http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/14/school-shooting-connecticut/1769367/
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After an event like this, why should I care?

Because Jesus has defeated death and Mary is the token and pledge that there is eternal hope for those children.

Holy Innocents, pray for them.

My two cents: If an act done without utter *freedom of free option* meant that someone doing it were “something of a robot”, it would follow that the Persons of the divine Trinity in loving themselves and one another would be each something of a robot; because this divine self-love and mutual love is necessary in God, not contingent. Yet what’s more wholehearted than this divine love? So this necessary love is quite free with the OTHER kind of freedom: *freedom of wholeheartedness* (called also “freedom of spontaneity” and “freedom of exultation” by the Scholastic essayist Jacques Maritain). So, there’s nothing in the least robot-like about either kind of freedom.
And Mary’s good acts, and for that matter the good acts of any other human insofar as those acts are good, are entirely from God as first cause, and entirely from the human as from a second cause under God; in other words, they’re from God thru the human act-or or “agent”, a human agent whose very merits are thus gifts from God.

I hope that speech never gets told to the parents. It would be too cruel

Nuala:

It’s cruel to say there is hope that this parting is only for a while and that they shall see their children again and rejoice with them in heaven forever?

About thirty years ago an intern of mine loaned me the book; Alone of All Her Sez: the myth and cult of the Virgin Mary - Marina Warner. As such Mary could not be a model for anyone since she is the Immaculate Conception; she never was without the preternatural gifts afforded to Adam. Those gifts were of integrity, immortality, infused knowledge and alas freedom from concupiscence.  Since we sad victims of ‘original sin’, according to Augustine; are not capable of any good aside from special grace of God.  In no sense could any of us emulate her goodness or imitate her in any way.
What is worse, is that I have not been able to reference any mention of original sin in the Hebrew Bible. There expectation was not for a ‘redeemer’, but for a king, a Xt, to return Israel to its rightful place. One certainly would expect, resulting from the Hebrew Text, from the fall of Adam and Eve that the legacy of original sin would have been extablished there…not so. Even more so, the notion of Satan, as we now know it, was not established as thrown out of heaven, or fallen.  The Hebrew word for Satan is as an ‘adversary’ often used by God. Satan, thusly, was not always evil as we now accord him. He became an evil one in the Book of Job, or the latter years prior to Xtianity.

Nuala’s response is that of a person without faith or possible mis-formed faith.
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For them, every sin, evil or tragedy is God’s failure.  They start with a view that life on earth should be perfect, we are here to sit back and take no action and then blame God when man, imperfect, either cause or fails to stop some event.
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The Immaculate Conception is perfectly appropriate when tragedy happens, for its subject is based on the same central theological questions and answer. 
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- Why is earth not perfect?
- Why does man sin?
- Given these what does God expect of us?
- Is there any hope?
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In the IC we’ve discussed Original Sin, corruption and death, redemption and resurrection. 
What could be more appropriate to a human, a Christian and a Catholic at this time?
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Man cannot make the world perfect, nor can he make himself or another man perfect, but just as we are called to help the poor knowing the poor will always be with us, we are called to help heal the causes of evil and heal the victims of evil.
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Pray. If you cannot do something directly for the victims and their family pray to ease their path into heaven and pray for God’s grace to ease the pain of the loss.
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@Mark Shea - thank you for this series, thinking back over the several weeks, I realize I have learned a great deal.

Yes, I think it is cruel to lie to a bereaved person. It is a false comfort and an excuse for people like you to distance yourself from the grief this monster has caused. It somehow justifies the mass murder by telling them their children were “called by God” or are in a “better place” than with their family. Telling a bereaved person “Jesus has defeated death” denies reality—something religion is very good at.
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A terrible thing was committed by a horrible person—Children and teachers are dead—and it’s not over yet. Just watch the Christian-right blame secularism/atheism for this evil.

@Nuala
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Your attack seems pointless.  Obviously Mark believes in God, so it is not a lie.  It is not an excuse.  He is not justifying anything.  In fact it is totally consistent with his faith.
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You seem to be having a problem dealing with this.  You want to lash out at other people and cast blame and hatred, but is that helping?  Maybe you need to start with the first questions:
1) How did we get here?
2) Why is the earth imperfect?
3) Why do bad things happen?
4) How should you act/react/prepare?
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BTW I already see plenty of blaming in the media and it is not on one side by any means.

A statement is not a fact because the person telling it believes it to be true. An I don’t see it as a comfort to tell a grieving parent that his/her child is in a better place.
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I ask those questions all the time—and the idea of a god who made this would is abhorrent to me.
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Why is it that people here tell me they believe God and Jesus are perfect, until something like this happens? This is the kind of event that can shatter anyone’s faith in divine justice.
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And yes, we’re in the blaming stage of this tragedy—everyone is going to try to defend their beliefs and politics regardless of the facts that we are a gun-loving Christian country. I’m sick and tired of people who turn to prayer when they should be protesting an outrage.

