Going The Distance - Patrick Madrid

He's Got the Whole World In His Hands
And Envoy has a whole bunch of good stuff for you in this issue.

"The bar just got a whole lot higher."

Five first place wins, two second and two third. Not bad for a first try. That's what the Catholic Press Association awarded Envoy Magazine on June 5 at its 1998 Journalism Excellence Awards.

This was certainly no cakewalk. Overall, there were hundreds of other contenders and thousands of submissions. Remarking on Envoy's winning first place in the "General Excellence" category for magazines, the Catholic Press Association wrote: "[It's] amazing that this is this publication's first year — but what an impressive debut. There is no disputing the fact that Envoy is a dynamic product. It is stunning visually and the writing is compelling; the layout is clean and sleek. A class act, through and through; Envoy sets a new standard. The bar just got a whole lot higher." (In two categories, Envoy won the first and second place awards.)

This recognition from our peers is really a tribute to the Envoy staff — the remarkably talented Catholic men and women who serve the Kingdom of Christ through this apostolate. I thank each of them personally for their tremendous efforts that have made Envoy the award-winning magazine it is. I also thank the Catholic Press Association for honoring Envoy with these awards. Naturally, that puts pressure on us to keep improving. And this we promise to do. With your support and God's grace, we'll continue equipping Catholics to spread the message of Christ and His Church.



Overpopulation

In this issue, Dr. Jacqueline Kasun debunks many "overpopulation" myths bouncing around our media. People are being scared silly by the so-called experts who tell them that, at the rate we're going, the planet will be crammed to capacity very soon. But is this claim true? Dr. Kasun explains why it's not.

On a related note, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (cafhri@ cafhri.com) reported a story featuring the headline: "DOMINICAN AMBASSADOR SHOCKS POPULATION CONTROLLERS AT CONFERENCE."

Here's an excerpt from the press release: "Audible and disgruntled gasps settled over the crowd gathered to hear presentations before the 1998 Population Consultation of the UN NGO Committee on Population and Development in New York last week. The audience, made up of representatives from more than 30 elite NGOs that promote world population-control programs, were not prepared for the message delivered by Ambassador Julia Alvarez of the Dominican Republic.

"In her speech, Alvarez, a widely respected UN veteran, sharply criticized the kinds of population suppression efforts undertaken by most of the groups present in the room, including Zero Population Growth, International Planned Parenthood Federation and Population Communications International. They received a stern warning that fertility reduction campaigns may be racially motivated, and are spelling disaster for societies and individuals, especially lonely and aging women in the developing world.

"Alvarez traced the population-control agenda from its beginning in the 1920s. In stories published then by the New York Times, Alvarez pointed out 'the word "sterilization" rears its ugly head with some frequency. Eugenics is still a respectable subject among the university "experts." And there is much concern with weeding out "defectives" and improving the population "stock." ' This comment was particularly pointed, since members of the Alan Guttmacher Institute were on the dais waiting to address the group. Guttmacher was a member of the group of early eugenicists alluded to by Alvarez.

"Alvarez emphasized that population control programs, from the very beginning, deliberately targeted poor and darker-skinned countries like her own. These statements may confirm a shift in expert thinking, coming as they do on the heels of several reports from world demographers presented last fall at the UN. The reports warned that lowered fertility rates arecausing immediate, broad-based societal damage."



"Karol Wojtyla Saved My Life In 1945"

That was the headline in a recent wire story carried by the international Catholic news service, ZENIT. It told the story of a young Jewish girl who encountered the future Pope John Paul II when he was a newly ordained priest. Rather than retell her moving story, we'll reprint it here, with our thanks to ZENIT for brining it to our attention.

"I remember perfectly. There I was, a 13-year-old girl, alone, sick and weak. I had spent three years in a German concentration camp at the point of death. And Karol Wojtyla saved my life, like an angel, a dream come from heaven: he gave me food and drink and then carried me on his shoulders some four kilometers through the snow before reaching the train to safety." Edith Zirer explains the events as though they happened yesterday, but they all took place on a cold morning at the beginning of February 1945. The young Jew, who still didn't realize that she was the only member of her family to survive the Nazi massacre, was carried in the arms of a tall, strong, 25-year-old priest, who asked nothing of her, simply giving her a ray of hope. She says that that priest is today the Bishop of Rome and wants to personally thank him, after all these years.

"Just a small thanks in Polish for what he did, for how he did it, to tell him that I never forgot him," she said from her home in Carmelo, near Haifa. Edith is 66 years old and has two children. She built a new life for herself in Israel, where she arrived in 1951, still suffering the physical scars of tuberculosis and the horrific images of the war in her dreams. Although she kept the story a secret all these years, when Karol Wojtyla was elected Pope in 1978, she began to feel that it was necessary to speak, to tell someone, to show her thanks. The journalists of Kolbo, the daily newspaper of Haifa, put the obvious questions to her: "How can you be sure that that priest was the Pope? Why did you wait so long?"

The editors report in their article, published February 6, "The story is convincing. This is not a bid for publicity. All the details she gives seem credible." Her story was so convincing that the Israeli ambassador to the Holy See is already working to arrange a meeting between Mrs. Zirer and the Pope's secretary.

Mrs. Zirer's story speaks for itself: "On January 28, 1945, Russian soldiers set free the prisoners of the concentration camp in Hassak, where I had been imprisoned for almost three years, working in a munitions factory. I was confused and sick in bed. Two days later, I arrived at a small train station between Czestochowa and Krakow. [Karol Wojtyla had just been ordained priest in Krakow.] I was convinced that I was at the end of my journey. I fell on the ground in a corner of the large hall where dozens of refugees were gathering, most of whom were still wearing their numbered uniforms from the concentration camps.

"Then Wojtyla saw me. He came with a big cup of tea, the first hot beverage I had drunk in weeks. Afterwards, he brought me a little bit of cheese with black Polish bread — divine! But I didn't want to eat; I was too tired. He made me eat. Then, he took me in his arms and carried me a long way. All the while, the snow was falling. I remember his brown jacket, his tranquil voice as he told me of the death of his parents and his brother, of the loneliness he was experiencing, of the need to accept suffering and to fight to live. His name is written indelibly in my memory."

When they finally reached the convoy that would take the refugees West, Edith met a Jewish family that warned her, "Be careful: the priests try to convert Hebrew children." She became afraid and escaped. "Only afterwards did I understand that he only wanted to help me," she added. "And I would like to tell him that personally."

I hope she gets the chance to thank the Holy Father personally — if not in this life, then in heaven. And while I think of it, let's all lift our voices in a chorus of silent prayer to the Lord in thanksgiving for the priceless gift we've received in our Papa, Karol Wojtyla. May the Lord protect and strengthen him in this life and reward him in the next.