Funeral Homily for Gaetano Gagliano (1917 – 2016)
St. Clare of Assisi Church – Woodbridge, Ontario
April 18, 2016

Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB
CEO, Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation

Your Eminence Cardinal Collins,
Brother Priests,
Dear Sisters, especially of the Pauline Family,
Carissima Giuseppina and my adopted Gagliano brothers and sisters,
Friends in Christ,

Gaetano Gagliano would be thrilled to see this crowd assembled in his beautiful parish church of St. Clare of Assisi today – not because you have come to honor him, but rather that you have come to adore the Lord and thank God for Gaetano’s life.

The first reading from the Book of Wisdom describes so well what we now experience: “[Gaetano’s] passing away is thought an affliction and his going forth from us, utter destruction.”  But Solomon’s Wisdom also offers us this reassuring message: “the souls of the just are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them…. They are at peace.” We grieve and are sad, yet isn’t it consoling to know that Gaetano, whom we loved so much, is now in the hand of God and he will not experience any torment or suffering again?  

Gaetano was husband, father, grandfather, uncle, friend and business colleague to each of us because he was alive with God every day of his life. It was not only intelligence, savvy and success that made these things happen; it was also a humble, biblical wisdom that animated his life. Gaetano’s mantra was: “Never forget that money is useful, but it also dangerous. You have worked and received your reward. Many others cannot work or have not succeeded as we have. Do not be arrogant and selfish. Never close the door to those who ask for help.” It was from that storehouse of God-given wisdom that Gaetano nourished us. Gaetano was a clever man but also a very wise man because God was always at the centre of his life.

No one who knew Gaetano needed to ask what motivated and then sustained his profound familial, ecclesial, social and charitable concern. It was rooted in his belief that we are children of a good, just and loving God, and that every human life was sacred; each of us is our brother’s and sister’s keeper.  Many speak of the Gagliano family philanthropy to so many causes.  But this generosity finds its roots in the deepest meaning of the Greek word “philanthopia” which means hospitality, love of human beings and kindness.  These were the gifts and qualities that Gaetano passed on to his entire family.  

As we gathered around his deathbed in the family home in Woodbridge early last Thursday morning, the words of St. Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy were etched in our minds and hearts: “I have competed well; I have finished the race;I have kept the faith. From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me, which the Lord, the just judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearance… . But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the proclamation might be completed and all the Gentiles might hear it.”

But it is today’s Gospel reading that provides us with a penetrating, personal insight into Gaetano’s life among us.  This Easter Gospel story of Jesus and Peter is set against the incredibly beautiful backdrop of the Sea of Galilee. When Peter decides to go fishing, there is a certain feeling of resignation about it, alluding to the depression and discouragement he and the other disciples must have experienced after Jesus’ death. This simple narrative offers us one of the most personal and moving commissioning stories in the Bible.  “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?  Do you love me?  Are you my friend?” [Jn 21:15] Peter’s three-fold denial of Jesus during the trial and crucifixion is now canceled out by the three-fold declaration of love. There are many other questions which we can imagine Jesus having asked Peter concerning his suitability for ministry.  For example, “Simon, son of John, are you aware of the responsibilities that you are undertaking? Do you realize your weakness?  Have you thought that it is difficult to bear others’ burdens?  “Simon, son of John, do you understand?  Are you aware of how many people about you are in need of help: the poor, the hungry, the sick, the needy, and the lonely?  Where will you find bread enough to give them something to eat?” But Jesus sums them all up in a single, basic question: “Simon, son of John, do you love me?  Are you really my friend?” 

Ten years ago, as Gaetano and I were preparing to film one of the more than 150 episodes of “In Conversazione”, he arrived in our Salt and Light studios all ready to go. For Gaetano, it was always “lights, camera, action” no matter what the theme or the program!  That particular episode was meant for the Easter season. Though his theological vocabulary was limited, Gaetano’s mind and heart were constantly on fire! I was planning to discuss with him today’s passage from John’s gospel.  When I read the story to Gaetano before the cameras started rolling, he said to me: “Padre Thomas, why did Jesus have to ask Peter three times if he loved him?  What’s wrong with Peter? You would think that Peter would have realized just who this man was and not need the question asked three times!” Gaetano told me: “If Peter were here now, I would let him know just who Jesus was!”  We enjoyed a good laugh together! I am sure that Gaetano has had a few good conversations with Peter by now to clear this matter up once and for all!

Simon, son of John, do you love me? “Follow me.” Those words were also addressed to Gaetano at so many moments of his long, fruitful life. As a young boy Gaetano heard the Lord’s voice speaking to him: “Gaetano, son of Francesco, mi ami tu? Do you love me? Then leave your home in that small farming town of Cattolica di Eraclea in Sicily and go to Padre Giacomo Alberione in Alba to begin your studies for the priesthood.” But very frail health prevented this poor, young country boy from pursuing that path. Twice he was sent back home from the seminary by Fr. Alberione, who told Gaetano that perhaps another vocation awaited him. Gaetano followed the Lord’s voice through the guidance of that wise, holy priest.

