally, but rather symbolically. In his commentary on chapter 6 of the Book of Revelation, Fr. Alfred McBride said in 1993:
“The event that follows the opening of each seal refers both to an experience in John’s time as well as to the end of the world. We can identify the historical connection with biblical times. We have no certain way of saying that a given event in our own day is a sure sign of the Last Judgment.
“Every age has the four horsemen of war, ethnic strife, famine, and death. We have had perhaps the worst examples in history of such things. Yet the end of the world did not occur. With the coming of the year 2000 there will be a lot of end-of-the-world talk. The end of Soviet Communism and the restoration of Israel are thought by some to be evidence that Jesus is about to return again.
“This is pure speculation based on a literalist interpretation of the text and a preconceived notion of how the end will happen. We simply do not know. What we do know is that the trials of history and daily life are invitations to faith, conversion, and repentance. We should approach each day we live as though it were our last. We should not engage in futile searches for the exact fulfillment of apocalyptic prophecies. Our energy will be better spent improving the world and our own spiritual and moral lives” (The Second Coming of Jesus, pp. 53-54).
Q. About 35 years ago when I was a young priest, I read a scientific article in the Homiletic & Pastoral Review that said the world at that time could feed a population of 39 billion people. With the hybrids today I would imagine we could feed 45 to 50 billion people. It makes me sick when our Lord said to be fruitful and multiply and we have nitwits thinking we should only have half a billion people on Earth. I wish you could find that article from Homiletic. — R.T., South Dakota.
A. We don’t have the Homiletic article, but it was probably based on the findings of population experts such as Colin Clark, Julian Simon, and Roger Revelle. Their conclusions can be found in Jacqueline Kasun’s 1988 book The War Against Population and Robert Sassone’s 1978 book Handbook on Population. In Kasun’s book, she said that “Colin Clark, former director of the Agricultural Economic Institute at Oxford University, classified world land-types by their food-raising capabilities and found that if all farmers were to use the best methods, enough food could be raised to provide an American-type diet for 35.1 billion people, more than seven times the present population.”
She said that “since the American diet is a very rich one, Clark found that it would be possible to feed three times as many again, or more than twenty-two times as many as now exist, at a Japanese standard of food intake. Clark’s estimate assumed that nearly half of the earth’s land area would remain in conservation areas, for recreation, and the preservation of wildlife” (pp. 34-35).
According to Dr. Kasun, “Roger Revelle, former director of the Harvard Center for Population Studies, estimated that world agricultural resources are capable of providing an adequate diet (2,500 kilocalories per day), as well as fiber, rubber, tobacco, and beverages to 40 billion people, or eight times the present number. This, he thought, would require the use of less than one-fourth — compared with one-ninth today — of the earth’s ice-free land area. He presumed that average yields would be about one-half those presently produced in the United States Midwest. Clearly, better yields and/or the use of a larger share of the land area would support over 40 billion persons” (p. 35).
More current figures confirming these conclusions from the 1970s and 1980a can be found in Steven Mosher’s publication Population Research Institute Review (www.pop.org) and in the voluminous and carefully documented writings of Wanderer columnist Brian Clowes, who has since 1995 been research director at Human Life International. You can email him for more recent population information at bclowes@hli.org.
