Awards Carl Anderson With the Lupa Capitolina
- The leader of the U.S.-based Knights of Columbus will be honored by the city of Rome with its Lupa Capitolina award.
Mayor Gianni Alemanno will be on hand Wednesday to present Supreme Knight Carl Anderson with the civic award, which recognizes nearly 90 years of service by the Knights of Columbus in Rome.
In a press statement published ahead of the ceremony, Anderson said he was honored to receive the award on behalf of the Knights of Columbus: "As both the Eternal City and the center of the Catholic Church, Rome has a special place in the hearts of the Knights of Columbus, and we look forward to another 90 years of service in this great city."
In 1920, Pope Benedict XV invited the Knights of Columbus to undertake charitable initiatives in Rome. The Knights began with opening sports facilities for youth, four of which are still running today.
The Knights have undertaken many other projects including restoration projects, paying the cost of satellite uplink for major world satellite telecasts, and sponsoring academic conferences and concerts.
Showing posts with label Knights of Columbus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Knights of Columbus. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Father McGivney Sainthood Cause Advances
Knights of Columbus Founder Witnesses to Pastoral Vocation
- The founder of the Knights of Columbus, Father Michael McGivney, might be closer to recognition as a saint, as an expanded report on a possible miracle has been sent to Rome.
The Knights of Columbus announced in a press release today that on Tuesday, officials of a supplemental tribunal from the Hartford Archdiocese, where Father McGivney served as a parish priest, formally sent the report to the Congregation for Saints' Causes.
Carl Anderson, the supreme knight, as well as a regular ZENIT columnist, explained that this submission "marks an important step forward."
He explained: "The Vatican's congregation for the causes of saints will now have valuable additional testimony that clarifies and adds significantly to the original submission.
"We believe that the congregation will now have all the information it needs to complete its assessment of the case, although of course this review could take several years."
The new report includes additional testimonies and interviews from witnesses and medical doctors who supported the original description of the reported miracle.
Father McGivney founded the knights in 1882, and died in 1890 at age 38. The cause for his sainthood was opened by Archbishop Daniel Cronin of Hartford in 1997. In March 2008, Benedict XVI declared him venerable.
"Father McGivney's beatification would be an important event," Anderson said, "not only for Knights of Columbus, but for the many thousands of parish priests who quietly do the Lord's work in parishes each day and regard him as an outstanding example for priests everywhere."
The supreme knight added, "In this Year for Priests it is an especially appropriate step forward."
- The founder of the Knights of Columbus, Father Michael McGivney, might be closer to recognition as a saint, as an expanded report on a possible miracle has been sent to Rome.
The Knights of Columbus announced in a press release today that on Tuesday, officials of a supplemental tribunal from the Hartford Archdiocese, where Father McGivney served as a parish priest, formally sent the report to the Congregation for Saints' Causes.
Carl Anderson, the supreme knight, as well as a regular ZENIT columnist, explained that this submission "marks an important step forward."
He explained: "The Vatican's congregation for the causes of saints will now have valuable additional testimony that clarifies and adds significantly to the original submission.
"We believe that the congregation will now have all the information it needs to complete its assessment of the case, although of course this review could take several years."
The new report includes additional testimonies and interviews from witnesses and medical doctors who supported the original description of the reported miracle.
Father McGivney founded the knights in 1882, and died in 1890 at age 38. The cause for his sainthood was opened by Archbishop Daniel Cronin of Hartford in 1997. In March 2008, Benedict XVI declared him venerable.
"Father McGivney's beatification would be an important event," Anderson said, "not only for Knights of Columbus, but for the many thousands of parish priests who quietly do the Lord's work in parishes each day and regard him as an outstanding example for priests everywhere."
The supreme knight added, "In this Year for Priests it is an especially appropriate step forward."
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Carl Anderson's Address at Rimini Meeting
"Work to Better the Moral Compass of Business"
- Here is the address Carl A. Anderson, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, gave last week at the Meeting of Friendship Among Peoples held in Rimini, Italy.
* * *
Two years ago, Pope Benedict invited us to live out hope "with works of charity, because hope, like faith, is demonstrated in love."
That love of neighbor, which expresses both faith and hope, is the story of the Knights of Columbus.
When the Venerable Servant of God Father Michael McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus in 1882, he did so as a pastor, concerned about the welfare of the most marginalized.
Widows and orphans in 19th century America didn't have much of a social safety net. If a breadwinner died, his wife and children faced a life of poverty, and the likely dissolution of the family, as children would be divided up among relatives able to support them, or worse, would be sent to state institutions for the indigent.
To make matters worse, Connecticut -- and much of the United States -- harbored a deep hostility to the Catholic Church. Employer discrimination based on an immigrant's Catholic faith was a fact of life.
But the problem wasn't simply a general one to Father McGivney. It was something he had dealt with personally -- and I think that in any discussion of charity, the personal component -- the encounter between us and Christ in the distressing disguise of the marginalized -- if I may paraphrase Mother Teresa -- is often more compelling than the statistics.
Father McGivney knew this first hand, when in early 1882, he put up the money necessary to keep a teenager named Alfred Downes with his family.
The boy's father had died and left a widow and children with no financial resources to speak of. Only Father McGivney's help saved young Alfred from being wrested from his mother and siblings, and put in a state institution. And let's not forget that the state that ran those institutions was quite hostile to the Catholic Church.
Faced with such personal experiences, we can see why this priest was the same man who that very same year, would formally establish the Knights of Columbus.
Father McGivney had several goals in the foundation of the Knights. First and foremost was the protection of the spiritual and temporal welfare of his parishioners.
Spiritually, the men of St. Mary's parish in New Haven needed a Catholic group, a network of faithful men with whom they could associate and have their faith strengthened. McGivney knew that many of his parishioners were tempted to join other fraternal societies -- that were not Catholic -- but which promised both "fraternity" and career advancement -- what we might call "networking."
So Father McGivney saw the Knights as an authentic response to the threats to his flock's faith. Threats made all the more real by the need these men had to feed their families.
On a temporal level as well, Father McGivney was concerned with the welfare of his parishioners. Among other things, as his experience with the Downes' family makes clear, Father McGivney also knew that the safety and security -- as well as a parent's ability to bring up their children Catholic -- could be seriously threatened by the financial upheaval caused by a tragic death.
So -- in a very real way -- the Knights were organized to protect the integrity of the Catholic family and some of the most vulnerable and marginalized people of the time -- widows and orphans.
The Knights were a living example of what Pope Benedict referred to in his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, when he wrote: "The parable of the Good Samaritan offers two particularly important clarifications. Until that time, the concept of ‘neighbor' was understood as referring essentially to one's countrymen and to foreigners who had settled in the land of Israel; in other words, to the closely-knit community of a single country or people. This limit is now abolished. Anyone who needs me, and whom I can help, is my neighbor."
In addition, the choosing of the name "Knights of Columbus" was not accidental. Columbus was chosen as the Order's patron, precisely because he was then one of the only Catholics popularly revered in American history. Linking the organization to a patriotic hero underscored the fact that a man could be a good Catholic and a good American citizen.
As a group committed to the spiritual and temporal welfare of its members, the Order had as its founding principles charity, unity and fraternity. It was the principle of charity -- the first principle of the Knights of Columbus -- that was to become our most defining characteristic.
Knights started by helping their local parish priests -- beginning with Father McGivney himself. They collected money for the family of a deceased member -- a process that grew into one of the most highly rated insurance operations in the United States. They became pillars of their community, and the way they loved their neighbor became a concrete example of Christ's love in the world.
From those humble beginnings, the charitable endeavors of the Knights grew.
When Catholics from Ireland and Italy were marginalized by American immigration laws that excluded them, the Knights of Columbus stood up to the bigotry publically denouncing the laws in question and calling for their reform.
When there was a lack of sufficient accommodation for the spiritual or temporal well-being of Catholic troops in the American military, it was the Knights who stepped forward.
Other religions had service centers that catered to those of one faith or another, but for a Catholic to avail himself of their services meant that he would have to run a gauntlet of proselytizing.
The Knights stepped forward -- at home and in Europe. Caring for the temporal needs of the troops meant running service centers. Unlike those with an overt sectarian agenda run by other non-Catholic religious groups, the Knights' program proclaimed "Everybody Welcome, Everything Free." As a witness to authentic Christian charity, the Knights embraced all as our neighbor.
In fact, though racial tolerance -- let alone acceptance and equality -- was decades away, the Knights were applauded by Emmet J. Scott, the black historian who chronicled African Americans' experiences in World War I. He wrote: "Another organization was of much service in making Negro soldiers comfortable at the front. This was the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic society, which has to its credit that, unlike the other social welfare organizations operating in the war, it never drew the color line."
On a spiritual level, the Knights also provided Catholic chaplains to the troops, supplementing those provided directly by the Army. More than 50 chaplains were sponsored by the Knights. These brave priests risked everything. One heroic example is Father William F. Davitt of Holyoke, Massachusetts, who died in the line of duty on November 11, 1918, the day the war ended. He -- and the others -- had risked their lives to be with the troops, with those most in need, those literally in no-man's-land, but also those whose souls depended on them.
Peacetime offered different challenges. And after the war the Knights commitment to charity continued by providing job training for returning troops.
And having been victims of prejudice as Catholics, and having seen the horrors on the battlefields of the Great War, the Knights continued -- or perhaps I should say pioneered -- work on racial equality. In the 1920s, in keeping with our commitment to the marginalized, we published a series of books on the contributions of racial and ethnic minorities -- including such titles as The Gift of Black Folk, by W.E.B. du Bois, and the Jews in the Making of America, by George Cohen.
At the same time, at the request of the Vatican, the Knights began charitable activity in Rome. In the 1920s, the Knights began to run sports fields for the use of the children of Rome, many of whom did not have access to adequate sporting facilities. Everyone, including the poor were welcome without cost.
Over the years, the commitment to charity remained. During the Great Depression, the Knights ran job boards to help those who were out of work. In the 1940s, it was again the Knights who assisted Canadian troops with Army Huts -- and provided a similar program for Allied troops in the Philippines.
Having done pioneering work on racial equality during the 1920s, it was no surprise that during the 1960s, the Knights were a proud partner of the American civil rights movement. Members of the Knights including then Supreme Knight John McDevitt and Oblate Father William P. Ryan, just to name a few, were outspoken supporters of civil rights.
One story of the Knights work during this period illustrates this work well. In 1964, the Knights threatened to boycott the New Orleans hotel scheduled to hold our convention if the hotel did not repeal its segregationist policies. It immediately integrated. Catholic action in defense of the dignity of the human person had resulted in real change. It had triumphed over prejudice.