Gaetano would hear the Lord’s summons again at age 38. “Gaetano, son of Francesco e Giuseppina, mi ami tu? Do you love me? Then leave your homeland and travel to Canada, with Giuseppina your wife, five small children and forty dollars in your pocket. Some would consider this leap of faith to be pure folly.  For Gaetano, he had all that was necessary to begin a new life in a foreign land: faith, family and a desire to make a difference.  By day he laid tracks for the railroad and by night he printed wedding invitations and business cards in his basement. Laid off from the railroad, he became the sole employee, working day and night at what would later become St. Joseph Corporation.

“Gaetano, son of Francesco e Giuseppina, mi ami tu? Do you love me? Let your family grow… five children would become ten.  Gaetano followed the Lord once again in building a deeply Catholic, Christian family. Together  with Giuseppina they would become grandparents to 35 beautiful grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren.

Still another time Gaetano heard the Lord’s call, this time through a dream in which Fr. Alberione appeared to Gaetano in the late 1990’s.  “Gaetano, son of Francesco e Giuseppina, mi ami tu? Do you love me? Then do something for mass media. You must start a television network!”  What humor the Lord has when he invites people to follow him!  A man who knew nothing about television and technology finds a priest who knows even less and together we decided to follow the Lord in this great adventure now known as Salt and Light Television. Little did I ever imagine that I, too, would be used by the Lord to help fulfill a dream and a vision passed on to an old man of 86 years who was truly evergreen!  That dream, inspired by the Lord and mediated by Blessed James Alberione, founder of the Pauline Family – five Religious Congregations, four Institutes of Consecrated Secular Life, and a Lay Association – was the wind beneath Gaetano’s wings these past 13 years.

One year ago, Gaetano heard the Lord’s call once again. “Gaetano, son of Francesco, mi ami tu? Follow me on the cross of physical suffering.” A debilitating stroke did not make him waver, even in his inability to speak and move freely. Gaetano reminded us that aging and suffering are a natural part of being human.  In a land where an insidious law of euthanasia seems to have the upper hand, and where the old and infirm are so easily put away in nursing homes and often forgotten, Gaetano was a timely and powerful reminder that our parents and grandparents, the sick, the handicapped and the dying have great value.  How blessed we all were to witness his stamina, courage, faith and love even under the guise of physical suffering over the past year! How blessed was Gaetano to receive a care that was palliative, loving, generous and compassionate! Increasingly Gaetano entered into the communion of Christ’s sufferings; he understood the truth of the words: “Someone else will fasten a belt around you.” And in this very communion with the suffering Lord, Gaetano proclaimed the Gospel with the acceptance of his suffering.

How many times have those of us close to Gaetano heard his deep regret in not fulfilling his initial dream of becoming a priest with Fr. Alberione! Several years ago Gaetano and I had a heart-to-heart talk and I told him that to some along the way, Jesus issues the invitation “Come, follow me,” but to Gaetano, he says “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” I assured Gaetano that his was one of the most priestly lives I have ever encountered. For our baptism marks us all as a priestly people.  A priestly person is one who spends himself gladly for others and lays down his life for his friends. The opposite of a priestly life is a consumer who merely buys, spends and amasses wealth and people for himself or herself.  I reminded Gaetano that Jesus never rejected his application for discipleship and ministry, but accepted it fully. For who better than Gaetano Gagliano would have enough clout and credibility to preach the Jesus story? Who better than Gaetano would be able to speak with such conviction and passion about marriage, fidelity, family life, love, charity, kindness, business ethics, hope and generosity?

Early last Thursday morning, Gaetano heard the Lord’s voice for the last time on earth. “Gaetano, son of Francesco e Giuseppina, mi ami tu? Do you love me?  Follow me.”  I am certain that Gaetano’s response was very much like Peter’s: “Lord, You know everything.  You know that I love you.”

The love of Christ was the dominant force in Gaetano’s life.  Gaetano always recognized himself as a sinner in need of God’s boundless mercy. Let us give thanks to God for the life and witness of Gaetano Gagliano. Let us thank God for the myriad of ways that we were touched by him and for the lessons we learned from him.  Let us commend him to God’s mercy and love, pray for the forgiveness of his sins, the repose of his soul, and beg the Lord to give Gaetano the crown of righteousness that awaits him because the Lord stood by him and gave him strength, so that through him, the proclamation of the Gospel was completed and many nations welcomed it because of him.

[L’amore di Cristo fu la forza dominante nella vita di Gaetano. Gaetano si è sempre riconosciuto come un peccatore bisognoso della misericordia infinita di Dio. Rendiamo grazie a Dio per la vita e la testimonianza di Gaetano Gagliano. Rendiamo grazie a Dio per la miriade di modi in cui siamo stati toccati da lui e per le lezioni che abbiamo imparato da lui. Affidiamo Gaetano alla misericordia e all’amore di Dio. Preghiamo per il perdono dei suoi peccati, il riposo della sua anima, e preghiamo il Signore di dare a Gaetano la corona di giustizia che lo attende, perché il Signore gli stava vicino e gli dava forza.  Potremo dire con fiducia che attraverso la vita e la vocazione di Gaetano Gagliano, l’annuncio del Vangelo è stato completato e molte nazioni lo hanno accolto a causa di lui.]

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Known as the “Lily of the Mohawks,” Kateri Tekakwitha was a bold and courageous young Native American woman who defied cultural expectations by dedicating her life to Jesus Christ in the harsh world of 17th century North America.

The post Lily of the Mohawks: A Reflection on the Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha appeared first on Salt + Light Blog.

