09/23/98

A conversation begins:
Cardinal George's 1st column

“In the beginning was the Word...” The opening line of the Gospel according to St. John opens up for us a world created by conversation. In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, God speaks a word and the world comes into being. In the Gospel, God sends his Word and the church comes into being. God is infinitely simple and expresses all his being in one eternal Word. His Word made flesh is Jesus of Nazareth, Son of Mary, our brother and our Savior.

We are more complicated than God, so we use many words and are never able to express ourselves fully. Some words bear constant repetition: “I love you.” Other words disappear with the morning’s newspaper or the late-night TV talk show. The words the church uses to carry on Christ’s mission are always the same to the extent they are Christ’s.

Again and again, we repeat the sacramental formulas which allow the risen Christ to touch us, to heal us, to forgive us, to unite us to the Father, to give us his very self. Again and again, we hear the words of Scripture proclaimed aloud and we read them ourselves in the light of faith.

Other words which shape our lives in the church are more occasional: words spoken in parish meetings, words of comfort and counsel, greetings among brothers and sisters in the Lord. Between such passing words and the more fundamental words of sacraments and Scripture are the words of catechesis and of homilies.

These are the church’s faith expressed anew from one generation to the next. Most pastoral letters and much of the ordinary teaching of Pope and bishops fall into this rather large category and, in a minor way, so does a bishop’s column in his diocesan newspaper.

When I came to Chicago over a year ago, I wanted to continue my custom in Portland and Yakima of writing a regular column for the diocesan newspaper. This is a good device for creating a conversation between bishop and people. Even those who never write back sometimes comment on the column as the bishop visits parishes and shows up for various events. It’s a way for the bishop to reflect publicly on current events in the light of faith; a way to explain a controverted point of doctrine; a way simply to share what’s on his mind and what are his concerns for the local church given to his pastoral governance.

My first year was spent pretty much like a cork bobbing on water: always interested in what comes beyond the next wave but without too much steering on my part. As I enter the second year of my pastoral service here, I want to take a bit more control of my time, precisely so that I can write a column for The New World and do other things that take time from the normal run of pastoral and administrative meetings but the column will, I hope, contribute to the conversation which is the Archdiocese of Chicago.

One of my requests a few months ago to Tom Sheridan, the new editor of The New World, was to use the paper as a means of instruction as well as a source of information about events, since so many adult Catholics complain that they do not have a good grasp of the church’s teaching and lack the words to explain their faith.

Without such clear instruction, people are left only with a conviction about God’s mercy and love, on the one hand, and a set of extrinsic rules on the other. When the rules seem arbitrary because Catholics lack an articulated vision of the faith, then the rules must be broken or changed, precisely because God’s infinite love demands it.

This assumes, with Luther, that Gospel and law are basically antithetical. For Catholics, God’s law and the church laws which surround and protect Christ’s new law are expressions of the Gospel; but even Catholics can’t see that if they have not been well instructed in their faith. The faith is more deeply a vision than a set of attitudes or a group of observances, important though these be.

Mr. Sheridan kindly suggested that it would be easier to use The New World to instruct if I would write a column. This column, therefore, will be written with instruction in mind. Sometimes it will reflect the church’s teaching and sometimes it will be just an expression of my personal opinion.

The difference is important. Church teaching which sets forth the mysteries of faith is normative and formative for all of us, myself and the Pope included; my own opinions, while usually of great value to me and, occasionally, of some interest to others, are just my own. I’ll keep the distinction in mind as I write, just as I expect every homilist, every catechist and every professor and student of Catholic theology in the archdiocese to do the same.

I will try to write a column at least every other week. I have invited the auxiliary bishops of Chicago to share this space and write columns themselves. It is a pleasure to be archbishop here with the auxiliaries: with Bishop Goedert, the vicar general, and with the other auxiliaries who are vicars for the regions of the archdiocese or who oversee a special group or ministry. Every bishop, like Christ the head of his people, is a shepherd or pastor, a prophet or teacher and a priest or life-giver. It will be good to hear from all of them, and I thank them for their cooperation in this work and in so many others.

“In the beginning was the Word...” And in the end, God will be all in all. In between, in the meantime, we speak and write, encourage and admonish, pray and pass the time of day. I look forward to doing all of that and more in the Cardinal’s Column.

Francis Cardinal George,
O.M.I. Archbishop of Chicago

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