Letters

Virgin Birth

Eamonn and Pat Keane

Contents - Feb 2008 - Buy a copy now Editorial: Can Catholic schools recover their 'salt' - Michael Gilchrist Spe salvi: Benedict's second encyclical calls for a rediscovery of hope in Christ - Michael Gilchrist News: The Church Around the World Grace under fire: ordinations, and first Holy Communion in Iraq - Babette Francis Technical school: Salesians continue to help post-tsunami Sri Lanka - Michael Lynch SDB Paganism: 'New Age' activities continue in Brisbane Archdiocese - Tim Pemble-Smith A remarkable father remembered - Maria Rankin How to reform Catholic education: get the world view right - Chris Hilder The need for solitude and reflection amid today's cacophony - Andrew Kania What the social reign of Christ means today - Bishop Peter Elliott Letters: Dissent - Frank White Letters: Natural Law - Fr Bernard McGrath Letters: New look Mass - Jessie Roger Letters: Virgin Birth - Eamonn and Pat Keane Letters: True Church - John Frey Letters: 'Schoolies' - Fr. M. Durham Letters: Poor communication - Don Gaffney Letters: Vatican II - Anthony Bono Letters: From India - Fr. A. Alex Prabhu Books: NO PLACE FOR GOD: The Denial of the Transcendent in Modern Church Architecture - Tony Evans (reviewer) Books: WHEN MIGHT BECOMES HUMAN RIGHT:Essays on Democracy and the Crisis of Rationality - Tim Cannon (reviewer) Books: A YEARBOOK OF SEASONS AND CELEBRATIONS, by Joanna Bogle - Eric Hester (reviewer) Books: Books available from AD2000 and Freedom Publishing Reflection: Devotion to Our Lady: eclipse and revival - Br Barry Coldrey

It is a modern fad at Christmas and Easter to propose bizarre new interpretations of established Christian beliefs or to assert that some Christian dogmas which do not sit easily with modern sensibilities can be dispensed with. Recently, the Anglican Primate, Archbishop Rowan Williams, stated that belief in the Virgin Birth of Jesus should not be 'a kind of hurdle people have to get over' before becoming Christian.

Belief in the Virgin Birth has been held universally by orthodox Christians from the beginning of the Christian era. St Ignatius of Antioch, a contemporary of St John the evangelist, stated: 'You [Christians] are firmly convinced about our Lord, who is truly of the race of David according to the flesh, Son of God according to the will and power of God, truly born of a virgin ...'.

While there is a hierarchy of Christian truths, this does not mean that that some truths proclaimed in the Creed can be dispensed with. The hierarchy of truths refers to a way of ordering the mysteries of the faith in a way that relates them to one another in terms of their relationship to the foundation of the Christian faith.

In regard to Jesus Christ, all that is affirmed in the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed requires the assent of all who claim to hold to orthodox Christian faith. This includes the affirmation that He was 'born of the Virgin Mary.'

EAMONN & PAT KEANE
Cherrybrook, NSW

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 21 No 1 (February 2008), p. 14