How comfortable are you around people with disabilities? This week Orthopaedic Surgeon, Dr. Joseph Dutkowsky talks to us about his lifelong passion and his book, Perfectly Human; Gillian Kantor learns something new from her kids; Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB gives us a reflection for the fourth Sunday of Easter and we meet singer/songwriter, John Finch and listen to his debut album, Wilfire.

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50th ANNUAL NATIONAL CONVOCATION OF PRIESTS
Presentation of the Touchstone Award
Loyola University – Chicago, Illinois
April 24, 2018

Recipient: Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB, Chief Executive Officer
Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation

The National Federation of Priests’ Councils [USA] serves the communion, brotherhood and solidarity of bishops, presbyterates and priests. Over the years, NFPC has been instrumental in assisting and motivating priests to face the challenges of priestly ministry in today’s church in a creative and effective way. The Touchstone award is presented to a priest who in the view of the President and the Board of Directors of the National Federation of Priests’ Councils is one whose service in the Gospel of Jesus Christ exemplifies the purpose and goals of the Federation: to build bridges; to provide models for communion, brotherhood and solidarity; to affirm each other in the shared priesthood of Jesus Christ. In particular, his leadership enhances the ministry of others and his words and deeds support the life and ministry of priests; thus he is, as it were, a touchstone for genuine, quality priesthood.

Acceptance Address – Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB 

Your Excellencies,
Dear Brothers and Friends,

Thank you for inviting me to be with you this evening for your 50th Anniversary Convocation of the National Federation of Priests’ Councils in Chicago. I am deeply grateful to you for the prestigious Touchstone award. When I discovered the list of men you have previously honored with this award over the past years, I realized that I am following in the footsteps of giants – outstanding role models and great bishops and priests of Jesus Christ who have made a significant difference in the lives of millions of people. While this award recognizes my work as a Catholic priest who has worked closely with so many priests and bishops in North America and around the world over the past years, you also honor my Religious Congregation that has had from its beginnings nearly 200 years ago the mission and charism of close collaboration with diocesan clergy and local bishops. The history of the Congregation of St. Basil – the Basilian Fathers – begins in a terrifying period in French history as the French Revolution was ending. There were still real dangers of being guillotined, because one was either for the Republic, or a priest and therefore part of the opposition. Our ten founders – diocesan priests – really didn’t intend to found a religious community at all! Fathers Jacques Duret, André Fayolle, Joseph Lapierre, Henri Martinesche, Jean François Pagès, Augustin Payan, Jean-Baptiste Polly, Pierre Tourvielle, Julien Tracol and Jean Antoine Vallon thought they could do their work better if they lived together in the common life.

From our roots in the French Revolution, Basilians grew in modest numbers and answered the urgent pleas of Bishops in France, Algeria, England, and in far-away places like Toronto, Canada, from where we spread to the United States and eventually to Mexico and South America. My confrères have been dedicated educators in high schools, colleges, universities and pastors, associates and chaplains in parishes and various institutions. Wherever we have been over the past two centuries, we have had very close, fraternal bonds with the local clergy and diocesan bishops.

The roots of the Basilian Fathers are found in the French Revolution and its aftermath. Allow me to share with you this evening another revolution into which we have all been conscripted these past years. We have just commemorated the fifth anniversary of the election of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Bishop of Rome. On the late afternoon of March 13, 2013, this elderly, Jesuit Archbishop from Argentina received the call to go, rebuild, repair, renew and heal the church. What we have witnessed over the past five years is a disciple of Jesus, a faithful son of Ignatius of Loyola and a lover of Francis of Assisi – repairing, renewing, restoring, reconciling and healing the Church. There are those who delight in describing the current Pope as a bold, brazen revolutionary sent to rock the boat. Others think he has already caused a massive shipwreck, depending on which magazine, newspaper columnist or blog you have just read. But the only revolution that Pope Francis has ever spoken of is found in his Apostolic Exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel.” (Evangelii Gaudium #88):

“Meanwhile, the Gospel tells us constantly to run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others, with their physical presence which challenges us, with their pain and their pleas, with their joy which infects us in our close and continuous interaction. True faith in the incarnate Son of God is inseparable from self-giving, from membership in the community, from service, from reconciliation with others. The Son of God, by becoming flesh, summoned us to the revolution of tenderness.”

I believe that the second revolution Pope Francis has inaugurated is the revolution of normalcy.  What he is doing is normal human, Christian behavior. Tenderness and normalcy are the revolutions at the heart and soul of Pope Francis’ ministry. It is his unflinching freedom that allows him to do what he does because he is unafraid and totally free to be himself at the same time of being such faithful son of the Church. He has taken the Church and the world by storm, disturbed our consciences and hearts and made us reflect on very deep realities. He has challenged us to look at the deeper meaning of our priesthood. Over the past five years, Pope Francis has repeatedly asked us to be shepherds, with the “smell of the sheep.” He has frequently reminded us that we are the Lord’s ambassadors and missionary disciples.

Through our words and deeds, the people we strive to serve are anointed with the oil of gladness that Jesus, the anointed One came to bring us. There can be no place in priests for a haughty clericalism, any kind of abuse of our position or a concern to climb the ecclesiastical career ladder, Pope Francis is teaching us that our authority derives not from worldly power and prestige but from simplicity of life, personal integrity and humility in imitation of Christ. This Franciscan revolution is not emanating from Buenos Aires, Assisi, Loyola, Manresa or even from Rome, as significant as those places may be! Pope Francis’ script is coming from another land where we find Bethlehem, Nazareth, Nain, Emmaus, Mount Tabor, Galilee and Jerusalem: the lands of Jesus. If some of us are having difficulty understanding Francis, could it be that we have difficulty with his script?