As racial bigotry began to diminish, old threats to human dignity remained and new ones began to emerge. One marginalized group with which the Knights began to work very closely in the 1960s was the intellectually disabled. Our work with Special Olympics, for example goes back 40 years, when the Knights began working with the late Eunice Kennedy Shriver, wife of Knight and American statesman Sargent Shriver.
And this work continues to this day as one of the Knights strongest programs.
The Knights of Columbus has worked to build a culture of life since abortion first threatened young life in the womb. The Knights were present at the very birth of the pro-life movement, taking up the cause of those who had no voice, and becoming one of the strongest advocates on their behalf in the years that followed.
But what we have found is that our life cannot be one dimensional. The Knights have worked to support the mothers of children who choose life. Working with the Sisters of Life -- a congregation founded by the late Cardinal John O'Connor of New York, the Knights have sponsored Villa Maria Guadalupe -- a pro-life retreat center and a place of hope for mothers in crisis.
The Knights have also helped to heal the pain of parents of aborted children. Working with Project Rachel, the Knights have sponsored two conferences on the effect of abortion on fathers.
In addition, with the John Paul II Institute in Rome, we sponsored a conference last year on the effect of abortion on parents, and the effect of divorce on children.
Whether locally or nationally, Knights have been defenders of those with no one else to defend them. And it has been this way since our founding.
People often speak of the Church's preferential option for the poor. And we often hear reference to Christ's words that tell us that what we do for the least we do for Him. This is a great part of the reason that the Knights of Columbus have had as a consistent mission an outreach to those on the margins, to those forgotten by society, to those society considers the least!
Today, 127 years after our founding in Connecticut, our ability to practice our principle of charity has grown exponentially. Last year alone Knights donated more than $150 million to charity and provided more than 68 million hours of charitable service -- almost all of which was provided at the local level.
On a weekly basis, our members cook meals for the homeless, help provide for the needs of those with intellectual disabilities, support women in crisis pregnancies, and the children they bring into the world.
The Knights have provided ultrasound machines to crisis pregnancy centers so that they can help a woman see the life inside her -- and choose to love that life. The Knights have worked to care for the men and women who have lost a child to abortion, and are wounded by the experience. The Knights have provided coats, in the dead of winter, for poor children in America's inner cities. In short, we have awakened people to their own humanity, and rediscovered our own. This is what the Knights do today, and what I believe Father McGivney founded us to do.
We have led by example -- not only in our charitable giving -- but also in our ability to run a successful business enterprise based on Catholic social teaching.
We treat customers and employees fairly. Our investment rules prevent us from investing in dozens of companies that violate Catholic teaching in a number of areas, and yet, in one of the worst financial crisis in memory, we turned a solid profit.
In addition, because of our commitment to running our business in a "Catholic" way, the Knights is one of only four US life insurance companies -- and the only one in Canada -- to have achieved the highest rating for financial strength from AM Best and Standard and Poors, and ethical certification from the Insurance Marketplace Standards Association.
I think it is important that each of us work to better the moral compass of business. This can be done in many ways, all of them important. First, we should keep our ethics consistent throughout our life, whether at home or at work, and we should settle for nothing less than ethical behavior from those who work for us. Second, where we invest our money and what companies we choose to partner with is an obvious ethical matter in which we can help to influence the moral compass of various businesses for the better.
As we face the worst economic crisis of our lifetime, we should remember that the worst of human nature -- greed -- has been diagnosed as a large part of the cause. Many lost sight of the importance of unity -- of communion -- with their neighbors. And we must look to the best of humanity -- to generosity, solidarity, and communion -- with our neighbor as the prescription. A business model based on the understanding of the dignity of each person, and on our responsibility to our neighbor cannot help but be an ethical one. We must work to replace Cain's motivation, with the Good Samaritan's in every aspect of our lives, and especially in business relationships. Only in this way -- as the Pope makes clear in his recent encyclical Caritas in Veritate -- will development be truly sustainable.
And we have also gone out of our way to witness to other organizations on the good that can be done in service to our neighbor.
This past year, the Knights organized a summit on volunteerism as a response to the economic crisis. The Knights shared -- and had others share -- the good that we are able to do in our communities with dozens of organization from around the United States. We brought together organizations such as the Salvation Army, the United Way, Catholic Charities, and General Electric -- all committed to working together for the good and dignity of those in need.
In each of these cases, as with so much of what we do, the service has been to those most in need -- whether that need is temporary, long-term, or permanent.
I believe that Catholics -- and Catholic organizations and movements -- have an excellent opportunity to reach out both to other Catholics, and to the world at large, through charity. As Christians, Christ has called us to be known by the "way we love one another," and the leadership we can exert can be a great force for good. At the Knights of Columbus we have built great and lasting relationships and have been able to exponentially multiply the good that we do by working together with other groups -- at our summit -- and long before that with Special Olympics, the American Wheelchair Mission, Habitat for Humanity, Catholic Charities, and many others. We have also worked closely, since our founding, with the Catholic Church at every level: within our parishes, our dioceses and with the Holy Father. By putting ourselves at the service of Church and community -- and by working in and with both, we are better able to answer Christ's call to love our neighbor, and by our example to teach all nations.
Such cooperation -- communion if you will -- with the Church and with other organizations striving to do good, is, I believe, an excellent model for Catholic movements as they seek to transform the world by encouraging people to say "yes" to Jesus Christ. And nowhere is the face of our Church more attractive than in our open embrace of our neighbor. Each encounter with those in need is actually an opportunity to create a civilization of love, one person, one act at a time.
But sometimes statistics and the sheer volume of good works can make the practical effect hard to visualize. What makes an organization like ours work -- and keep on working for more than 127 years -- is the effect of each event, each encounter between a member and his neighbor. Both are changed, but the change for the one giving help is often the more profound.
In my role as Supreme Knight, I must admit that what moves me most are those moments when I can see first-hand the effect of our work.
It's not the millions of dollars and hours donated. It's not the number of projects. As Pope Benedict reminds us often, it's not about numbers at all. It's about saying "yes" to Jesus Christ in service to our neighbor -- It's seeing the face of Christ in the face of each person who needs our help.
Every so often this point is driven home for me very clearly. A couple of years ago, I was in Mexico City to help with a distribution of wheelchairs to the handicapped of that city, who were too poor to buy their own.
The experience of giving mobility to a person who previously had to drag him or herself across concrete and dirt is indescribable. And the contribution to the dignity of the person that you have helped support is inescapable.
One of the people I gave a wheelchair to was a young girl named Funy. She wrote a letter in which she called the Knights her "precious treasures," and her "Angels." As my wife Dorian and I lifted her into her chair, our gift in support of her dignity was clear. She was from Mexico City, we were from Connecticut, but we were neighbors.
This is the sort of experience that our members have millions of times each year as they serve their neighbor in councils, drawn into communion with their brother knights, and also with their own community, in prayerful service to God and neighbor. Our members -- through their faith and work together for their neighbor -- actively underscore Pope Benedict's words that "Communion always and inseparably has both a vertical and a horizontal sense: it is communion with God and communion with our brothers and sisters" (Sacramentum Caritatis, 76).
For this reason, the Knights root charity in devotion to the Eucharist and to the Blessed Virgin Mary. For Christ's summation of the commandments was that we love God first, then our neighbor as ourselves.
Take two of our principles. Unity -- that communion we have with each other, the parish, the community and the Church -- and in these ways with God himself, and charity -- where we encounter Christ and by giving of ourselves together with our brother Knights.
Not only do we encounter Christ in those we help, we also further strengthen our unity, and in this way provide our members with a strong "formation" through works of charity.
The experience of our charitable work makes clear to us what Pope Benedict wrote when he said: "There is no ordering of the State so just that it can eliminate the need for a service of love. Whoever wants to eliminate love is preparing to eliminate man as such. There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and help. There will always be loneliness. There will always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love of neighbor is indispensable."
Our members -- seeing Christ in their neighbor, and seeking communion with him -- are thus active in what the Pope has emphasized in his most recent encyclical as charity in truth -- "an authentic gift of self" that goes beyond the mere social work that can be done by a state.
Fortified by the Eucharist, and in communion with the Church and our fellow Knights, our charity brings us into communion with Christ in his various distressing disguises. It is faith in action -- concretely, not abstractly -- and through this action we encounter Christ himself in the form of those seen as the "least" of our neighbors by society. Our understanding of the Christian event is thus contextualized through charity.
Charity is as indispensible for those of us giving, as it is for those who receive, for each charitable act speaks the very language of faith and hope, and each time that language is spoken, it builds up a civilization of love.
- Here is the address Carl A. Anderson, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, gave last week at the Meeting of Friendship Among Peoples held in Rimini, Italy.
* * *
Two years ago, Pope Benedict invited us to live out hope "with works of charity, because hope, like faith, is demonstrated in love."
That love of neighbor, which expresses both faith and hope, is the story of the Knights of Columbus.
When the Venerable Servant of God Father Michael McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus in 1882, he did so as a pastor, concerned about the welfare of the most marginalized.
Widows and orphans in 19th century America didn't have much of a social safety net. If a breadwinner died, his wife and children faced a life of poverty, and the likely dissolution of the family, as children would be divided up among relatives able to support them, or worse, would be sent to state institutions for the indigent.
To make matters worse, Connecticut -- and much of the United States -- harbored a deep hostility to the Catholic Church. Employer discrimination based on an immigrant's Catholic faith was a fact of life.
But the problem wasn't simply a general one to Father McGivney. It was something he had dealt with personally -- and I think that in any discussion of charity, the personal component -- the encounter between us and Christ in the distressing disguise of the marginalized -- if I may paraphrase Mother Teresa -- is often more compelling than the statistics.
Father McGivney knew this first hand, when in early 1882, he put up the money necessary to keep a teenager named Alfred Downes with his family.
The boy's father had died and left a widow and children with no financial resources to speak of. Only Father McGivney's help saved young Alfred from being wrested from his mother and siblings, and put in a state institution. And let's not forget that the state that ran those institutions was quite hostile to the Catholic Church.
Faced with such personal experiences, we can see why this priest was the same man who that very same year, would formally establish the Knights of Columbus.
Father McGivney had several goals in the foundation of the Knights. First and foremost was the protection of the spiritual and temporal welfare of his parishioners.
Spiritually, the men of St. Mary's parish in New Haven needed a Catholic group, a network of faithful men with whom they could associate and have their faith strengthened. McGivney knew that many of his parishioners were tempted to join other fraternal societies -- that were not Catholic -- but which promised both "fraternity" and career advancement -- what we might call "networking."
So Father McGivney saw the Knights as an authentic response to the threats to his flock's faith. Threats made all the more real by the need these men had to feed their families.
On a temporal level as well, Father McGivney was concerned with the welfare of his parishioners. Among other things, as his experience with the Downes' family makes clear, Father McGivney also knew that the safety and security -- as well as a parent's ability to bring up their children Catholic -- could be seriously threatened by the financial upheaval caused by a tragic death.
