Blessed Gabriele Allegra, 1907 - 1976, translator of the Bible into Chinese

At 18 I transferred from Manchester College to the University of Illinois. A private dorm, McKinley Hall, was recommended to me by a high school friend who was living in a sorority house. (Details are important in serendipity that changes your life.) The housemother knew I was taking Spanish, but didn't know that Brazilians spoke Portuguese, so she matched me with a young woman from Brazil as a roommate.  That's how I met my Chinese roommate, Dora Lee.  Her family had fled mainline China when the Communists took over and moved to Brazil.  Most of her many siblings had since relocated to the U.S. for college and jobs. And since 1958, I've always enjoyed learning about Chinese language, culture and history.

So, this morning I read about Blessed Gabriele Allegra in the March issue of Magnificat, and it piqued my curiosity. While he was in seminary he learned about a 14th century bishop who had begun a translation of the Bible into Chinese, and from that day he decided that was his calling. By 1937, he had a first draft, but it was lost due to the Chinese civil war, so he started over and a full Chinese Bible was published in 1968. In addition, he was a scholar in other areas, and helped and served the poor and diseased (particularly lepers).

Most of my life as a Lutheran I've heard about Martin Luther's achievement of translating the Latin Vulgate into the vernacular German, however he had at least 18 other translations, some predating his achievement by 100 years plus much scholarship to aid his efforts.  It looks like Giovanni Allegra first had to learn Chinese and then how to translate it (I don't know which dialect).

The cause for his canonization was started in 1984 by Bishop John Wu in Hong Kong, 8 years after his death. He was declared venerable by the Holy See in 1994 and his decree of beatification was promulgated in 2002. He was the only scripture scholar to be beatified by Pope John Paul II.

https://religion.fandom.com/wiki/Gabriele_Allegra

Saint Who? Magnificat, v. 24, no. 13, p, 207 https://youtu.be/8A5yeVHf5A8

For Dora's bio and a peek at her fabulous fiber art: DORA HSIUNG — gallery twist

Leaving the church because of sex

A blogger I’ve  known only through our shared cyber-space as librarians on discussion lists and as bloggers mentioned at his blog that he has moved over to an Anglican church from the Catholic church due to the Roman Catholic’s position on women clergy, on marriage of gays, and the sexual abuse scandals.

That’s putting a lot of stock into current cultural beliefs in the face of 2,000 years of church history and teaching, plus all the Hebrew/Jewish traditions that came before that.  In fact, it flies in the face of the history of the human race and all religions, not just Catholicism.  There’s virtually no mention of homosexuality in the Old Testament except in veiled references to temple practices of other religions which the Jews were supposed to avoid at all costs.  But dalliances with young men and male temple prostitutes were certainly well known and even accepted in Greek and Roman cultures.  Gracious!  Have you seen some of those murals in collapsing ancient buildings? The Greeks and Romans lived in sex saturated times, male, female, animal, child, multiples—made no difference (if we can believe their art and literature, and why shouldn’t we?). They probably inherited profligate and perverted sex from the civilizations who came before them.  God chose the Jews for a reason—they were the only ones, even in sin who seemed to really get the story of creation. 

That said, even with trips to the temple for sex with young, beautiful temple prostitutes, male and female, when it came to building blocks for the society, it was marriage between a male and female.  Yes, some engaged in polygamy, or polyandry, some had mistresses and concubines and some men may have preferred a male concubine, but the state/monarchy/emperor or tribal elder recognized the marriage.  There was a distant memory and command in the mind of all cultures.

As for women priests, show me a church that is growing under female leadership.  Sure, maybe you support it, but have you joined one?  Have you encouraged your call committee in that direction?  Even men who claim to be “feminists” don’t like sitting under the authority of a woman, often not at work, but certainly not at the church.  They’ll never admit it, but quietly, the numbers begin to drop.

Child abuse?  The Roman Catholic church is a huge target; and it’s rich.  Why sue a school system where the abusers, at least until recently, are just passed from school to school, protected by their unions?  We’re just beginning to hear how many female teachers are predators as the stories are leaked to the papers.  How many Protestant clergy have been caught with their hand in the . . . well, and just quietly moved on to the next small church thinking the problem will go away if we just warn him.  Although many young girls have certainly been molested at the hands of clergy, teachers, babysitters, etc., the number of boys and gay men involved is way out of their proportion (1.5%) in the general population.

But this particular librarian who has left the church, who became a convert to Catholicism and took all the instruction in 1992, now thinks that the profound spiritual wisdom of the 20th and 21st centuries exceeds that of the church he committed himself to just 20 years ago and in which he agreed to raise his children and be faithful to his wife (who has remained Catholic).

Imagine all the stuff a Protestant is exposed to in RCIA which must completely have baffled him—like 7 sacraments, or the teaching about the perpetual virginity of Mary, or all the stages to go through to become a saint, or all the special holidays, seasons and observances he’d never heard of.  Think about undoing all the teaching Christians hear in Baptist or Lutheran or Nazarene churches about evil, unscriptural Catholicism.  That’s a huge leap for gay marriage and the ordination of women priests!

And  he threw it all over for a fad, fable and fantasy.  I’m not a Catholic, but it appears he wasn’t either.

Child abuse in the news

You don't have to be a genius, or a math whiz or believe in conspiracies to figure out why the media plays up the problems in the Roman Catholic church. If it is 1% of the sexual and physical abuse problem, it's too much, and should be reported. The question is, when there is an elephant, why go after the gnat? Answer: What other organization or entity has as much power and clout to affect health care, education, and social agendas?

The dirty little secret is it isn't priests that children need to fear; it's the men their mothers bring home for a night, a month, a year, or a life time. Almost every day I read about a child somewhere in the country so battered and bruised he's dead or comatose by the time good old mom and her boyfriend finally take him to the ER and report he fell out of bed, or down the basement stairs, or accidentally hung himself in a closet, or burned himself with her cigarettes on his buttocks, or just happened to be walking around in 10 degree weather with only a pajama top while mommy and "uncle" party at the neighborhood bar. Little boys seem to be a high percentage of these victims. If Hollywood or TV execs had to produce stories about strangers in mom's bed, they'd have to shape up the twisted sexual values we're force fed year after year and stop the tirades against Christians. Don't send me links about danger from natural father or mother, or domestic violence in general. I've seen them, read them.

I've shared this story before, but it's worth retelling. In 1961 I was working the cash register at the Green Street Pharmacy. One of my co-workers about my age (21) who waitressed at the lunch counter never smiled or talked. I was expecting my first child and probably had the usual complaints about aches and pains, or maybe I shared my anticipation--don't recall why she opened up to me. She took out a photo of her little girl whom her live-in boyfriend had beaten to death. She was pregnant and had to testify during his trial--and permanently lost custody of that baby, too. He went to prison. I can still see her sad face when I read these boyfriend-batters-baby stories.