I firmly believe that we are living a moment of kairos in the contemporary Church, – the appointed time and hour, when the Gospel story is unfolding before us in technicolor 4K and dolby sound in the life of Pope Francis. This Bishop of Rome demands a lot while preaching about a God of mercy, by engaging joyfully with nonbelievers, atheists, agnostics, skeptics, and those sitting on the fences of life – many who thought that Christianity has nothing left to add to the equations of life. We need the Francis revolution of tenderness, mercy and normalcy now more than ever before.

Let us pray for one another, encourage one another and befriend one another in this great mission of being agents of salt and light, joy and hope, mercy and reconciliation, dialogue and peace for the Church and for the world.

Thank you for the Touchstone award.

(All photos Courtesy of National Federation of Priests’ Councils and Michael O’Loughlin)

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Theories abound as to why Pope Francis decided to canonize both John XXIII and John Paul II on April 27. Some imagine that this was a politically strategic move on the part of Francis to unify a divided Church and to reconcile the divisions that exist among the Roncalli fans and bearers of the “spirit of Vatican II” and the Wojtyla disciples of a robust, doctrinaire Pope. They reduce the lives of these two great men to be the adventures of a progressive pope who dreamed up the Council and a conservative pope who put the brakes on the speed of its implementation. Nothing could be further from the truth, and such thoughts usually reflect the machinations of those who have yet to understand the Petrine Ministry of unity and the Call to Holiness that lies at the foundation of our existence as Catholic Christians.

The church doesn’t beatify or canonize people and use them as banners or standards under which groups can assemble and march, nor does she ever raise up for us role models who are arrows or weapons to attack others for ignorance, error and sin. Rather, the church offers the lives of outstanding women and men such as Angelo Roncalli and Karol Wojtyla to present to us models of holiness.

Yes, John will be forever linked to the dream and convocation of the Ecumenical Council we now know as Vatican II, and John Paul II will be forever linked to a new era of a truly global Church that took its message from the home office on the Tiber to the ends of the earth.

But even more than those historical factors, John XXIII and John Paul II modeled for us the call to holiness and reminded us, by the simplicity and joy of their Gospel-rooted lives, that we, too, are called to be saints. The Church is the “home of holiness,” and holiness is our most accurate image, our authentic calling card and our greatest gift to the world. It describes best who and what we are and strive to be.

That a person is declared “Blessed” or “Saint” is not a statement about perfection. It does not mean that the person was without imperfection, blindness, deafness or sin. Nor is it a 360-degree evaluation of a particular pontificate or of the Vatican. Beatification and canonization mean that a person lived his or her life with God, relying totally on God’s infinite mercy, going forward with God’s strength and power, believing in the impossible, loving enemies and persecutors, forgiving in the midst of evil and violence, hoping beyond all hope, and leaving the world a better place. That person lets those around him or her know that there is a force or spirit animating his or her life that is not of this world, but of the next. Such a person lets us catch a glimpse of the greatness and holiness to which we are all called, and shows us the face of God as we journey on our pilgrim way on earth.

Angelo Roncalli was a man of international reach before he was pope. His preparation for the papacy was international in scope. He worked at the peripheries of Roman Catholicism, meeting with grace and peace the hostile challenges of both Orthodox Christianity and Islam, long before the buzz words of ecumenism or interreligious dialogue were the order of the day. Roncalli’s mission was personal, human; he excelled in using his own, innate common sense, understanding, and warmth so mightily evident to all and his priestly ministry flowed from his deep humanity.

From the very beginning of his priestly, episcopal and Petrine ministry, Roncalli taught us to see goodness in others, to love people and to hope beyond all hope when situations indicated otherwise. He won over the world, in many similar ways that Pope Francis is doing now because of his unabashed simplicity and genuine goodness and humor. He showed us that far more than realizing every project and program, we must dream bold dreams, nurture them, and hand them on to future generations.

In the life of Karol Wojtyla, holiness was contagious. Pope John Paul II was not only our Holy Father, but a Father who was and is holy. On April 2, 2005, he died a public death that stopped the world for several days. When the throngs of people began chanting “Santo Subito!” at the end of Pope John Paul II’s funeral mass on April 8, 2005, what were they really saying? They were crying out that in Karol Wojtyla, they saw someone who lived with God and lived with us. He was a sinner who experienced God’s mercy and forgiveness. He was the prophetic teacher who preached the Word in season and out of season. He looked at us, loved us, touched us, healed us and gave us hope. He taught us not to be afraid. He showed us how to live, how to love, how to forgive and how to die. He taught us how to embrace the cross in the most excruciating moments of life, knowing that the cross was not God’s final answer.

Both men have deeply marked my entire life. I was born the year the Second Vatican Council was called and it has been the wind beneath my wings for my entire life, especially in my 28 years of ordained ministry. I had the privilege of working closely with Pope John Paul II on his last World Youth Day in 2002.