So -- in a very real way -- the Knights were organized to protect the integrity of the Catholic family and some of the most vulnerable and marginalized people of the time -- widows and orphans.
The Knights were a living example of what Pope Benedict referred to in his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, when he wrote: "The parable of the Good Samaritan offers two particularly important clarifications. Until that time, the concept of ‘neighbor' was understood as referring essentially to one's countrymen and to foreigners who had settled in the land of Israel; in other words, to the closely-knit community of a single country or people. This limit is now abolished. Anyone who needs me, and whom I can help, is my neighbor."
In addition, the choosing of the name "Knights of Columbus" was not accidental. Columbus was chosen as the Order's patron, precisely because he was then one of the only Catholics popularly revered in American history. Linking the organization to a patriotic hero underscored the fact that a man could be a good Catholic and a good American citizen.
As a group committed to the spiritual and temporal welfare of its members, the Order had as its founding principles charity, unity and fraternity. It was the principle of charity -- the first principle of the Knights of Columbus -- that was to become our most defining characteristic.
Knights started by helping their local parish priests -- beginning with Father McGivney himself. They collected money for the family of a deceased member -- a process that grew into one of the most highly rated insurance operations in the United States. They became pillars of their community, and the way they loved their neighbor became a concrete example of Christ's love in the world.
From those humble beginnings, the charitable endeavors of the Knights grew.
When Catholics from Ireland and Italy were marginalized by American immigration laws that excluded them, the Knights of Columbus stood up to the bigotry publically denouncing the laws in question and calling for their reform.
When there was a lack of sufficient accommodation for the spiritual or temporal well-being of Catholic troops in the American military, it was the Knights who stepped forward.
Other religions had service centers that catered to those of one faith or another, but for a Catholic to avail himself of their services meant that he would have to run a gauntlet of proselytizing.
The Knights stepped forward -- at home and in Europe. Caring for the temporal needs of the troops meant running service centers. Unlike those with an overt sectarian agenda run by other non-Catholic religious groups, the Knights' program proclaimed "Everybody Welcome, Everything Free." As a witness to authentic Christian charity, the Knights embraced all as our neighbor.
In fact, though racial tolerance -- let alone acceptance and equality -- was decades away, the Knights were applauded by Emmet J. Scott, the black historian who chronicled African Americans' experiences in World War I. He wrote: "Another organization was of much service in making Negro soldiers comfortable at the front. This was the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic society, which has to its credit that, unlike the other social welfare organizations operating in the war, it never drew the color line."
On a spiritual level, the Knights also provided Catholic chaplains to the troops, supplementing those provided directly by the Army. More than 50 chaplains were sponsored by the Knights. These brave priests risked everything. One heroic example is Father William F. Davitt of Holyoke, Massachusetts, who died in the line of duty on November 11, 1918, the day the war ended. He -- and the others -- had risked their lives to be with the troops, with those most in need, those literally in no-man's-land, but also those whose souls depended on them.
Peacetime offered different challenges. And after the war the Knights commitment to charity continued by providing job training for returning troops.
And having been victims of prejudice as Catholics, and having seen the horrors on the battlefields of the Great War, the Knights continued -- or perhaps I should say pioneered -- work on racial equality. In the 1920s, in keeping with our commitment to the marginalized, we published a series of books on the contributions of racial and ethnic minorities -- including such titles as The Gift of Black Folk, by W.E.B. du Bois, and the Jews in the Making of America, by George Cohen.
At the same time, at the request of the Vatican, the Knights began charitable activity in Rome. In the 1920s, the Knights began to run sports fields for the use of the children of Rome, many of whom did not have access to adequate sporting facilities. Everyone, including the poor were welcome without cost.
Over the years, the commitment to charity remained. During the Great Depression, the Knights ran job boards to help those who were out of work. In the 1940s, it was again the Knights who assisted Canadian troops with Army Huts -- and provided a similar program for Allied troops in the Philippines.
Having done pioneering work on racial equality during the 1920s, it was no surprise that during the 1960s, the Knights were a proud partner of the American civil rights movement. Members of the Knights including then Supreme Knight John McDevitt and Oblate Father William P. Ryan, just to name a few, were outspoken supporters of civil rights.
One story of the Knights work during this period illustrates this work well. In 1964, the Knights threatened to boycott the New Orleans hotel scheduled to hold our convention if the hotel did not repeal its segregationist policies. It immediately integrated. Catholic action in defense of the dignity of the human person had resulted in real change. It had triumphed over prejudice.
As racial bigotry began to diminish, old threats to human dignity remained and new ones began to emerge. One marginalized group with which the Knights began to work very closely in the 1960s was the intellectually disabled. Our work with Special Olympics, for example goes back 40 years, when the Knights began working with the late Eunice Kennedy Shriver, wife of Knight and American statesman Sargent Shriver.
And this work continues to this day as one of the Knights strongest programs.
The Knights of Columbus has worked to build a culture of life since abortion first threatened young life in the womb. The Knights were present at the very birth of the pro-life movement, taking up the cause of those who had no voice, and becoming one of the strongest advocates on their behalf in the years that followed.
But what we have found is that our life cannot be one dimensional. The Knights have worked to support the mothers of children who choose life. Working with the Sisters of Life -- a congregation founded by the late Cardinal John O'Connor of New York, the Knights have sponsored Villa Maria Guadalupe -- a pro-life retreat center and a place of hope for mothers in crisis.
The Knights have also helped to heal the pain of parents of aborted children. Working with Project Rachel, the Knights have sponsored two conferences on the effect of abortion on fathers.
In addition, with the John Paul II Institute in Rome, we sponsored a conference last year on the effect of abortion on parents, and the effect of divorce on children.
Whether locally or nationally, Knights have been defenders of those with no one else to defend them. And it has been this way since our founding.
People often speak of the Church's preferential option for the poor. And we often hear reference to Christ's words that tell us that what we do for the least we do for Him. This is a great part of the reason that the Knights of Columbus have had as a consistent mission an outreach to those on the margins, to those forgotten by society, to those society considers the least!
Today, 127 years after our founding in Connecticut, our ability to practice our principle of charity has grown exponentially. Last year alone Knights donated more than $150 million to charity and provided more than 68 million hours of charitable service -- almost all of which was provided at the local level.
On a weekly basis, our members cook meals for the homeless, help provide for the needs of those with intellectual disabilities, support women in crisis pregnancies, and the children they bring into the world.
The Knights have provided ultrasound machines to crisis pregnancy centers so that they can help a woman see the life inside her -- and choose to love that life. The Knights have worked to care for the men and women who have lost a child to abortion, and are wounded by the experience. The Knights have provided coats, in the dead of winter, for poor children in America's inner cities. In short, we have awakened people to their own humanity, and rediscovered our own. This is what the Knights do today, and what I believe Father McGivney founded us to do.
We have led by example -- not only in our charitable giving -- but also in our ability to run a successful business enterprise based on Catholic social teaching.
We treat customers and employees fairly. Our investment rules prevent us from investing in dozens of companies that violate Catholic teaching in a number of areas, and yet, in one of the worst financial crisis in memory, we turned a solid profit.
In addition, because of our commitment to running our business in a "Catholic" way, the Knights is one of only four US life insurance companies -- and the only one in Canada -- to have achieved the highest rating for financial strength from AM Best and Standard and Poors, and ethical certification from the Insurance Marketplace Standards Association.
I think it is important that each of us work to better the moral compass of business. This can be done in many ways, all of them important. First, we should keep our ethics consistent throughout our life, whether at home or at work, and we should settle for nothing less than ethical behavior from those who work for us. Second, where we invest our money and what companies we choose to partner with is an obvious ethical matter in which we can help to influence the moral compass of various businesses for the better.
As we face the worst economic crisis of our lifetime, we should remember that the worst of human nature -- greed -- has been diagnosed as a large part of the cause. Many lost sight of the importance of unity -- of communion -- with their neighbors. And we must look to the best of humanity -- to generosity, solidarity, and communion -- with our neighbor as the prescription. A business model based on the understanding of the dignity of each person, and on our responsibility to our neighbor cannot help but be an ethical one. We must work to replace Cain's motivation, with the Good Samaritan's in every aspect of our lives, and especially in business relationships. Only in this way -- as the Pope makes clear in his recent encyclical Caritas in Veritate -- will development be truly sustainable.
And we have also gone out of our way to witness to other organizations on the good that can be done in service to our neighbor.
This past year, the Knights organized a summit on volunteerism as a response to the economic crisis. The Knights shared -- and had others share -- the good that we are able to do in our communities with dozens of organization from around the United States. We brought together organizations such as the Salvation Army, the United Way, Catholic Charities, and General Electric -- all committed to working together for the good and dignity of those in need.
In each of these cases, as with so much of what we do, the service has been to those most in need -- whether that need is temporary, long-term, or permanent.
I believe that Catholics -- and Catholic organizations and movements -- have an excellent opportunity to reach out both to other Catholics, and to the world at large, through charity. As Christians, Christ has called us to be known by the "way we love one another," and the leadership we can exert can be a great force for good. At the Knights of Columbus we have built great and lasting relationships and have been able to exponentially multiply the good that we do by working together with other groups -- at our summit -- and long before that with Special Olympics, the American Wheelchair Mission, Habitat for Humanity, Catholic Charities, and many others. We have also worked closely, since our founding, with the Catholic Church at every level: within our parishes, our dioceses and with the Holy Father. By putting ourselves at the service of Church and community -- and by working in and with both, we are better able to answer Christ's call to love our neighbor, and by our example to teach all nations.
Such cooperation -- communion if you will -- with the Church and with other organizations striving to do good, is, I believe, an excellent model for Catholic movements as they seek to transform the world by encouraging people to say "yes" to Jesus Christ. And nowhere is the face of our Church more attractive than in our open embrace of our neighbor. Each encounter with those in need is actually an opportunity to create a civilization of love, one person, one act at a time.
But sometimes statistics and the sheer volume of good works can make the practical effect hard to visualize. What makes an organization like ours work -- and keep on working for more than 127 years -- is the effect of each event, each encounter between a member and his neighbor. Both are changed, but the change for the one giving help is often the more profound.
In my role as Supreme Knight, I must admit that what moves me most are those moments when I can see first-hand the effect of our work.
It's not the millions of dollars and hours donated. It's not the number of projects. As Pope Benedict reminds us often, it's not about numbers at all. It's about saying "yes" to Jesus Christ in service to our neighbor -- It's seeing the face of Christ in the face of each person who needs our help.
Every so often this point is driven home for me very clearly. A couple of years ago, I was in Mexico City to help with a distribution of wheelchairs to the handicapped of that city, who were too poor to buy their own.
