Venezuela's President, Hugh Chavez, 56, is suffering from cancer. This has been a diagnosis he's lived with for more than a month. And while this is not shocking news because many people live with cancer and face their mortality in a new way with such each day. However, I found a Fox News article a bit odd; odd because they found this event newsworthy, something out of the ordinary. I might even say Fox is a bit presumptuous for mentioning it. My reading of the story was that the un-named writer question the intentions of an outspoken president who would approach the sacraments of the Church for the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick, that is, to ask God for a cure and a healing. Deo volente. The President's lived experience with the bishops of his country have reportedly been fragile, but so what. A baptized Catholic has a right to receive the sacraments and to seek forgiveness begging not from the Church but from the Holy Spirit the graces of conversion and healing of body, soul, and spirit regardless of politics. Should we be surprised or consoled that someone would recognize his place before God? Christ came for the sick, not the healthy. The Church is a hospital for the ill, not the well.
Hugo Chavez received the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick
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Paul A. Zalonski is from New Haven, CT. He is a member of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, a Catholic ecclesial movement and an Oblate of Saint Benedict. Contact Paul at paulzalonski[at]yahoo.com.
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This page contains a single entry by Paul Zalonski published on July 18, 2011 3:14 PM.
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