Because Jesus has defeated death and Mary is the token and pledge that there is eternal hope for those children.
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Mark, you are denying the evil that has just happened. 2012 has been the deadliest year for mass shootings, and all you do is preach about Mary’s love and that everything is for the better. Get out of your ivory tower and look at the real world.

Nuala:

I don’t deny the evil in the least. Nor does Our Lady of Sorrows. I simply refuse to grant your insistence that evil has the last word.  A religion founded on a crucified man takes evil seriously.  But that man was raised from the dead and seen by many witnesses who were themselves murdered for saying so.  I believe they saw what they say they saw.  And I believe it has implications of great hope for the children that lie dead in Connecticut.  I don’t believe in the slightest that it reduces the evil that was committed.  Nor do I believe God willed the evil that was done.

What are you seeking, Nuala?

But that man was raised from the dead and seen by many witnesses who were themselves murdered for saying so.  I believe they saw what they say they saw.  And I believe it has implications of great hope for the children that lie dead in Connecticut.  I don’t believe in the slightest that it reduces the evil that was committed.  Nor do I believe God willed the evil that was done.
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According to ONE old book edited by a bunch of mercenaries. I’d like to sell you a used car.
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An evil has been done and there is no hope for those children—they are dead. Anything else would be more suffering.
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But then, your religion worships suffering, so what should I expect?

Nuala

You aren’t even making sense anymore.  You came here ostensibly because you “care” about the victims and their families.  Now you are bent on smashing all hope for them.

You began by complaining that I was naively denying suffering and evil.  Now you are complaining that I worship it.

You have no idea what you are talking about, and you are narcissistically taking a moment of nation-wide anguish in order to stand atop a pile of dead bodies and vent your spleen at a stranger about your hatred of God.  Get your head out of your own navel, look around, and try to find some way you can help somebody instead of this utterly selfish venting of rage at total strangers about their hope in God.  If you don’t pray, then try doing one of the works of mercy.  Anything but this puerile self-centered exploitation of tragedy to medicate your hatred of Christians. It doesn’t persuade anybody of anything.  It simply makes you a worse human being.

Thank you for your invitation to follow you to Mark Shea’s blogsite, Nuala.  Any friend of Mary is a friend of mine.  I also appreciate your perspective on this awful event.  Even though your comments seem tainted by bitterness, I can tell you are an honest observer.

You’re free to speculate that this disaster was caused by/allowed by God, or that it evidences that no god exists.  However, to deny Mark and others the consolation of hope is equally barbaric to the wound you say he inflicts.

Your only gripe is that “all hope is unfounded.”  But that’s a deficiency in you, not in those who are hopeful.  I think it clear that wider vision finds lanes to access hope, where narrow vision closes hope off.  This is just a principle of things.

I find you full of hope.  It is buried and buffetted, but hope nonetheless.  If you only let it out, your pent up anger would abate, and your comments would reflect a happier disposition.  I can almost imagine you smiling.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/12/15/the-worst-thing-a-christian-could-say-following-yesterdays-tragedy/

My reply to the original reader’s comments:

It’s true that you can assume [bad word choice? maybe means “plausibly conclude”] the Immaculate Conception from certain readings of the gospel…

Yes. The Bible is certainly compatible with the Immaculate Conception, with the concept of Original Sin, with the Trinity, with the notion that the inspiration of Scripture necessarily implies that it is inerrant, and with the notion that there should be 27 books in the New Testament canon and that Esther should be part of the Old Testament canon. The Bible is compatible with these notions; it does not contradict them and they fit in quite well. But these notions are nowhere explicitly and unambiguously stated.

...but the fact is, it is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible and for that reason it shouldn’t be made into dogma.

What a strange way to end the sentence! That ending does not at all follow from the way the sentence began (namely, with the observation that the Immaculate Conception, along with a lot of other core Christian doctrines, can plausibly be concluded from Scripture but can’t possibly be proven unambiguously).

It makes more sense that Mary was chosen because she herself, without any divine aid, was a very good and pure woman.

This requires believing in the Pelagian heresy: That man can, through his own efforts and apart from the prompting and assistance of the Holy Spirit, please God. If one is not a heretic, then one believes it is impossible without divine aid even to exist and to have free will, let alone to resist for a microsecond the tempestuous influences of the world, the flesh, and the devil which would shipwreck one’s faith and cause one’s steps to falter.

“Without divine aid” means nonexistent. Hitler had divine aid, merely to keep on living and moving and having being. And anyone who pleases God has more than just the aid of continued existence; they also have the grace of the Holy Spirit leading them to the good works for which they were created. Mary is certainly one such. She could not possibly be “a good and pure woman” in a fashion that was relevant to God without the assistance of the Holy Spirit in doing so; neither could her cousin Elizabeth.