I am convinced that both men were gifts of God to the world at very specific moments in history. They also remind me that the Lord provides for the Church the shepherds we need at the right moments. That they receive the highest honor of my Church on the same day is a statement to the world of two important realities: that the Church’s best calling card is still holiness. And second: that Vatican II was their dream, their life’s work, their vision and their gift to the world. The world is a better place because Angelo Roncalli and Karol Wojtyla handed their dream on to us.

Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB is the CEO, Salt and Light Catholic Television Network, Canada and the English language assistant to Holy See Press Office.

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Watch Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB as he celebrates TV Mass for the Memorial of St. Gianna Beretta Molla on her feast day.

For more information on St. Gianna Beretta Molla visit our website HERE.

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Gianna Beretta Molla was born in Magenta (Milan), Italy, on October 4, 1922, the 10th of 13 children. From her earliest youth, Gianna accepted the gift of faith and received an excellent Christian education from her parents. After earning degrees in medicine and surgery from the University of Pavia in 1949, she opened a medical clinic in Mesero (near Magenta) in 1950. She specialized in pediatrics at the University of Milan in 1952 and gave special attention to mothers, babies, the elderly and the poor.On September 24, 1955, Gianna Beretta married Pietro Molla, an engineer, in St. Martin’s Basilica in Magenta. Together they would have four children: Pierluigi, Mariolina, Laura and Gianna Emaunela. Gianna met the demands of mother, wife, medical doctor with simplicity and great balance. She loved culture, fashion and beauty. She played piano, was a painter, enjoyed tennis, mountain climbing, skiing and traveling.

In September 1961, towards the end of the second month of pregnancy with her fourth child, physicians diagnosed a serious fibroma in the uterus that required surgery. One of the options given to Gianna by her doctors was an abortion in order to save her own life. Gianna had to make a heroic decision. Gianna entrusted herself to prayer and Providence said to her doctor: “If you must decide between me and the child, do not hesitate: choose the child–I insist on it. Save the baby.”

On Holy Saturday morning, April 21, 1962, her daughter Gianna Emanuela was born. Despite all efforts and treatments to save both of them, one week later on Easter Saturday, April 28, amid unspeakable pain and after repeated exclamations of “Jesus, I love you. Jesus, I love you,” Gianna died. The young mother was only 39 years old. Beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1994 during the International Year of the Family, she was canonized ten years later by the same Pope on May 16, 2004 at the Vatican.

In an age when permanent commitment is widely discouraged, when human life is cheap and disposable and family life is under siege, when abortion is all too available, when sacrifice and virtue are absent in so many lives; when many in the medical profession have little concern for the dignity and sacredness of every human life; when suffering is seen as a nuisance without any redemptive meaning; when goodness, joy, simplicity and beauty are suspect; St. Gianna Beretta Molla shows this world, gripped by a culture of death, an alternative gospel way of compelling beauty. Her action at the end of her life, in saving young Gianna Emanuela, her daughter, was heroic in that she prepared for her final action every day of her life. Her final decision for life was the natural flowering and culmination of an extraordinary life of virtue and holiness, selflessness and quiet joy. St. Gianna Molla continues to remind the church and the world of the necessity of a consistent ethic of life, from the earliest to the final moments of human life.

Prayer to Saint Gianna Beretta Molla

God, you who are Father, we give you praise and we bless you
because in Gianna Beretta Molla
You have given and have made known a woman who witnessed the Gospel
As a young person, as a bride, as a mother and a doctor.
We thank you because through the gift of her life,
We learn to accept and honor every human being.
You, Lord Jesus, were for her privileged reference;
She was able to know you in the beauty of nature
As she questioned her choice of life she was in search of You
and of the best way to serve You.

Through her married love she became a sign of your love
for the Church and for humanity;
Like you, Good Samaritan,
she stopped at the side of every sick person, small and weak;
After your example and for love,
she gave herself entirely, generating new life.

Holy Spirit, font of every perfection,
Give also to us wisdom, intelligence and courage
after the example of Gianna, [my mother,] and through her intercession,
In her personal, family and professional life,
we are able to put ourselves at the service of every person
and grow in this way in love and in holiness. Amen.

Fr. Thomas Rosica, C.S.B.
C.E.O., Salt and Light Catholic Television Network, Canada

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How do you make faith central to your life? This week, Libby Slater tells us about the new Family Theater Productions web-series Catholic Central. Sr. Marie-Paul Curley has the Windows to the Soul to a new romantic comedy; Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB offers a reflection for the 5th Sunday in Easter and we meet singing/songwriting married duo, The Mosleys.

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Email us your comments, find Deacon Pedro on Twitter, or send us a direct voice mail message by clicking on the tab on the right side of our webpage.

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This program is available thanks to the support of our generous donors. Thank you for your donation to keep the SLHour on the air.

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CNS photo/Gregory L. Tracy, The Pilot

Marching for a clear, firm and passionate defense of ALL human life

Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB
CEO, Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation

Being pro-life is one of the deepest expressions of our baptism: we stand up as sons and daughters of the light, clothed in humility and charity, filled with conviction, speaking the truth to power with firmness, conviction and determination, and never losing joy and hope. Being Pro-Life is not an activity for a political party or a particular side of the spectrum. It is an obligation for everyone: left, right and centre! If we are Pro-Life, we must engage the culture around us, and not curse it. We must see others as Jesus does, and we must love them to life, even those who are opposed to us. To March for Life in Ottawa, Washington and in many other cities of the world means that we stand up for all human life, and we do not have a myopic view of the cause of life. Being pro-life in this day and age is truly prophetic, and it will bring about authentic development and enduring peace in our world.

