US bishops changing Mary's 'virgin' status in Bible

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“Fr. Stephano M. Manelli is one of the founders, and the first minister general of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, a Franciscan reform devoted to the total Marian ideal of St. Maximillian Kolbe, and approved by the Holy Father in 1990. In 1989 Father Manelli published a wonderful book on Our Lady entitled Mariologia Biblica, which happily has been translated into English by Fr. Peter M. Fehlner, F.F.I., a member of the new reform, under the title All Generations Shall Call Me Blessed. It was published in 1994 by the Academy of the Immaculate in New Bedford, Massachusetts.”

Quotes above and below all from this linked article based on ** “All Generations Shall Call Me Blessed” ** .

Fr. Stephano Manelli, F.F.I. in his All Generations Shall Call Me Blessed,
who relies on theological exegesis which depends on the Tradition and the Magisterium of the Church:

“Biblical theological exegesis correctly insists on the one literal, messianic, and Marian interpretation of this well-known prophecy: the Emmanuel of whom the prophet speaks is exclusively the future Messiah, Jesus Christ, and the child-bearing virgin is exclusively Mary, the Virgin Mother of Jesus. Apart from the great number of Catholic scholars who, on strictly exegetical grounds, support such an interpretation of the oracle of Isaiah, one must also consider the well-nigh unanimous agreement with this interpretation on the part of the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers, both in the East and in the West, from St. Justin on. So, too, the uninterrupted teaching of the Magisterium of the Church, the witness of the liturgy and of sacred art (as early as that of the Catacombs of Priscilla in Rome) have favored this interpretation.

All this unquestionably lends weight to the Church’s belief that the announcement made by the prophet Isaiah to King Ahaz is an unequivocal proclamation heralding the Messiah, Jesus, and Mary, His Mother. “Notwithstanding the impressive Faith of the Church, however, there are some scholars, Catholics included, especially in recent years, who propose interpretations of Isaiah’s prophecy denying that in the literal sense its content is to be understood as exclusively messianic and Marian. They allow such content only in an indirect, oblique, and typical sense and deny in particular that the prophecy has any relations to the virginal conception and parturition of Mary most holy as affirmed in the Gospels.

For them, the so-called virgin in Isaiah would, in fact, be an already married woman - either the wife of Ahaz and mother of Hezechiah; the wife of the prophet himself; or an unidentified spouse. As Mattioli states, these are the interpretations favored by ‘a modern rationalistic exegesis’, and they run counter to the practically unanimous view of exegetical tradition and the Faith of the Church. Yet modern, rationalistic exegetes cannot avoid facing the fact that if there are any prophecies of the Old Testament expressly cited in the New as fully verified, one is this precise passage from Isaiah, cited verbatim by St. Matthew and clearly referred to by St. Luke.”

 

[Dale_M]

It is not a small point for me. If they are not outright liars, then they are among the most stupid of all journalists I have ever seen.

Oh, I agree that the headline was abominably inaccurate, the lede not much less. No doubt thr article has confused or misled many persons besides the OP. Harm has been done.

My small point is that the culprit this time was a secular news source and not the National Catholic Reporter. But that shouldn’t take away from your larger point about journalistic malfeasance.

 

[BlueSapphire]

I am with the Magisterium 100 percent, and take what the tabloids write with a pinch of salt - you always have to seperate the wheat from the chaff so to speak!