But that’s all irrelevant as to whether the particular form of grace given to Mary was a preservation from the concupiscence that plagues the rest of us because of original sin. Once the reader has realized his error with respect to the phrase “without any divine aid,” he can begin to comment about the form that aid took in Mary’s special case. But until then? There’s no point talking to a Pelagian about “preservation from the stain of Original Sin”; you might as well talk to a 3rd grader who’s slow learning his multiplication tables about differential calculus!

We can’t just assume that she was born without original sin or that she hadn’t sin because there’s nothing in the text that says or alludes to that.

Not in a way that’s obvious after being translated into English and read by 21st-century post-Christian Westerners, unfamiliar with the Old Testament, with the liturgy of the Jerusalem temple and of the early Christians, and patristic-era theology in general. To such a person, it’s not obvious at all.

And even to those who know a bit about such things? To those folks, it seems likely and fitting, but not a sure thing. Either way, the reader is right, we can’t just “assume” it. But who said anything about assuming? This is an early tradition which was the most popular of only two or three views about Mary with respect to sin. Some vague notion of it comes to us from the apostolic era; but it is sufficiently vague that people in the later patristic error would sometimes speculate, “Oh, well, when we say Mary is without sin, we don’t mean it literally but only comparatively” and this led to some variation in the early sources.

Only later contemplation of Scriptural typology showed that Mary could not possibly have been blessed less than Eve…but Eve, of course, was created without the stain Original Sin. The conclusion is straightforward: So was Mary, and while Eve, created without the stain of Original Sin, fell into sin through abuse of her own Free Will, Mary is greater than Eve because she DIDN’T. Thus is the New Covenant shown once again to be a fulfillment and an improvement on the Old.

And this later contemplation wasn’t done by just anybody, but by the saints and doctors and Magisterium of Jesus’ Church…the Church to whom He promised the Holy Spirit to lead them into “all truth.” Either this conclusion is correct, or Jesus’ promise has failed…in which case Jesus is not God. Which option would the reader prefer?

Another problem I have with the Immaculate conception is that it makes Mary something of a robot.

A sad misunderstanding of many things. To reiterate: Eve, created without the stain of Original Sin, fell into sin through abuse of her own Free Will. Mary could have done likewise. But she didn’t; and God foresaw that she wouldn’t, and thus used her to grant Our Lord His humanity. How does this make her a robot? She had every bit as much freedom in the matter as Eve!

[It means that she] didn’t sin because God made her that way, not on her own merits.

She was not an automaton. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t merits which accrue to her in the matter! Her fiat (“May it be unto me…”) is meritorious. And she had God’s help to say it. And that help took a special, and nearly unique (don’t forget Adam & Eve), form.

I also think there’s a misunderstanding here about free will. The divine help of God does not TAKE OVER a person like a demonic possession. It is not invasion of the body snatchers. God’s help is that, against the headwinds of the world, the flesh, and the devil, He enables our free will to function. He props us up against those winds, enabling us both to will and to do what is His will. His indwelling is not mutually exclusive with free will; on the contrary, His indwelling helps make it possible.

Wouldn’t it exalt Mary EVEN more that she was a good and pious woman by herself alone?

Nope; it would be impossible. Saying otherwise is Pelagianism, and heretical.

Nuala:

I agree.  And now that we agree that Christian fundamentalists like that jerk and atheists fundamentalists like yourself insert themselves into to tragedies to try to score points instead of being silent and respecting the victims, I repeat, what are you trying to accomplish.  People are dead and all you can think of, like the Christian fundamentalist, is to try to get a few licks in on some stranger and his God.  You’re doing the same thing as the fundamentalist jerk.  If you think you are better then act like it and do something constructive.  If you don’t pray then attempt some of the works of mercy.  But stop with narcissistic use of the death of children so that you can land a few punches on total strangers.  Or get used to being told there is no difference between you and that fundamentalist jerk.

@Nuala
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You are wrong.  Believers do find comfort in the resurrection and in Mary’s life.
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The fact that you do not believe is your business, but to say that because you, a very small minority, do not find comfort therefore grieving parents would not find comfort is ridiculous.
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Maybe you want to rename your article “The worst thing a Christian could say to a bitter atheist following yesterdays tragedy”
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You seem to be really bothered and lashing out at others.  Maybe you should reexamine faith and religion.

It makes more sense that Mary was chosen because she herself, without any divine aid, was a very good and pure woman.

It’s not possible to be “Good” in any true sense of the word, without Divine Aid.

Sorry, I see that you already pointed out the above…

An I don’t see it as a comfort to tell a grieving parent that his/her child is in a better place.

By all means…it’s much less cruel to tell them that their children are dead, in the ground, never to be see again.  That their lives were pointless and their parents should just deal with.  Death happens.  No biggie.  *eye roll*

Has it ever occurred to you that YOU might be wrong?  No, of course not.  We are nuts, you are sane.  Somehow your knowledge of life and death is more true than ours.  Probably because thousands of people have come back from the dead to tell us that death is the end, there is nothing after…oh, wait!  They couldn’t have because there is no after…hmmmmm…I’m wondering where you come by you surety.