The craving for foreseeing future events is a temptation as old as humankind and can be regarded as the continuation of the sin of Adam and Eve trying to equal man to God. In modern times, everything is readily available, cheap and easy, and forecasting the future through a horoscope for some people is a daily exercise. However, at the beginning of every year, fortune tellers and astrologists are so pervasive in the media that you can hardly escape charlatans telling you what the new year will look like for health, money and love.
It is some centuries now that the Church has officially condemned astrology, the horoscope and future divination in general as contrary to genuine Catholic teaching. Nevertheless, it is connatural with the gift of prophecy we receive in the Baptism for reading and interpreting the signs of the present age to surely and safely take our way through future events.
By reading recent and present events in the light of our faith, we can outline the Cathoscope for the year 2021, that is, the Catholic horoscope. We are believers and we know that our fate does not belong to the hectic movement of gipsy planets and stars, so it does not make any difference as to the date, month and year in which you were born; the Cathoscope is good for all individuals alike, since our ephemeris (God, Christ, the angels, the Virgin and the saints) are forever fixed and immutable.
Let us see what we can expect in the year 2021.
Health And Wellness
In 2021, the Covid pandemic will still preside over our lives; so, take care of your health. Be cautious; respect confinement and general hygienic prescription – but above all, do not forget to pray for your health and for your dear ones.
During plagues and epidemics in the past centuries, Christianity has always called upon the strong advocacy of Saint Michael, our Lady of Sorrows, Saint Sebastian and Saint Roch. And do not forget to worry about your eternal health, more and more important in time when death is knocking on every other door. It is not by chance that the Latin word for salvation, Salus, means either earthly health and eternal deliverance – taking care of both is the winning choice.
Love And Relationship
This is the very year when you have the possibility to make your own choice in matters of the heart and love. At the outburst of the pandemic last March, Italy was fully packed with handmade many-colored signs hanging from every single window in the country: We will do it: we love our heroes, nurses and doctors. Do not be afraid. Everything is going to be all right. Even ads on TV displayed compassionate and loving communications of mutual support and brotherly love. Everybody conceded, from the Pope to the Italian Premier, from artists to my neighbour, that anything will be the same after Covid – and this thing has changed our lives for the better and forever.
One year later the picture is depressing and disheartening at the very best. We got used to the pandemic and to the daily death toll and we went back to our usual quarrelsome lifestyle. All the colours of those signs have faded away, and ads on TV have reverted to showing how to make easy and quick money through stocks. Compassion, support and shared affection cannot be found any longer anywhere.
We do not need Venus entering Scorpio to revive love and compassion – just look up at our older brothers and sisters, who exercised and taught love and mercy their entire lives: Saint Teresa of Calcutta, Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Saint Vincent de Paul, and legions of others. Let us start modelling our lives after their teachings under the shelter of our Lady of Mercy.
Career And Money
Unless you are among the lucky 1% possessing 40% of western wealth, the coming year is going to be very tough on the business side. Pandemic pending, the unemployment rate will continue to grow, ushering a vast portion of the middle class into poverty.
When hopefully Covid is defeated, the economy will certainly rally back, providing relief to the exhausted western working class, and at the same time putting billions of billions in the coffers of the new superpowers of third millennium (the lucky 1%, as you know them). When you feel Saturn is particularly unfair opposing your natal point, think of your children and grandchildren, who will pay the whopping price tag of the gigantic subsidiary programs most countries have put in place.
Greed is our nemesis star, not Saturn. Think of Saint Martin of Tours who tore his cloak into two halves to provide a little comfort to himself and to the poor. Remember the words of St. John Paul II after the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of the Cold War: communism was defeated but capitalism is not the response to an equal and just distribution of the wealth in our world. May Saint Joseph the Carpenter and his Holy Assistant inculcate into us the way of honest economy and shared wealth.
Considering the vast interest that escalated after Pope Francis encyclical, Laudato si’, we feel it is necessary to add a new column dedicated to:
The Environment
Mixed expectations in year 2021 on the environment front. Despite rampant Thunbergism, the fight against the pandemic has called and will call for a lot of extra pollution (face mask, disposable personal protection gears, etc.) and even the massive vaccine production and distribution will have an environmental cost.
On the other hand, Covid 19 will continue to reduce human mobility, and this is a great news for the environment, because it is without question that tourism and travel are among the greatest polluting human activities. Bad news for airways and those countries who heavily rely on tourism (Italy included) – but maybe it is the right time to ponder the abused adjective sustainable, which the predominant mainstreamers understand as exclusive.
I can hardly believe that crossing the Atlantic on board a multimillion carbon-fiber, hypertech, solar-powered sailing boat can be regarded as the future of sustainable tourism. Unless we want to go back to the good old days when English aristocracy solely toured across Europe for diversion -and thus invented tourism. As the only remedy against noxious elite environmentalism (the notorious 1%) – we claim the intercession of Saint Francis and urge everyone to spread his message, the whole message, glorifying God, man and nature. In that order.
And as a final footnote to our Year 2021 Cathoscope, we send a special greeting to all the children that will be born in this new year: whatever is the belief or disbelief of your parents, you are heartly welcome into this world – we badly need you. And a prayer for those conceived but not born in the current year, your aid from heaven is even more precious and more needed.
Maurizio Mandelli is a businessman by trade and enthusiastic amateur scholar of local history and the arts. He has published two books (War of the Spanish Succession in Lombardy and The Italian Campaign of Napoleon III). He is a regular contributor to local magazines on religion, ethics, society, history and the arts.
The featured image shows, “Mary Help of Christians,” located in the Basilica of Our Lady Help of Christians, Turin, Italy, painted by Tommaso Andrea Lorenzone, ca. 1867.