The burning issues of the promotion of human life, from conception to natural death, must be high on the agenda of every human being on every side of the political spectrum. They are not only the concern of the far right of the political spectrum. Many people, blinded by their own zeal and goodness, have ended up defeating the very cause for which we must all defend with every ounce of energy in our flesh and bones. What is wrong with abortion, euthanasia, embryo selection, and embryonic research is not the motives of those who carry them out. So often, those motives are, on the surface, compassionate: to protect a child from being unwanted, to end pain and suffering, to help a child with a life-threatening disease. But in all these cases, the terrible truth is that it is the strong who decide the fate of the weak; human beings therefore become instruments in the hands of other human beings.

Today we live in the midst of a culture that denies human solidarity and takes the form of a veritable “culture of death”. This culture is actively fostered by powerful cultural, economic and political currents that encourage an idea of society exclusively concerned with efficiency. It is a war of the powerful against the weak. There is no room in the world for anyone who, like the unborn or the dying, is a weak element in the social structure or anyone who appears completely at the mercy of others and radically dependent on them and can only communicate through the silent language of profound sharing of affection. Human life has a sacred and religious value, but in no way is that value a concern only of believers. There is no question that abortion is the most serious wound inflicted not only on individuals and their families who should provide the sanctuary for life, but inflicted as well on society and its culture, by the very people who ought to be society’s promoters and defenders. But immigration issues are also critical pro-life issues in our day. The lives of 800,000 Dreamers in America are pro-life issues. The separation of families at US borders is a pro-life issue. Wrongful incarceration of thousands of young people in holding facilities along the southern US border with Mexico is a pro-life issue. Care of the environment is also a critical pro-life issue for the world.

In Pope Francis’ recent Apostolic Exhortation “Gaudete et Exsultate” (On the Call to Holiness),” he challenges each of us who consider ourselves to be “Pro-Life.” He speaks of dangerous ideologies which may at times misguide us in our efforts to march for life (#101):

“The other harmful ideological error is found in those who find suspect the social engagement of others, seeing it as superficial, worldly, secular, materialist, communist or populist. Or they relativize it, as if there are other more important matters, or the only thing that counts is one particular ethical issue or cause that they themselves defend. Our defense of the innocent unborn, for example, needs to be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of a human life, which is always sacred and demands love for each person, regardless of his or her stage of development. Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection. We cannot uphold an ideal of holiness that would ignore injustice in a world where some revel, spend with abandon and live only for the latest consumer goods, even as others look on from afar, living their entire lives in abject poverty.”

In the coming days, tens of thousands of people – many of them young men and women – will descend upon Ottawa to March for Life on May 10, 2018. Let us never forget to reflect upon what we do as individuals and as a community as we stand up for life – ALL human life. Building a culture of life and ending abortion is the duty and obligation of each and every person. But the litmus test for being pro-life is not only attending rallies or marches during the year in major cities of the world. The real test is what we do for life in the remaining 364 days of the year, and what efforts, great and small, do we embrace to consistently and systematically oppose any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or willful self-destruction, violations of human dignity, and coercion of the will. How do we advocate for those who endure subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, human trafficking and disgraceful working conditions, and wrongful, unjust immigration policies? All of these things and more poison human society. We must strive for a strong, consistent ethic for life.

Our common home has become a place of violent conflict, hatred and brutal atrocities, committed even in the name of God and of religion.  During his brief pastoral visit to Sweden in October 2016, Pope Francis proposed six new beatitudes for the modern era on the Feast of All Saints:

“Blessed are those who remain faithful while enduring evils inflicted on them by others, and forgive them from their heart;

“Blessed are those who look into the eyes of the abandoned and marginalized, and show them their closeness;

“Blessed are those who see God in every person, and strive to make others also discover him;

“Blessed are those who protect and care for our common home;

“Blessed are those who renounce their own comfort in order to help others;

“Blessed are those who pray and work for full communion between Christians.”

May these powerful words of Pope Francis be a guiding light and source of instruction, inspiration, consolation and hope to the people of our country as we march for life and defend human life – from conception to natural death – from womb to tomb. May the beatitudes compel us to move forward with boldness and courage, as we welcome, love and protect the poorest, weakest and most vulnerable among us.

CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn

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What does it mean to be pro-life?

To be actively pro-life is to contribute to the renewal of society through the promotion of the common good. It is impossible to further the common good without acknowledging and defending the right to life, upon which all the other inalienable rights of individuals are founded and from which they develop. There can be no true peace unless life is defended and promoted. Remember the prophetic words of Pope Paul VI:

Every crime against life is an attack on peace, especially if it strikes at the moral conduct of people…But where human rights are truly professed and publicly recognized and defended, peace becomes the joyful and operative climate of life in society.

Abortion is without a doubt the most serious wound inflicted not only on individuals and their families who should provide the sanctuary for life, but inflicted as well on society and its culture, by the very people who ought to be society’s promoters and defenders. We must never lose sight of the atrocities against the unborn, the untold and too-seldom spoken of pain and lingering anguish experienced by those who have been involved in abortions.

