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Insight on the News

Holy Year Preparations

● Nineteen seventy-five was designated as a “Holy Year” by Pope Paul VI, and the city of Rome is already preparing for an expected six and a half million pilgrims.

Under the headline “A Rain of Billions on the Holy Year,” the Italian newspaper “Corriere della Sera” predicts an influx of from 600 to 700 billion lira ($960,000,000 to $1,120,000,000) from the pilgrims and native Italians visiting Rome. A question now discussed is, Who will share in these profits? The newspaper reports that a small “war of the sanctuaries” began to flare​—due to so many sanctuaries wanting to give the special indulgences to the Holy Year pilgrims. Finally, the Italian Episcopal Conference allowed only four places outside Rome (Loreto, Pompeii, Assisi and Padova) to share in granting these indulgences.

Hotel owners, shopkeepers and restaurants all stand to benefit, but even among these there are reports of discontent. Why? “Corriere della Sera” estimates that religious institutions acting as hotels will house half the visitors and will take in about one tenth of all the billions of lira spent. Small shopkeepers dealing in religious items​—rosaries, medallions, Madonnas, Christs and saints—​face similar church competition. Sighed one prominent merchant: “They take the food from our mouths . . . There isn’t a vestry, ecclesiastical home or church that doesn’t have its rooms for renting, its selling booths full of religious articles and souvenirs. They can sell everything cheaper . . . they don’t have our expenses: rent, taxes, employees’ wages and insurance.”

So the papal announcement of a “Holy Year” in 1975 apparently involves more than spiritual upbuilding of the millions of pilgrims that Rome expects. We are reminded of circumstances in a different “holy city” nineteen centuries ago. Jesus observed that men were selling doves and changing money (for a profit) in Jerusalem’s temple. Read what he said about their practice, at Matthew 21:12, 13. The merchandise may be different today. But the situation is the same.

Costly Curiosity

● Somewhat over a year ago the Apollo space project, with its six manned flights to the moon, ended. The cost: twenty-four billion dollars. What has mankind really learned? Scientists have learned that many theories were wrong​—for one thing the moon’s chemical makeup is quite different from the earth’s. But the major question it was hoped the project would solve still remains: By what process did the moon take shape? Because the findings fail to fit so many of the theories held, a “Wall Street Journal” report humorously summed up things by saying: “The moon isn’t where it’s supposed to be​—or, if it is, it’s made of the wrong stuff.”​—March 25, 1974.

The same week that that statement was made, World Bank president Robert McNamara drew attention to another matter that deserves consideration. He was quoted as saying that, of two billion people living in one hundred “developing” countries, “800,000,000 of them live on, in [U.S.] terms, 30 cents a day, and the people are barely on the margin of life.”​—New York “Post,” March 27, 1974.

Scientific curiosity has led to some useful discoveries. But, weighing priorities against the background of world conditions, is it not questionable whether mankind should now be allowing itself the luxury of such costly curiosity? With good reason 1 Corinthians 3:19 says: “The wisdom of this world is folly in God’s sight.”​—“New English Bible.”

New Model for Women’s Lib?

● The ‘women’s liberation’ movement supposedly has a new model and supporter, according to “Marialis Cultus,” a recent papal document. Who is the model? Mary, the virgin mother of Jesus. The “apostolic exhortation” depicts Mary as a forceful woman whose example supports the “liberating energies” now astir in modern society.

There is no doubt that Jesus’ mother Mary was not a bashful, backward, withdrawn individual. (Compare Luke 1:46-55; 2:41-49; John 2:1-5.) On the other hand, she was undoubtedly in agreement with the apostle Peter’s exhortation to wives to “be in subjection to your own husbands,” and to be adorned with “the quiet and mild spirit, which is of great value in the eyes of God.” (1 Pet. 3:1-4) Would you say that this is the view of most modern feminist leaders?