“Who is greater than Isabel?” An Englishman and a Czech led a discussion on Queen Isabel at the Catholic University of Avila on 16th May [2006]. The two lay religious brothers held a seminar called “Love Can Conquer the World” based on the premise that, after the Blessed Mother, Queen Isabel is the greatest woman who ever lived.
“Queen Isabel is a glory not only for Spain, but for the whole of Europe and the world,” said the Englishman. “By the way she governed and by the principles by which she lived, Isabel offers solutions for crises in the world today: riots, poverty, marriage breakdown and even, when we consider her respect for the dignity of all human beings, embryonic cloning. Isabel is a paradigm for today’s political leaders.” When asked to name the greatest person in history answers from students included Jesus Christ, Einstein, Alexander the Great and Che Guevara. The only woman on the long list was Mother Theresa of Calcutta. When asked to name six of the greatest women in history, the responses were (in no order): Mother Theresa, Jane Goodhall, Margaret Thatcher, St Theresa of Avila, Princess Diana and Marie Currie. In the subsequent discussion seven of Queen Isabel’s greatest attributes and achievements were analysed and the suggestion made that to have any one or two of these would make an exceptional person; to have any three or four makes a towering historic figure; but to have all seven is best explained only in terms of Isabel being touched by the Divine. The last part of the seminar examined the suggestion that pressing problems in the world today could be greatly alleviated if political leaders learned from Isabel, in particular if they accepted Christ’s absolute authority over temporal matters as God the Son and Redeemer. After the seminar a Spanish student said she was sorry that she had not offered Isabel’s name at the beginning, as “Isabel is our greatest queen.” |