I know about the tragedy of abortion and I know about the good work of many people involved in the pro-life Movement who work hard to prevent this tragedy. However a singular focus on abortion as the arbiter of what it means to be “pro-life” has severely narrowed our national discourse about moral values in the public square. People claiming to be fervently Catholic, always right, and blinded by their own zeal and goodness, have ended up defeating the very cause for which we must all defend with every ounce of energy in our flesh and bones. Their anger vitiates their efforts.

Could it be that some of us are turned off or even repelled by current definitions or behaviors of some of those people claiming to be pro-life, yet manifesting a tunnel vision? The Roman Catholic Church offers a consistent teaching on the inviolability, the sacredness and the dignity of the human person: a 20/20 vision for which we must strive each day if we claim to be pro-life. Opposition to abortion and euthanasia does not excuse indifference to those who suffer from poverty, violence and injustice. We must strive to see the whole picture, not with tunnel vision.

What is also troubling are those who claim to be on the “left”, always championing human and civil rights, respecting and upholding the dignity and freedom of others. This of course has included the protection of individual rights, and the efforts of government to care for the weak, sick and disadvantaged. Why then are the extension to the unborn of the human right to life, and opposition to the culture of death, not central issues on the “left?” They must be, for they are clearly matters of justice and human rights.

A few years ago, Cardinal Séan O’Malley wrote to the people of Boston with these words:

If any cause is motivated by judgment, anger or vindictiveness, it will be doomed to marginalization and failure. Jesus’ words to us were that we must love one another as He loves us… Our ability to change people’s hearts and help them to grasp the dignity of each and every life, from the first moment of conception to the last moment of natural death, is directly related to our ability to increase love and unity in the church, for our proclamation of the Truth is hindered when we are divided and fighting with each other.

We cannot ignore the other great challenge faced by humanity today–the serious question of mercy killing, or euthanasia as it is sometimes called, no longer found in abstract cases and theories. It concerns ordinary people and is debated not only in Parliament but also around dinner tables and in classrooms. Aging populations, especially in the west, and resulting smaller workforces are now creating a market push towards euthanasia. As Pope John Paul II wrote: “a right to die will inevitably give way to the duty to die.” This issue strikes to the very core of who we are and what we believe. Even when not motivated by the refusal to be burdened with the life of someone who is suffering, euthanasia must be called a false and misguided mercy. True compassion leads to sharing another’s pain, not killing the person whose suffering we cannot bear.

Furthering the Common Good

Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or willful self-destruction, whatever violates the dignity of the human person such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself, whatever insults human dignity such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children, disgraceful working conditions where people are treated as instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons… all of these things and more poison human society.

It is impossible to further the common good without acknowledging and defending the right to life, upon which all the other inalienable rights of individuals are founded and from which they develop. There can be no true peace unless life is defended and promoted.

In Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, (Truth in Charity), the Holy Father addresses clearly the dignity and respect for human life:

Openness to life is at the centre of true development… When a society moves toward the denial or suppression of life, it ends up no longer finding the necessary motivation and energy to strive for man’s true good. If personal and social sensitivity toward the acceptance of a new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away.

Engaging the Culture Around Us

Being pro-life does not give us the right and license to say and do whatever we wish, to malign, condemn and destroy other human beings who do not share our views. We must never forget the principles of civility, Gospel charity, ethics, and justice. Jesus came to engage the culture of his day, and we must engage the culture of our day. We must avoid the sight impairment and myopia that often afflict people of good will who are blinded by their own zeal and are unable to see the whole picture. Being pro-life is not an activity for a political party or a particular side of the spectrum. It is an obligation for everyone: left, right and centre! If we are pro-life, we must engage the culture around us, and not curse it. We must see others as Jesus does, and we must love them to life, even those who are opposed to us. Being pro-life in this day and age is truly prophetic, and it will bring about authentic development and enduring peace in our world.

We are all invited pray these words each day, especially during this week:

Eternal Father, Source of Life, strengthen us with your Holy Spirit to receive the abundance of life you have promised.
Open our hearts to see and desire the beauty of your plan for life and love.
Make our love generous and self-giving so that we may be blessed with joy.
Grant us great trust in your mercy.
Forgive us for not receiving your gift of life and heal us from the effects of the culture of death.
Instill in us and all people reverence for every human life.
Inspire and protect our efforts on behalf of those most vulnerable especially the unborn, the sick and the elderly.
We ask this in the Name of Jesus, who by His Cross makes all things new. Amen.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us.

Father Thomas Rosica, CSB
CEO Salt + Light Catholic Media Foundation

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(CNS photo/Bob Roller)
(CNS photo/Paul Haring)

The post The Duty and Obligation of being Pro-Life appeared first on Salt + Light Blog.

On May 24th, Fr Thomas Rosica delivered the Carr Lecture at St. Mark’s, UBC  in Vancouver on the theme: “Preaching and Communicating in a Franciscan Era: What is the Church Learning from an Argentine Jesuit Pope?”