The experience of giving mobility to a person who previously had to drag him or herself across concrete and dirt is indescribable. And the contribution to the dignity of the person that you have helped support is inescapable.
One of the people I gave a wheelchair to was a young girl named Funy. She wrote a letter in which she called the Knights her "precious treasures," and her "Angels." As my wife Dorian and I lifted her into her chair, our gift in support of her dignity was clear. She was from Mexico City, we were from Connecticut, but we were neighbors.
This is the sort of experience that our members have millions of times each year as they serve their neighbor in councils, drawn into communion with their brother knights, and also with their own community, in prayerful service to God and neighbor. Our members -- through their faith and work together for their neighbor -- actively underscore Pope Benedict's words that "Communion always and inseparably has both a vertical and a horizontal sense: it is communion with God and communion with our brothers and sisters" (Sacramentum Caritatis, 76).
For this reason, the Knights root charity in devotion to the Eucharist and to the Blessed Virgin Mary. For Christ's summation of the commandments was that we love God first, then our neighbor as ourselves.
Take two of our principles. Unity -- that communion we have with each other, the parish, the community and the Church -- and in these ways with God himself, and charity -- where we encounter Christ and by giving of ourselves together with our brother Knights.
Not only do we encounter Christ in those we help, we also further strengthen our unity, and in this way provide our members with a strong "formation" through works of charity.
The experience of our charitable work makes clear to us what Pope Benedict wrote when he said: "There is no ordering of the State so just that it can eliminate the need for a service of love. Whoever wants to eliminate love is preparing to eliminate man as such. There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and help. There will always be loneliness. There will always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love of neighbor is indispensable."
Our members -- seeing Christ in their neighbor, and seeking communion with him -- are thus active in what the Pope has emphasized in his most recent encyclical as charity in truth -- "an authentic gift of self" that goes beyond the mere social work that can be done by a state.
Fortified by the Eucharist, and in communion with the Church and our fellow Knights, our charity brings us into communion with Christ in his various distressing disguises. It is faith in action -- concretely, not abstractly -- and through this action we encounter Christ himself in the form of those seen as the "least" of our neighbors by society. Our understanding of the Christian event is thus contextualized through charity.
Charity is as indispensible for those of us giving, as it is for those who receive, for each charitable act speaks the very language of faith and hope, and each time that language is spoken, it builds up a civilization of love.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Supreme Knight on Obama-Pope Visit
Marks New Step in US-Vatican Relations
- The first meeting between Benedict XVI and Barack Obama could mark the first step in finding common ground between the U.S. president and the Church on abortion, says the supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus.
"It is obvious that President Obama has a serious interest in engaging in a meaningful dialogue with the Catholic Church, and with Catholics, who make up one fourth of the U.S. population," Carl Anderson said in a press statement released after Barack Obama's visit to the Vatican today.
"President Obama clearly had much to gain from a successful meeting with the Pope," he continued. "Certainly this is another achievement for Vatican and American diplomacy and represents a positive development for those of us who hoped that this meeting might mark a new opportunity in the important relationship between the Catholic Church and U.S. government."
The supreme knight applauded the U.S. president for "showing sensitivity to the growing consensus among the American people favoring the right to life, restriction of abortion, and the protection of conscience."
Anderson articulated five key issues that will "help provide a true gauge of the progress made on achieving common ground with the Catholic community."
The first is the "adoption of a federal conscience clause regulation that gives real protection to Catholic institutions and individuals."
He also noted "health care legislation that does not contain a back door mandate for abortion," and "abortion-reduction programs that respect pro-life crisis pregnancy and teenage abstinence programs."
A fourth issue is the "preservation of the pro-life riders that currently exist in the annual appropriations legislation."
"These riders," Anderson explained, "which restrict federal abortion funding, also raise conscience protection issues, since their removal would force taxpayers to pay for abortions against their conscience."
Finally, he suggested "dropping any attempts to codify by statute the president's rescission of the Mexico City Policy, which allows international abortion funding by the United States."
"This is an important moment," the supreme knight added. "The Pope and the president have laid the foundation for trying to achieve authentic common ground. How we build on this meeting in a constructive way in the months and years ahead is critical."
- The first meeting between Benedict XVI and Barack Obama could mark the first step in finding common ground between the U.S. president and the Church on abortion, says the supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus.
"It is obvious that President Obama has a serious interest in engaging in a meaningful dialogue with the Catholic Church, and with Catholics, who make up one fourth of the U.S. population," Carl Anderson said in a press statement released after Barack Obama's visit to the Vatican today.
"President Obama clearly had much to gain from a successful meeting with the Pope," he continued. "Certainly this is another achievement for Vatican and American diplomacy and represents a positive development for those of us who hoped that this meeting might mark a new opportunity in the important relationship between the Catholic Church and U.S. government."
The supreme knight applauded the U.S. president for "showing sensitivity to the growing consensus among the American people favoring the right to life, restriction of abortion, and the protection of conscience."
Anderson articulated five key issues that will "help provide a true gauge of the progress made on achieving common ground with the Catholic community."
The first is the "adoption of a federal conscience clause regulation that gives real protection to Catholic institutions and individuals."
He also noted "health care legislation that does not contain a back door mandate for abortion," and "abortion-reduction programs that respect pro-life crisis pregnancy and teenage abstinence programs."
A fourth issue is the "preservation of the pro-life riders that currently exist in the annual appropriations legislation."
"These riders," Anderson explained, "which restrict federal abortion funding, also raise conscience protection issues, since their removal would force taxpayers to pay for abortions against their conscience."
Finally, he suggested "dropping any attempts to codify by statute the president's rescission of the Mexico City Policy, which allows international abortion funding by the United States."
"This is an important moment," the supreme knight added. "The Pope and the president have laid the foundation for trying to achieve authentic common ground. How we build on this meeting in a constructive way in the months and years ahead is critical."
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Carl Anderson Launches ZENIT Column
- Carl Anderson, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, is beginning today a biweekly ZENIT column called "Civilization of Love."
The first article, titled "John Paul's Legacy: 4 Years Later," considers a better question than "When will John Paul be beatified."
As supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, Anderson is the chief executive officer and chairman of the board of the world's largest Catholic family fraternal service organization with more than 1.6 million members.
In 1998, Pope John Paul II appointed Anderson to the Pontifical Academy for Life. He was the only layman from North America to serve as an auditor to the 2001 World Synod of Bishops. In 2002, he was appointed a member of the Pontifical Council for the Laity. Later that year he was named by the Holy Father to be a consultor to the Pontifical Council for the Family.
Anderson holds degrees in philosophy from Seattle University (1972) and in law from the University of Denver (1975).
John Paul's Legacy: 4 Years Later
- Lately, rumors of Pope John Paul II's beatification have multiplied. And while there is no official confirmation of a specific date for his beatification, many are hopeful that the cries of "Santo Subito" (sainthood now) heard at his funeral Mass will be realized within a year - or more specifically, on the fifth anniversary of his death.
While no one can accurately predict the timing of any beatification, it seems safe to say that John Paul II - the man Pope Benedict put on the fast-track to sainthood, and whose beatification he publicly prayed for this month - will be beatified, and in record time.
Beatification would be a great reminder of what John Paul stood for, of the totality of his message. But we need not wait for his beatification to remember the man and what he stood for.
Too often, both during his life and after his death, small pieces of his message would be taken up by those who agreed with him on a certain issue. But the totality of his message was often ignored.
The reason for this was simple. John Paul was not "consistent" with any political ideology - both sides of the aisle could find things to agree with and disagree with. But he was perfectly consistent with his faith.
He cared passionately about the dignity of people - all people.
He was a great force in bringing down European Communism, and was outspoken on the faults of Marxism. At the same time, he was also a serious critic of unbridled global capitalism - especially when it victimized workers or kept entire countries in poverty.
He was a tireless defender of human life - of the unborn and those nearing the end of their life.
He also reminded us that all those in the midst of living life -- the intellectually disabled, immigrants or the elderly -- have a right to dignity too, even if some act as if they did not.
He spent much of his life a virtual prisoner in an occupied country, but he traveled the world to proclaim the Gospel.
He was a celibate priest, who wrote beautifully on both the consecrated life and on marriage.
He left us the lasting legacy of a theology of the body - designed to integrate the whole person, body and soul.
He was a mystic, a man who led the Church into the future of the third millennium by apologizing for the mistakes of its past.
He was a young bishop at the Second Vatican Council, and the man who gave us its "authoritative rereading," as his successor Benedict XVI put it in his very first homily as Pope.
He preached a series of Lenten homilies to Pope Paul VI in 1976 - titled Sign of Contradiction - contrasting man's relationship with God to modern life. As Pope, he was this sign.
And consistent in all of this was his defense of the dignity of every human person, born, and unborn, marginalized or lionized.
His message was always pro-person and pro-dignity.
As a result, he came at political issues from a religious perspective; he did not come at religion politically. And it was for this reason that partisans on both sides found his message had something for them - and something else that made them uncomfortable.
As we face divisions even among Catholics on social issues today, we must admit that the reason for these disagreements is that we have not taken to heart John Paul's message of being a people of life and for life and building a culture of life and civilization of love.
Those concepts were not mere words to him. They were not rhetoric designed for political gain; they were, in his words, the splendor of truth.
We should all pause more often to remember these lessons of his pontificate, his writings and his example. We should begin by remembering the man himself, what he said and how he provided us an example in his living, and in his dying.
The lesson from John Paul II's life is that we cannot choose whose human dignity we should affirm, we must choose to affirm all human dignity.
Rather than have politics as our guide, we must have faith and reason as our compass.
The question we should ask isn't "When will John Paul be beatified?" But rather, "When will we follow his example to build a true culture of life and civilization of love?"
* * *
Carl Anderson is the supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus and a New York Times bestselling author. His latest book, "Called to Love: Approaching John Paul II's Theology of the Body," was released this month.
The first article, titled "John Paul's Legacy: 4 Years Later," considers a better question than "When will John Paul be beatified."
As supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, Anderson is the chief executive officer and chairman of the board of the world's largest Catholic family fraternal service organization with more than 1.6 million members.
In 1998, Pope John Paul II appointed Anderson to the Pontifical Academy for Life. He was the only layman from North America to serve as an auditor to the 2001 World Synod of Bishops. In 2002, he was appointed a member of the Pontifical Council for the Laity. Later that year he was named by the Holy Father to be a consultor to the Pontifical Council for the Family.
Anderson holds degrees in philosophy from Seattle University (1972) and in law from the University of Denver (1975).
John Paul's Legacy: 4 Years Later
- Lately, rumors of Pope John Paul II's beatification have multiplied. And while there is no official confirmation of a specific date for his beatification, many are hopeful that the cries of "Santo Subito" (sainthood now) heard at his funeral Mass will be realized within a year - or more specifically, on the fifth anniversary of his death.
