Church and press

For One Week, a Bronx Cheer Means Cheering for the Borough

Manny Fernandez in the Times: The borough was visited by Pope John Paul II in October 1979, President Jimmy Carter in October 1977 and, quite possibly, Mary, the mother of God, in October 1945, when a 9-year-old boy, Joseph Vitolo, said the Virgin had appeared to him in a vision. Thirty thousand people later crowded the streets outside the boy's home on Villa Avenue for what Life magazine called the Bronx Miracle.

Oh? Mary's the mother of God?

I expect the Times will now be referring without qualification to Mohammed as God's prophet, Moses as the lawgiver, Vishnu as preserver of the universe, and Buddha's teachings as the path to Heaven.

Uncredited painting of Mary found online.