A Continent of Hope becomes a Continent of Life
Last week, in Mexico City, Peter came to where Mary once stood,
and he brought all of us around the altar of her Son, our Lord.
In his homily during Mass at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe
on Jan. 23, Pope John Paul II spoke of America as a continent
of hope, a designation Latin Americans have often used to describe
their lands. He then called for the continent of hope to become
a continent of life. There are signs that this can happen.
1. The Gospel of Life
The anniversary of the shameful Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision
removing the protection of law from all unborn human beings has
become each year the occasion of the March for Life in Washington,
D.C. This march is preceded by a Mass at the National Shrine of
the Immaculate Conception, which fills up with young people who
spend the night in vigil. Seminarians in particular have responsibility
for various hours before the Blessed Sacrament throughout the
night. This prayerful context helps the march transcend any exclusively
political goal.
I was privileged to witness the faith and love of these young
people and others this year just before I flew from Washington
to Mexico City. While the laws against protecting unborn human
beings seem entrenched, just as the laws against treating slaves
as something more than property were entrenched a century and
a half ago, God is not indefinitely mocked. Prayer and witness
will eventually have their influence on people and on laws. It
is precisely this fear of change, of conversion, that makes the
cultural and legal establishment and those who follow them docilely
resentful of the Church’s influence in society.
2. The Life of the Church in America
On Jan. 22, I joined hundreds of bishops from across the western
hemisphere and hundreds of thousands of Mexicans in welcoming
the Pope to Mexico City. The president of Mexico gave a welcoming
address which would have been impossible a few years ago, when
the Mexican government was still trapped in an anti-clerical cage
of its own making. Mexico is changing rapidly, and the Holy Father
had come to sign a document that urges all of us to change on
this continent he calls, simply, America. It was refreshing to
be free of the poisoned political atmosphere of the United States,
at least for a few days, and be surrounded by a people filled
with hope.
The document the Pope presented at the Mass on Jan. 23 in the
Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a reworking of the propositions
given him at the Synod for America, which I attended shortly after
becoming Archbishop of Chicago. He took the consensus statements
of the Synod and worked them into a framework of “encounter”,
of meetings with Jesus in Sacred Scripture (with the Samaritan
woman at the well, with Mary Magdalen, with the apostles and other
disciples after the Resurrection) and of meetings with Jesus through
the Church in America now, especially in Scripture and in his
unique substantial presence in the Eucharist. In a sense, this
document is an application of Vatican II to the situation of the
Church in this hemisphere as we enter the third millennium. It
lists a series of pastoral challenges which we in the Archdiocese
will have to take to heart and work out in the years to come.
Just as the Pope gave it to the bishops in Mexico, I will give
it to the pastors and other priests during the clergy convocation
here next June. And then the work will begin.
What work? The secular press in Mexico City did a good job of
presenting the major points from the Church’s social teaching
which shape our concerns: the underside of economic globalization
and the indebtedness of very small countries, the drug trade,
the recycling of illicit funds, governmental and business corruption,
the arms race, violence, racial discrimination, inequality between
social groups and the irrational destruction of nature. The document
goes into some detail analyzing these social sins but leaves their
“solution” to the local churches to work out!
The life of these local churches is also analyzed. Catholic life
is, of course, centered on the Eucharist, which creates our communion
with God and with one another in Christ. Eucharistic unity focuses
our concern on the role of the bishop as builder of communion,
the relations between Eastern and Latin dioceses, the ordained
priesthood as a sign of unity, deacons and communities of consecrated
life, the renewal of parishes and the lay faithful, the mission
of Catholic universities and schools, the dignity of women and
the strengthening of families, young people and children, relations
to those outside of Catholic communion. Of itself, a list like
this doesn’t give much life, but it establishes a framework for
examining the relationships which constitute our life as Christ’s
family.
3. Family Life
While I was in Mexico City for the closing of the Synod for America,
Father Michael Boland and I went to Catholic Charities (Caritas)
of the Archdiocese of Mexico City to establish a formal link between
their Catholic Charities and ours. The cities of Chicago and Mexico
City have a “friendship relation” recognized by both governments.
The Archbishop of Mexico City, Norberto Rivera, and I were made
Cardinals together. We would like to begin to implement the Synod
for America by strengthening links between the Catholics of Mexico
City and those of Cook and Lake counties. The first move is to
connect the Charities organizations. What began as a contact for
fostering adoptions is quickly developing into an exchange on
many levels. Father Boland has even become an honorary member
of the Mexican Charities’ Board of Directors (now he has to learn
Spanish)! In fact, we have much to learn here from a truly effective
Catholic Charities organization in Mexico City.
The Synod saw family life inserted into the life of the Church.
Some statistics I received recently from a graduate student at
Princeton University correlate empirically the teachings of the
Church with the health of families, and I will return to them
in a future column. The Pope, however, concludes the Synod document
not with statistics but with a prayer for Christ’s family in America.
He invites us to say it with him:
We thank you Lord Jesus, because the Gospel of the Father’s love,
with which you came to save the world, has been proclaimed far
and wide in America as a gift of the Holy Spirit that fills us
with gladness. We thank you for the gift of your Life, which you
have given us by loving us to the end: your Life makes us children
of God, brothers and sisters to each other. Increase, 0 Lord,
our faith and our love for you, present in all the tabernacles
of the continent. Grant us to be faithful witnesses to your Resurrection
for the younger generation of Americans, so that, in knowing you,
they may follow you and find in you their peace and joy. Only
then will they know that they are brothers and sisters of all
God’s children scattered throughout the world. You who, in becoming
man, chose to belong to a human family, teach families the virtues
which filled with light the family home of Nazareth. May families
always be united, as you and the Father are one, and may they
be living witnesses to love, justice and solidarity; make them
schools of respect, forgiveness and mutual help, so that the world
may believe; help them to be the source of vocations to the priesthood
and the consecrated life, and all the other forms of firm Christian
commitment. Protect your Church and the Successor of Peter, to
whom you, Good Shepherd, have entrusted the task of feeding your
flock. Grant that the Church in America may flourish and grow
richer in the fruits of holiness. Teach us to love your Mother,
Mary, as you loved her. Give us strength to proclaim your word
with courage in the work of the new evangelization, so that the
world may know new hope. Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of America,
pray for us!
Sincerely yours in Christ,