While no one can accurately predict the timing of any beatification, it seems safe to say that John Paul II - the man Pope Benedict put on the fast-track to sainthood, and whose beatification he publicly prayed for this month - will be beatified, and in record time.
Beatification would be a great reminder of what John Paul stood for, of the totality of his message. But we need not wait for his beatification to remember the man and what he stood for.
Too often, both during his life and after his death, small pieces of his message would be taken up by those who agreed with him on a certain issue. But the totality of his message was often ignored.
The reason for this was simple. John Paul was not "consistent" with any political ideology - both sides of the aisle could find things to agree with and disagree with. But he was perfectly consistent with his faith.
He cared passionately about the dignity of people - all people.
He was a great force in bringing down European Communism, and was outspoken on the faults of Marxism. At the same time, he was also a serious critic of unbridled global capitalism - especially when it victimized workers or kept entire countries in poverty.
He was a tireless defender of human life - of the unborn and those nearing the end of their life.
He also reminded us that all those in the midst of living life -- the intellectually disabled, immigrants or the elderly -- have a right to dignity too, even if some act as if they did not.
He spent much of his life a virtual prisoner in an occupied country, but he traveled the world to proclaim the Gospel.
He was a celibate priest, who wrote beautifully on both the consecrated life and on marriage.
He left us the lasting legacy of a theology of the body - designed to integrate the whole person, body and soul.
He was a mystic, a man who led the Church into the future of the third millennium by apologizing for the mistakes of its past.
He was a young bishop at the Second Vatican Council, and the man who gave us its "authoritative rereading," as his successor Benedict XVI put it in his very first homily as Pope.
He preached a series of Lenten homilies to Pope Paul VI in 1976 - titled Sign of Contradiction - contrasting man's relationship with God to modern life. As Pope, he was this sign.
And consistent in all of this was his defense of the dignity of every human person, born, and unborn, marginalized or lionized.
His message was always pro-person and pro-dignity.
As a result, he came at political issues from a religious perspective; he did not come at religion politically. And it was for this reason that partisans on both sides found his message had something for them - and something else that made them uncomfortable.
As we face divisions even among Catholics on social issues today, we must admit that the reason for these disagreements is that we have not taken to heart John Paul's message of being a people of life and for life and building a culture of life and civilization of love.
Those concepts were not mere words to him. They were not rhetoric designed for political gain; they were, in his words, the splendor of truth.
We should all pause more often to remember these lessons of his pontificate, his writings and his example. We should begin by remembering the man himself, what he said and how he provided us an example in his living, and in his dying.
The lesson from John Paul II's life is that we cannot choose whose human dignity we should affirm, we must choose to affirm all human dignity.
Rather than have politics as our guide, we must have faith and reason as our compass.
The question we should ask isn't "When will John Paul be beatified?" But rather, "When will we follow his example to build a true culture of life and civilization of love?"
* * *
Carl Anderson is the supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus and a New York Times bestselling author. His latest book, "Called to Love: Approaching John Paul II's Theology of the Body," was released this month.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Anderson's Address to Family Meeting
"Solidarity Is Grounded in the Mystery of the Triune God"
Here is the text of the address given today by Carl Anderson, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, at the 6th World Meeting of Families, under way in Mexico.
* * *
I. INTRODUCTION:
Today, speaking of the Christian family and solidarity may seem obvious. We've spoke of the family and justice, social issues, truth, and freedom - solidarity seems a natural progression. However, to speak of the Christian family and solidarity together at an earlier time would have seemed radical and even contradictory. As Cardinal Ratzinger once noted, while other unitive terms like Eucharist and Communion are expressly Christian, solidarity "comes to us from outside .... developed initially among the early socialists by Pierre Leroux ... in contraposition to the Christian idea of love, as the new, rational and effective response to social problems."[1]
Leroux had abandoned the religion of Christianity and to compensate, he developed the idea of a new "religion of humanity". And although many do not consciously follow Leroux's idea of a "religion of humanity" as the basis of solidarity, solidarity and the unity of the human race is often divorced from God and the "Christian idea of love". Thus it is important to understand how John Paul II purified the concept of solidarity, even to the point of describing solidarity as "undoubtedly a Christian virtue" which "finds its deepest roots in Christian faith" and "is expressed in Christian love."[2]
Many saints canonized by John Paul II exhibited this Christian virtue of solidarity. But few inspired Karol Wojtyla as priest and as pope especially in regard to his understanding of Christian brotherhood than Adam Chmielowski of Krakow -- who the world knows now as Saint Brother Albert. Not only did the pope preach over forty homilies on Brother Albert, but even earlier, while a secret seminarian and a worker in the Solvay chemical plant, he composed a play on this saintly artist's devotion to the poor. The play's title is Our God's Brother, and it already sets up the question of family and humanity. At one point in the play, Adam's concern for the poor is questioned by his friend Max. Adam's charitable work is uncharacteristic of Adam's artistic vocation according to Max. His friend is also confused that Adam cannot bring himself to ignore the poor and get on with his real work as a painter. Max says:
"Of course, it must be running away from responsibility....
[H]ow can I be made responsible for a citizen who has wasted his life and is now at the bottom?"
But Adam contradicts him. His work with the poor is not a running away from reality and his vocation, but is a running toward it. He says:
"You still think, Max, that the pattern of human poverty corresponds to the pattern of punishment...But this is not just running away from responsibility. It is running away from something, or rather someone, in oneself and in all those people."[3]
Today, solidarity encounters the same problems of withdrawal and confusion. Solidarity may seem unattractive when it is seen as a reward for behavior rather than as a response to personhood -- of a necessary correspondence between persons. Sometimes, even when we commit ourselves to acts of solidarity, we may be confused by the draw to compassion. But the answer to both problems can be seen in the need to see the truth about the human person -- the "someone in oneself and in all those people" -- that binds us together.
II. Communion of Persons
For this reason, four decades after writing Our God's Brother, John Paul II describes "solidarity" in his encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis in terms of unity. He writes: "Beyond human and natural bonds, already so close and strong, there is discerned in the light of faith a new model of the unity of the human race, which must ultimately inspire our solidarity. This supreme model of unity," John Paul continues, "which is a reflection of the intimate life of God, one God in three Persons, is what we Christians mean by the word 'communion.'"[4]
Especially in this context and gathered so near to the great Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, we remember John Paul II's visit to Mexico City to give us the post-synodal apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in America. This great document, which celebrates its tenth anniversary, next week, takes as its subtitle, "On the encounter with the living Jesus Christ: The Way to Conversion, Communion and Solidarity in America.[5] In it he writes that just as communion is the fruit of conversion, so "solidarity is ... the fruit of the communion which is grounded in the mystery of the triune God, and in the Son of God who took flesh and died for all. It is expressed in Christian love which seeks the good of others, especially of those most in need."[6]
John Paul II's early general audiences on Genesis (which came to be known as the Wednesday Catechesis on the Theology of the Body) made great inroads in understanding man as a being created for communion. According to the pope, "man became the 'image and likeness' of the triune God not only through his own person, but also as a person intended to form a communion of persons-a communion which man and woman form right from the beginning."[7] In other words, to be made in the image of God is not simply to be fashioned as such, but to function as an image of God - that is, to be ontologically destined to a life of loving communion with others. This is the foundation of the civilization of love; moreover, this Christian anthropology provides such an understanding of man that makes the call to build a civilization of love not only a feasible option, but the most necessary fulfillment of our humanity.
III. Benedict XVI and John Paul II on Interdependence
Nevertheless, such a view of the person may be seen by some as too theological or religious or too idealistic and removed from daily life, making it irrelevant. And as Marcello Pera has pointed out, today "people no longer believe in 'ultimate' foundations; they no longer dream of essences."[8] Consequently, we find ourselves depending more and more on different facets of this communion to convey the message. One of the tangible facets of communion that are at stake is loving interdependence. In Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, John Paul II declared there is a "need for a solidarity which will take up interdependence and transfer it to the moral plane."
In Mulieris Dignitatem John Paul II saw this in Adam's solitary search for not only a companion but a helpmate: "In the 'unity of the two', man and woman are called from the beginning not only to exist 'side by side' or 'together', but they are also called to exist mutually 'one for the other'."[9] Benedict XVI takes this further. In Adam and Eve's relationship, being with each other can be understood most fully in context of being from.
This constitutes another facet of the imago Dei which we discover in the human person. In addition to St. Augustine's understanding of an "interior" trinity of intellect, will and spirit within man, and contributing to John Paul II's "social" trinity among men, Cardinal Ratzinger presented the imago Dei as a trinity of "being." He writes: "The real God is by his very nature entirely being-for (Father), being-from (Son), and being-with (Holy Spirit). Man, for his part, is God's image precisely insofar as the "from," "with," and "for" constitute the fundamental anthropological pattern."[10]
Human love and interdependence cannot be understood only at a horizontal level. When it is, it is often reduced to mutual dependence or even mutual usury. Rather, human love and interdependence is enlightened by our common vertical interdependence, a dependence between persons made apparent first in a relationship with those who gave us life. In this, Benedict XVI's elucidation I believe provides us with great inroads in understanding and defending solidarity, both within the family and beyond the family.
The Biblical foundations are explored in John Paul II's general audience catechesis on the Theology of the Body, when he points to the fact that God's design for man is expressed even before man is created.[11] As Genesis says, "Then God said, 'let us make man in our own image.'"[12] This intentionality simultaneously sets man apart from the rest of creation and establishes the intimate connection between God and man. As John Paul II notes, it is "as if the Creator entered into himself; as if, creating, not only did he call things into existence from nothingness...but, as if, in a special way, he drew man from the mystery of his own Being."[13] Consequently, man "must not be understood as a portrait, but as a living being, who will live a life similar to that of God."[14]
In his solitude, Adam begins to see how to live a life similar to God's life, a life that necessitates a communion of persons. But even more, when tested with solitude, Adam compares himself not with the animals he shares the world with. He looks to the creator, and compares himself with God. In this he finds that "man resembles God more than nature."[15] The importance of origins is reflected in the words of Adam in the second creation account, when Adam recognizes Eve, exclaiming "This now is bone from my bones, and flesh from my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken from man."[16]
In the family, the human person is revealed from the beginning as interdependent. Cardinal Ratzinger presented this idea when speaking of pregnancy and abortion. Within the womb, the child's life depends upon being with the mother. But like Adam, mere presence is not enough, and in pregnancy, the child's presence with the mother necessitates the mother's goodness. "This being-with compels the being of the other ... to become a being-for." In this, "the child in the mother's womb is simply a very graphic depiction of the essence of human existence in general."
This fundamental human reality of "being-for" for the other applies as much to physically matured persons as it does to the child. Even so, the importance of the continuity of love comes through in other areas of life. On the genetic level, this is obvious in how each child resembles the mother and father. On the personal level, this is recognized by each mother and father who immediately after birth tries to identify those similarities. It is recognized by the children born as the result of anonymous donors who try to find their anonymous fathers. Its confusion was expressed, symbolically, when the mother of the first Chinese child born from in vitro fertilization gave her daughter not only the mother's own name, but the name of the doctor who performed the procedure.[17]
IV. Without Roots
The truth is this: although a person can be isolated socially and geographically from other people, no person can survive without entrusting himself to individuals and community. For this reason, true autonomy cannot exist; nor is it an ideal to aspire to. "Whenever there is an attempt to free ourselves from this pattern, we are not on our way to divinity, but to dehumanization, to the destruction of being itself through the destruction of the truth."[18]
When Marcello Pera lamented that "people no longer believe in 'ultimate' foundations", it was in the context of lamenting Europe's detachment from its historical and moral Christian. But this detachment from foundations is part of a more fundamental detachment seen also at the level of the person, especially within the family. Through divorce, abandonment, and some uses of fertility technology, parenthood is separated from presence. That is, for many children today being from a parent no longer means being with a parent and thus no longer means having a parent present being for that child. Likewise, parenthood is separated from marriage, when being with a spouse is separated from the openness of a child being from the couple. The result is what Carle Zimmerman described as the "atomistic family."
Nine months ago, one son recently published his diary from the weeks leading up to his mother's choice to end her life through assisted suicide. When the doctor doubted that her pain was "unbearable" - the third and last requirement for euthanasia - the conversation of mother and son quickly evolves into a distressing fragmentation of love and life. Recounting the situation, her son writes, Mum puts her coffee down. "Well, I have to die anyway, don't I?" Then she asks us what we think.
I interrupt: "It should be your own decision. None of us is to say anything."
But Mum struggles to say she wants to die. Eventually I say, "I think what she finds unbearable is not so much her pain and sickness, but the fear of it getting worse and of losing control."
When [Doctor] Martin is finally satisfied that Mum wants to end it, he agrees to contact the second doctor. He leaves with an empathetic nod to us all."[19]
This is not the empathy or interdependence in the foundation of a civilization of love. True sympathy or compassion - in the truest sense of either of those words - is to suffer with. Moreover, this decisiveness, this silence, this measure of life is not the foundation of any civilization.
This dying mother's decision was ultimately supported by the value of individual autonomy and the fear "of losing control." But although autonomy is an important value - it is not the most important. More important than autonomy is community - especially that special community which is also a communion of persons. And at the foundation of community is appreciation, gratitude and respect for the gift and dignity of human life.
Perhaps what this mother longed to hear, needed to hear was something entirely different than, "It should be your own decision. None of us is to say anything." Perhaps, what she longed to hear from her children was, "We love you. We need you. Stay with us." Where the family values a life in existence as a good, there can be a society and a civilization that values a life in existence as a good. But this can only happen if families themselves are not closed in on themselves. In this, autonomy of individuals and families cannot be treated as the principle or only value.
Solidarity's role in and through the family is more than just another "social virtue" along with "truth, freedom, justice, subsidiarity and...charity."[20] If solidarity's future must be built upon this communion of persons, the champion of this communion is first and foremost the family - not only as a teacher of social virtues, but as the first model of the Trinitarian communion of persons. It is there that we not only find the family present in solidarity, but indeed its vital model and its nucleus. For this reason, John Paul II said "we cannot speak of solidarity in the modern community without also mentioning family life."[21] Without solidarity within the family, there can be no solidarity beyond the family. Without an understanding and protection of the family, there can be no easy understanding of the human family that is society, the Christian family that is the Church, or the family of families that is the parish.
V. Challenged by Childhood
In John Paul II's first apostolic journey, he came to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and called us to a new evangelization, beginning by preaching the truth about the human person. In Benedict XVI's first apostolic journey to the Marian Shrine at Aparecida, he called us to build not only a Continent of Hope throughout our hemisphere but to build a Continent of Love. And now, we await our Holy Father's next encyclical, entitled "Caritas in Veritate" ("Love in Truth"), addressing social issues and globalization. As we prepare, we should take time to examine not only the condition of our countries and our continents, but also of our families. In her Nobel Prize address, Mother Teresa famously used the refrain "love begins at home."[22] What kind of foundation for solidarity is there, if it is not present within the family, with the presence of children whose very existence depends on the goodness of others?
For example, an international poll conducted by the Gallup polling institute asked people if children in their country are treated with dignity and respect. In Latin America as a whole, about 60 percent of respondents said no. In Haiti, this rose to nearly 90% saying children are not treated with dignity and respect.[23] Several questions come to mind. How are these children treated that indicated a disregard for dignity and respect? Why are they not treated with dignity and respect? And, importantly, does this treatment change? At what age will children be treated with respect, if ever? And when these children grow up, will they in turn know how to treat others with dignity and respect?
But a more fundamental question is necessary today in this place so close to Tepeyac hill. How is this treatment of children possible in a continent where so many know by heart the words of Blessed Mary of Guadalupe: "Am I not here, who am your mother? Are you not under my protection? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not in the fold of my mantle, in the cradle of my arms?"[24]
And were not these words addressed to a layman who was concerned for the health and welfare of his family?
In Ecclesia in America, John Paul II writes in chapter 5 entitled, "The Path to Solidarity" that, "The human being's dignity as a child of God is the source of human rights."[25] But when we read these words we must ask, "How are we to recognize the dignity of our neighbor as "a child of God" if we have no regard for the children we find around us?"
John Paul II has observed that nothing can replace the heart of a mother always present and waiting in her home. But it is also true when he writes that, "A family rests on a father. If it has a father, it is a family. The father is the one who ties the family members into that unity whose name is family."[26] The family must be community in which both mother and father accept and live their responsibility. And it must be a community in solidarity with those whose own community of family is broken or wounded.
In this way the Christian family may walk the path of true solidarity and make its own the words of Ecclesia in America: "Solidarity is grounded in the mystery of the triune God, and in the Son of God who took flesh and died for all. It is expressed in Christian love which seeks the good of others, especially of those most in need."[27]
Thank you.
[1] Ratzinger, "Eucharist, Communion, and Solidarity", Lecture at the Bishops' Conference of Campania in Benevento, Italy, June 2, 2002. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20020602_ratzinger-eucharistic-congress_en.html
[2] John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, §40; ibid; Ecclesia in America,§52, quoting Propositio §67.
[3] Karol Wojtyla. "Our God's Brother". The Collected Plays and Writings on Theater. Translated by Boleslaw Taborwski. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Pg. 182.
[4] John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, §52.
[5] John Paul II, Ecclesia in America, given at Mexico City, January 22, in the year 1999, the twenty-first of his Pontificate.
[6] John Paul II, Ecclesia in America, §52. Quoting Propositio §67.
[7] John Paul II, General Audience, November 14, 1979.
[8] Marcello Pera, "Relativism, Christianity, and the West", Without Roots, pg. 19.
[9] John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, §7.
[10] Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal."Truth and Freedom", Communio: International Catholic Review, Spring 1996 issue.
[11] John Paul II, General Audience, 1979. §
[12] Genesis 1
[13] John Paul II, General Audience, December 6, 1978. §2.
[14] John Paul II, General Audience, December 6, 1978. §2.
[15] John Paul II, General Audience, December 6, 1978. §3.
[16] Genesis 2 - accentuated in the Hebrew using not "of" but "from" - as word also used for distance and origin, not mere similarity.
[17] Zheng Mengzhu. Zheng (mother's name), Meng ("first"), Zhu (from doctor's last name, Lizhu).
[18] Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal."Truth and Freedom", Communio: International Catholic Review, Spring 1996 issue.
[19] Marc Weide, Diary of terminally ill woman who chose euthanasia. "'I'm going to die on Monday at 6.15pm': When Marc Weide's mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she chose euthanasia. Here, we publish his shockingly frank diary of her final days". The Guardian, Saturday 23 August 2008 http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/aug/23/euthanasia.cancer
[20] John Paul II, Address to the Members of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Friday, May 2, 2003.
[21] John Paul II, Homily at the Globe Stadium, Pastoral Journey to Norway, Iceland, Finland, Denmark and Sweden. Stockholm, Sweden, June 8, 1989. §6.
[22] Mother Teresa, Nobel Lecture, for the Nobel Peace Prize 1979, 11 December, 1979. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1979/teresa-lecture.html
[23] http://www.gallup.com/poll/106507/Latin-Americans-Dignity-Denied-Regions-Youth.aspx
[24] Nican Mopohua, nos. 118-119. Also quoted by Benedict XVI at Aparecida, at the Inaugural Session of the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean, 13 May 2007.
[25] John Paul II, Ecclesia in America, §57.
[26] John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla), Homily on the 80th anniversary of the birth of Pope Paul VI, Wawel Cathedral, September 26, 1977. Kalendarium, 782.
[27] John Paul II, Ecclesia in America, §52.
Here is the text of the address given today by Carl Anderson, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, at the 6th World Meeting of Families, under way in Mexico.
* * *
I. INTRODUCTION:
Today, speaking of the Christian family and solidarity may seem obvious. We've spoke of the family and justice, social issues, truth, and freedom - solidarity seems a natural progression. However, to speak of the Christian family and solidarity together at an earlier time would have seemed radical and even contradictory. As Cardinal Ratzinger once noted, while other unitive terms like Eucharist and Communion are expressly Christian, solidarity "comes to us from outside .... developed initially among the early socialists by Pierre Leroux ... in contraposition to the Christian idea of love, as the new, rational and effective response to social problems."[1]
Leroux had abandoned the religion of Christianity and to compensate, he developed the idea of a new "religion of humanity". And although many do not consciously follow Leroux's idea of a "religion of humanity" as the basis of solidarity, solidarity and the unity of the human race is often divorced from God and the "Christian idea of love". Thus it is important to understand how John Paul II purified the concept of solidarity, even to the point of describing solidarity as "undoubtedly a Christian virtue" which "finds its deepest roots in Christian faith" and "is expressed in Christian love."[2]
Many saints canonized by John Paul II exhibited this Christian virtue of solidarity. But few inspired Karol Wojtyla as priest and as pope especially in regard to his understanding of Christian brotherhood than Adam Chmielowski of Krakow -- who the world knows now as Saint Brother Albert. Not only did the pope preach over forty homilies on Brother Albert, but even earlier, while a secret seminarian and a worker in the Solvay chemical plant, he composed a play on this saintly artist's devotion to the poor. The play's title is Our God's Brother, and it already sets up the question of family and humanity. At one point in the play, Adam's concern for the poor is questioned by his friend Max. Adam's charitable work is uncharacteristic of Adam's artistic vocation according to Max. His friend is also confused that Adam cannot bring himself to ignore the poor and get on with his real work as a painter. Max says:
"Of course, it must be running away from responsibility....
[H]ow can I be made responsible for a citizen who has wasted his life and is now at the bottom?"
But Adam contradicts him. His work with the poor is not a running away from reality and his vocation, but is a running toward it. He says:
"You still think, Max, that the pattern of human poverty corresponds to the pattern of punishment...But this is not just running away from responsibility. It is running away from something, or rather someone, in oneself and in all those people."[3]
Today, solidarity encounters the same problems of withdrawal and confusion. Solidarity may seem unattractive when it is seen as a reward for behavior rather than as a response to personhood -- of a necessary correspondence between persons. Sometimes, even when we commit ourselves to acts of solidarity, we may be confused by the draw to compassion. But the answer to both problems can be seen in the need to see the truth about the human person -- the "someone in oneself and in all those people" -- that binds us together.
II. Communion of Persons
For this reason, four decades after writing Our God's Brother, John Paul II describes "solidarity" in his encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis in terms of unity. He writes: "Beyond human and natural bonds, already so close and strong, there is discerned in the light of faith a new model of the unity of the human race, which must ultimately inspire our solidarity. This supreme model of unity," John Paul continues, "which is a reflection of the intimate life of God, one God in three Persons, is what we Christians mean by the word 'communion.'"[4]
Especially in this context and gathered so near to the great Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, we remember John Paul II's visit to Mexico City to give us the post-synodal apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in America. This great document, which celebrates its tenth anniversary, next week, takes as its subtitle, "On the encounter with the living Jesus Christ: The Way to Conversion, Communion and Solidarity in America.[5] In it he writes that just as communion is the fruit of conversion, so "solidarity is ... the fruit of the communion which is grounded in the mystery of the triune God, and in the Son of God who took flesh and died for all. It is expressed in Christian love which seeks the good of others, especially of those most in need."[6]
John Paul II's early general audiences on Genesis (which came to be known as the Wednesday Catechesis on the Theology of the Body) made great inroads in understanding man as a being created for communion. According to the pope, "man became the 'image and likeness' of the triune God not only through his own person, but also as a person intended to form a communion of persons-a communion which man and woman form right from the beginning."[7] In other words, to be made in the image of God is not simply to be fashioned as such, but to function as an image of God - that is, to be ontologically destined to a life of loving communion with others. This is the foundation of the civilization of love; moreover, this Christian anthropology provides such an understanding of man that makes the call to build a civilization of love not only a feasible option, but the most necessary fulfillment of our humanity.
III. Benedict XVI and John Paul II on Interdependence
Nevertheless, such a view of the person may be seen by some as too theological or religious or too idealistic and removed from daily life, making it irrelevant. And as Marcello Pera has pointed out, today "people no longer believe in 'ultimate' foundations; they no longer dream of essences."[8] Consequently, we find ourselves depending more and more on different facets of this communion to convey the message. One of the tangible facets of communion that are at stake is loving interdependence. In Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, John Paul II declared there is a "need for a solidarity which will take up interdependence and transfer it to the moral plane."
In Mulieris Dignitatem John Paul II saw this in Adam's solitary search for not only a companion but a helpmate: "In the 'unity of the two', man and woman are called from the beginning not only to exist 'side by side' or 'together', but they are also called to exist mutually 'one for the other'."[9] Benedict XVI takes this further. In Adam and Eve's relationship, being with each other can be understood most fully in context of being from.
This constitutes another facet of the imago Dei which we discover in the human person. In addition to St. Augustine's understanding of an "interior" trinity of intellect, will and spirit within man, and contributing to John Paul II's "social" trinity among men, Cardinal Ratzinger presented the imago Dei as a trinity of "being." He writes: "The real God is by his very nature entirely being-for (Father), being-from (Son), and being-with (Holy Spirit). Man, for his part, is God's image precisely insofar as the "from," "with," and "for" constitute the fundamental anthropological pattern."[10]
Human love and interdependence cannot be understood only at a horizontal level. When it is, it is often reduced to mutual dependence or even mutual usury. Rather, human love and interdependence is enlightened by our common vertical interdependence, a dependence between persons made apparent first in a relationship with those who gave us life. In this, Benedict XVI's elucidation I believe provides us with great inroads in understanding and defending solidarity, both within the family and beyond the family.
The Biblical foundations are explored in John Paul II's general audience catechesis on the Theology of the Body, when he points to the fact that God's design for man is expressed even before man is created.[11] As Genesis says, "Then God said, 'let us make man in our own image.'"[12] This intentionality simultaneously sets man apart from the rest of creation and establishes the intimate connection between God and man. As John Paul II notes, it is "as if the Creator entered into himself; as if, creating, not only did he call things into existence from nothingness...but, as if, in a special way, he drew man from the mystery of his own Being."[13] Consequently, man "must not be understood as a portrait, but as a living being, who will live a life similar to that of God."[14]
In his solitude, Adam begins to see how to live a life similar to God's life, a life that necessitates a communion of persons. But even more, when tested with solitude, Adam compares himself not with the animals he shares the world with. He looks to the creator, and compares himself with God. In this he finds that "man resembles God more than nature."[15] The importance of origins is reflected in the words of Adam in the second creation account, when Adam recognizes Eve, exclaiming "This now is bone from my bones, and flesh from my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken from man."[16]
In the family, the human person is revealed from the beginning as interdependent. Cardinal Ratzinger presented this idea when speaking of pregnancy and abortion. Within the womb, the child's life depends upon being with the mother. But like Adam, mere presence is not enough, and in pregnancy, the child's presence with the mother necessitates the mother's goodness. "This being-with compels the being of the other ... to become a being-for." In this, "the child in the mother's womb is simply a very graphic depiction of the essence of human existence in general."
This fundamental human reality of "being-for" for the other applies as much to physically matured persons as it does to the child. Even so, the importance of the continuity of love comes through in other areas of life. On the genetic level, this is obvious in how each child resembles the mother and father. On the personal level, this is recognized by each mother and father who immediately after birth tries to identify those similarities. It is recognized by the children born as the result of anonymous donors who try to find their anonymous fathers. Its confusion was expressed, symbolically, when the mother of the first Chinese child born from in vitro fertilization gave her daughter not only the mother's own name, but the name of the doctor who performed the procedure.[17]
IV. Without Roots
The truth is this: although a person can be isolated socially and geographically from other people, no person can survive without entrusting himself to individuals and community. For this reason, true autonomy cannot exist; nor is it an ideal to aspire to. "Whenever there is an attempt to free ourselves from this pattern, we are not on our way to divinity, but to dehumanization, to the destruction of being itself through the destruction of the truth."[18]
When Marcello Pera lamented that "people no longer believe in 'ultimate' foundations", it was in the context of lamenting Europe's detachment from its historical and moral Christian. But this detachment from foundations is part of a more fundamental detachment seen also at the level of the person, especially within the family. Through divorce, abandonment, and some uses of fertility technology, parenthood is separated from presence. That is, for many children today being from a parent no longer means being with a parent and thus no longer means having a parent present being for that child. Likewise, parenthood is separated from marriage, when being with a spouse is separated from the openness of a child being from the couple. The result is what Carle Zimmerman described as the "atomistic family."
Nine months ago, one son recently published his diary from the weeks leading up to his mother's choice to end her life through assisted suicide. When the doctor doubted that her pain was "unbearable" - the third and last requirement for euthanasia - the conversation of mother and son quickly evolves into a distressing fragmentation of love and life. Recounting the situation, her son writes, Mum puts her coffee down. "Well, I have to die anyway, don't I?" Then she asks us what we think.
I interrupt: "It should be your own decision. None of us is to say anything."
But Mum struggles to say she wants to die. Eventually I say, "I think what she finds unbearable is not so much her pain and sickness, but the fear of it getting worse and of losing control."
When [Doctor] Martin is finally satisfied that Mum wants to end it, he agrees to contact the second doctor. He leaves with an empathetic nod to us all."[19]
This is not the empathy or interdependence in the foundation of a civilization of love. True sympathy or compassion - in the truest sense of either of those words - is to suffer with. Moreover, this decisiveness, this silence, this measure of life is not the foundation of any civilization.
This dying mother's decision was ultimately supported by the value of individual autonomy and the fear "of losing control." But although autonomy is an important value - it is not the most important. More important than autonomy is community - especially that special community which is also a communion of persons. And at the foundation of community is appreciation, gratitude and respect for the gift and dignity of human life.
Perhaps what this mother longed to hear, needed to hear was something entirely different than, "It should be your own decision. None of us is to say anything." Perhaps, what she longed to hear from her children was, "We love you. We need you. Stay with us." Where the family values a life in existence as a good, there can be a society and a civilization that values a life in existence as a good. But this can only happen if families themselves are not closed in on themselves. In this, autonomy of individuals and families cannot be treated as the principle or only value.
Solidarity's role in and through the family is more than just another "social virtue" along with "truth, freedom, justice, subsidiarity and...charity."[20] If solidarity's future must be built upon this communion of persons, the champion of this communion is first and foremost the family - not only as a teacher of social virtues, but as the first model of the Trinitarian communion of persons. It is there that we not only find the family present in solidarity, but indeed its vital model and its nucleus. For this reason, John Paul II said "we cannot speak of solidarity in the modern community without also mentioning family life."[21] Without solidarity within the family, there can be no solidarity beyond the family. Without an understanding and protection of the family, there can be no easy understanding of the human family that is society, the Christian family that is the Church, or the family of families that is the parish.
V. Challenged by Childhood
In John Paul II's first apostolic journey, he came to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and called us to a new evangelization, beginning by preaching the truth about the human person. In Benedict XVI's first apostolic journey to the Marian Shrine at Aparecida, he called us to build not only a Continent of Hope throughout our hemisphere but to build a Continent of Love. And now, we await our Holy Father's next encyclical, entitled "Caritas in Veritate" ("Love in Truth"), addressing social issues and globalization. As we prepare, we should take time to examine not only the condition of our countries and our continents, but also of our families. In her Nobel Prize address, Mother Teresa famously used the refrain "love begins at home."[22] What kind of foundation for solidarity is there, if it is not present within the family, with the presence of children whose very existence depends on the goodness of others?
For example, an international poll conducted by the Gallup polling institute asked people if children in their country are treated with dignity and respect. In Latin America as a whole, about 60 percent of respondents said no. In Haiti, this rose to nearly 90% saying children are not treated with dignity and respect.[23] Several questions come to mind. How are these children treated that indicated a disregard for dignity and respect? Why are they not treated with dignity and respect? And, importantly, does this treatment change? At what age will children be treated with respect, if ever? And when these children grow up, will they in turn know how to treat others with dignity and respect?
But a more fundamental question is necessary today in this place so close to Tepeyac hill. How is this treatment of children possible in a continent where so many know by heart the words of Blessed Mary of Guadalupe: "Am I not here, who am your mother? Are you not under my protection? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not in the fold of my mantle, in the cradle of my arms?"[24]
And were not these words addressed to a layman who was concerned for the health and welfare of his family?
In Ecclesia in America, John Paul II writes in chapter 5 entitled, "The Path to Solidarity" that, "The human being's dignity as a child of God is the source of human rights."[25] But when we read these words we must ask, "How are we to recognize the dignity of our neighbor as "a child of God" if we have no regard for the children we find around us?"
John Paul II has observed that nothing can replace the heart of a mother always present and waiting in her home. But it is also true when he writes that, "A family rests on a father. If it has a father, it is a family. The father is the one who ties the family members into that unity whose name is family."[26] The family must be community in which both mother and father accept and live their responsibility. And it must be a community in solidarity with those whose own community of family is broken or wounded.
In this way the Christian family may walk the path of true solidarity and make its own the words of Ecclesia in America: "Solidarity is grounded in the mystery of the triune God, and in the Son of God who took flesh and died for all. It is expressed in Christian love which seeks the good of others, especially of those most in need."[27]
Thank you.
[1] Ratzinger, "Eucharist, Communion, and Solidarity", Lecture at the Bishops' Conference of Campania in Benevento, Italy, June 2, 2002. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20020602_ratzinger-eucharistic-congress_en.html
[2] John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, §40; ibid; Ecclesia in America,§52, quoting Propositio §67.
[3] Karol Wojtyla. "Our God's Brother". The Collected Plays and Writings on Theater. Translated by Boleslaw Taborwski. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Pg. 182.
[4] John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, §52.
[5] John Paul II, Ecclesia in America, given at Mexico City, January 22, in the year 1999, the twenty-first of his Pontificate.
[6] John Paul II, Ecclesia in America, §52. Quoting Propositio §67.
[7] John Paul II, General Audience, November 14, 1979.
[8] Marcello Pera, "Relativism, Christianity, and the West", Without Roots, pg. 19.
[9] John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, §7.
[10] Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal."Truth and Freedom", Communio: International Catholic Review, Spring 1996 issue.
[11] John Paul II, General Audience, 1979. §
[12] Genesis 1
[13] John Paul II, General Audience, December 6, 1978. §2.
[14] John Paul II, General Audience, December 6, 1978. §2.
[15] John Paul II, General Audience, December 6, 1978. §3.
[16] Genesis 2 - accentuated in the Hebrew using not "of" but "from" - as word also used for distance and origin, not mere similarity.
[17] Zheng Mengzhu. Zheng (mother's name), Meng ("first"), Zhu (from doctor's last name, Lizhu).
[18] Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal."Truth and Freedom", Communio: International Catholic Review, Spring 1996 issue.
[19] Marc Weide, Diary of terminally ill woman who chose euthanasia. "'I'm going to die on Monday at 6.15pm': When Marc Weide's mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she chose euthanasia. Here, we publish his shockingly frank diary of her final days". The Guardian, Saturday 23 August 2008 http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/aug/23/euthanasia.cancer
[20] John Paul II, Address to the Members of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. Friday, May 2, 2003.
[21] John Paul II, Homily at the Globe Stadium, Pastoral Journey to Norway, Iceland, Finland, Denmark and Sweden. Stockholm, Sweden, June 8, 1989. §6.
[22] Mother Teresa, Nobel Lecture, for the Nobel Peace Prize 1979, 11 December, 1979. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1979/teresa-lecture.html
[23] http://www.gallup.com/poll/106507/Latin-Americans-Dignity-Denied-Regions-Youth.aspx
[24] Nican Mopohua, nos. 118-119. Also quoted by Benedict XVI at Aparecida, at the Inaugural Session of the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean, 13 May 2007.
[25] John Paul II, Ecclesia in America, §57.
[26] John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla), Homily on the 80th anniversary of the birth of Pope Paul VI, Wawel Cathedral, September 26, 1977. Kalendarium, 782.
[27] John Paul II, Ecclesia in America, §52.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
New Website dedicated to Fatherhood
Welcome to Fathers for Good, an initiative for men by the Knights of Columbus.
Whether you are a seasoned dad, a new dad, a dad to be, or a single guy wanting to know more about fatherhood, this Web site is for you.
There is a role only a father can fill and gifts only a father can give. In a culture that often does not favor fatherhood or masculine virtue, we wish to highlight the unique contributions of men, husbands and fathers. The world would be lacking without them.
We also welcome wives who want to support their husbands in becoming the best fathers they can be.
On this Web site you will find –
• Information
• Inspiration
• Expert Advice
• Answers to your Questions
• Interactive Features
• A Forum for Your Stories
• A Look at Living the Fatherhood Vocation
• Ways to Strengthen Your Marriage
• St. Joseph Booklet Series
A Father is … a work in progress. Indeed, a dad’s work is never done – in what he can learn from his family and what he can teach his children, in the sacrifices he can make and the rich rewards he can be given, in the love he can live out and also receive.
A Father is … called by God the Father. This is the vocation that is the foundation of fatherhood. Of course, no earthly father will be like “our Father who art in heaven,” but God does give certain graces to fathers who seek him out and follow his way.
A Father is … an ordinary man who is called and equipped to do extraordinary things from day to day – work, provide, protect, pray, get involved with his family and be there as an example for his children and faithful to his wife.
http://www.fathersforgood.org/
Whether you are a seasoned dad, a new dad, a dad to be, or a single guy wanting to know more about fatherhood, this Web site is for you.
There is a role only a father can fill and gifts only a father can give. In a culture that often does not favor fatherhood or masculine virtue, we wish to highlight the unique contributions of men, husbands and fathers. The world would be lacking without them.
We also welcome wives who want to support their husbands in becoming the best fathers they can be.
On this Web site you will find –
• Information
• Inspiration
• Expert Advice
• Answers to your Questions
• Interactive Features
• A Forum for Your Stories
• A Look at Living the Fatherhood Vocation
• Ways to Strengthen Your Marriage
• St. Joseph Booklet Series
A Father is … a work in progress. Indeed, a dad’s work is never done – in what he can learn from his family and what he can teach his children, in the sacrifices he can make and the rich rewards he can be given, in the love he can live out and also receive.
A Father is … called by God the Father. This is the vocation that is the foundation of fatherhood. Of course, no earthly father will be like “our Father who art in heaven,” but God does give certain graces to fathers who seek him out and follow his way.
A Father is … an ordinary man who is called and equipped to do extraordinary things from day to day – work, provide, protect, pray, get involved with his family and be there as an example for his children and faithful to his wife.
http://www.fathersforgood.org/
Monday, August 18, 2008
Website devoted to the building of a Culture of Life
The Love and Life Site is being sponsored by:
The Knights of Columbus
The John Paul II Institutes
The Sisters of Life
United with Pope Benedict XVI and the Church, we are uniquely committed to the dignity of every human person. It will be our JOY to host you in Sydney.
Sisters of Life
Founded by John Cardinal O’Connor in 1991, the Sisters of Life are a Religious Community of women, consecrated for the Protection and Enhancement of the Sacredness of all human life.
http://www.sistersoflife.org/
Knights of Columbus College Council Program
Founded in 1882, as a fraternal benefit society, the Order is still true to its founding principles of charity, unity and fraternity. We are active on 150 University campuses.
http://www.kofc.org/un/eb/en/members/knights/college/index.html
John Paul II Institutes
The Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family is a graduate school of theology founded by the Holy Father to help the people of God understand more fully the person, marriage and the family in the light of divine revelation.
http://www.johnpaulii.edu/
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
CUA Students Design Altar Pope Will Use in US
Students Design Altar Pope Will Use in US
Congratulations JP and Ryan. I send best wishes from Canada, it was great getting to know you through the CUA Knights of Columbus.
WASHINGTON, D.C., - Two architecture students at Catholic University designed the altar, ambo and chair Benedict XVI will use to celebrate Mass in the U.S. capitolJohn-Paul Mikolajczyk and Ryan Mullen, both candidates in the master's program at Catholic University's School of Architecture and Planning, were the winners of the contest to design the structures to be used at the April 17 Mass at Nationals Park.
The 10-by-4 foot papal altar has a substantial top with a repeating pattern of decorative parabolic arches beneath it and a smaller base.The front of the pulpit where the Gospel will be read is adorned with images of the Bible and the Holy Trinity. The tall chair back is decorated with Benedict XVI's papal coat of arms.At Monday's unveiling of the design, Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington said that the design is "a tribute to this school of architecture, Catholic University and the quality of students here. […] All those people are going to be looking at this and you'll be able to say, 'He's standing at my altar.'
"Mikolajczyk and Mullen will work with architecture faculty and the Archdiocese of Washington to fine-tune the design and actually construct the altar and the other furnishings.The designers explained that for inspiration, they spent an afternoon at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception studying the altar furnishings."We wanted to incorporate elements that would remind us of Christ's active presence and work in the liturgy," said Mikolajczyk.
Students, working individually or in teams of up to four people, prepared their models and drawings over a few days of work between Jan. 18 and Jan. 23. The entries were judged Jan. 24.
Congratulations JP and Ryan. I send best wishes from Canada, it was great getting to know you through the CUA Knights of Columbus.
WASHINGTON, D.C., - Two architecture students at Catholic University designed the altar, ambo and chair Benedict XVI will use to celebrate Mass in the U.S. capitolJohn-Paul Mikolajczyk and Ryan Mullen, both candidates in the master's program at Catholic University's School of Architecture and Planning, were the winners of the contest to design the structures to be used at the April 17 Mass at Nationals Park.
The 10-by-4 foot papal altar has a substantial top with a repeating pattern of decorative parabolic arches beneath it and a smaller base.The front of the pulpit where the Gospel will be read is adorned with images of the Bible and the Holy Trinity. The tall chair back is decorated with Benedict XVI's papal coat of arms.At Monday's unveiling of the design, Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington said that the design is "a tribute to this school of architecture, Catholic University and the quality of students here. […] All those people are going to be looking at this and you'll be able to say, 'He's standing at my altar.'
"Mikolajczyk and Mullen will work with architecture faculty and the Archdiocese of Washington to fine-tune the design and actually construct the altar and the other furnishings.The designers explained that for inspiration, they spent an afternoon at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception studying the altar furnishings."We wanted to incorporate elements that would remind us of Christ's active presence and work in the liturgy," said Mikolajczyk.
Students, working individually or in teams of up to four people, prepared their models and drawings over a few days of work between Jan. 18 and Jan. 23. The entries were judged Jan. 24.
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