Preaching and Communicating in a Franciscan Era:
What is the Church Learning from an Argentine Jesuit Pope?
Carr Lecture
St. Mark’s College at the University of British Columbia

May 24, 2018
Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB

Your Grace, Archbishop Miller,
Dr. Peter Meehan,
Members of the Board of Directors of St. Mark’s and Corpus Christi Colleges,
Dear Friends,

I would like to express my deep gratitude to you for the privilege of delivering this year’s Carr Lecture at St. Mark’s College in Vancouver. This prestigious lecture series is named after a great Basilian priest from Ontario – Fr. Henry Carr. At the beginning of the last century, Fr. Carr played a very key role in turning a small Catholic institution focused on preparation for the priesthood into an excellent arts college, fully federated with the University of Toronto. Federation broke the long period of isolation from the mainstream of Canadian university life and made St. Michael’s College one of the earliest English-language Roman Catholic colleges in Canada to provide higher education in partnership with a secular institution.

While at St. Michael’s College in Toronto, Fr. Carr promoted excellence in Catholic higher education, bringing well-known Catholic scholars to the college and co-founding in 1929 what would become the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, a most respected, world-renowned research institute located on the campus of St. Michael’s College. A champion of the model of federation, Father Carr went on to head similar Catholic institutions at the universities of Saskatchewan and here in British Columbia. At each of these institutions, he was directly involved in their federation with the university, viewing federation as the best solution for Catholic colleges in an age of increasing secularization, and he never advocated for the stand-alone Catholic university, which was the dominant model in the United States. Fr. Carr’s initial intuition was prophetic for Catholic higher education in Canada today. He also embodied the charism of the Basilian Fathers in a remarkable way: the never-ending pursuit of goodness, discipline, and knowledge.

At the heart of Fr. Carr’s vision were two outstanding qualities so essential for our efforts in higher education: dialogue and friendship. While the Church can offer a broad theological vision that focuses on the interconnectedness of all things, it cannot pretend to have all the answers to specific concrete questions. In these circumstances, honest debate must be encouraged that respects divergent views. This means that the Church itself should be included in the dialogue, but it also means that voices currently not in the debate need to be included. Dialogue is the mark of a conversion away from selfish fragmentation and toward an openness toward others that challenges us truly to understand the plight of our fellow human beings. Such dialogue cannot take place from a position of insularity but requires radical and generous openness to the other that is both born from, and leads to, a growing awareness of the interconnectedness of all things. This dialogue is rooted in a willingness to be truly attentive to the other to such a degree that love for the other characterizes our interactions with them.

The second stellar quality of Fr. Henry Carr was his understanding of friendship. If Canadians representing different cultural and religious traditions are going to be engaged with one another through agreements and partnerships in both education, healthcare, and other endeavors, then their leaders must be men and women who are able to create relationships around a common cause. Fr. Carr was once quoted as saying about university federation: “Insist on your rights, and you will get what you deserve: nothing. But act as a friend, and be a friend among friends, and the most cumbersome legal machinery will roll smoothly on.” For Fr. Carr, friendship and personal relationships were the first and proper currency of federation, and nowhere is this more evident than in Canadian confederation itself. He understood well the meaning of dialogue and the “culture of encounter” of which Pope Francis speaks so often.

As Catholic pastoral ministers, communicators, educators, and students, if we are going to communicate the truth of our Catholic faith to those who do not share it, or even are hostile to it, on the campus of Canadian universities, we must never forget that our faith is best revealed to them, not through preaching and moralism, but through the disciplines of the humanities, including theology, and fine arts, and social sciences and empirical sciences. It is through those disciplines that we can point to the sacramental activity of God at work in our world. For it is within these disciplines that the Catholic intellectual tradition comes alive and is most accessible, even to those least disposed to it. It is through these disciplines that we lay the groundwork for authentic evangelization of culture.

Pope Francis’ Evangelization Strategy

In order to understand Pope Francis’ evangelization strategy, it is important to recall a particular moment during the pre-conclave meetings of the College of Cardinals in March 2013. I was working in the Holy See Press Office during those memorable and intense weeks and witnessed up close the ending of the “Benedictine” era and the first moments of the “Franciscan” era. In those intense sessions of the Cardinals that took place behind closed doors in the Vatican Synod Hall, the Pope’s “senate” discussed the situation of the Church and was not encumbered with funeral preparations as in previous meetings during interregnums. Those were decisive meetings that outlined the plan of action for whomever would be elected Pope.

In one of the “interventions” to the assembled Cardinals on Friday morning, March 7, 2013, one cardinal gave a brief yet riveting talk on “The Sweet and Comforting Joy of Evangelizing.” “Evangelization,” he said, “is the raison d’être of the Church. …It is Jesus Christ himself who impels us from within.” The Cardinal then described evangelization in four points:

“To evangelize implies apostolic zeal. To evangelize implies a desire in the Church to come out of herself. The Church is called to come out of herself and to go to the peripheries not only in the geographic sense but also the existential peripheries: those of the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance, of doing without religion, of thought and of all misery.

When the Church does not come out of herself to evangelize, she becomes self-referent and then she gets sick. The evils that over the course of time happen in ecclesial institutions have their root in a self-reference and a sort of theological narcissism. In the Book of Revelation, Jesus says that he is at the door and knocks. Evidently the text refers to his knocking from outside in order to enter but I think of the times in which Jesus knocks from within so that we will let him come out. The self-referent Church keeps Jesus Christ within herself and does not let him come out.     

When the Church is self-referent without realizing it, she believes she has her own light. She ceases to be the mysterium lunae and gives way to that very great evil which is spiritual worldliness. (According to Henri deLubac, SJ, it is the worst evil that can come upon the Church). The self-referent Church lives to give glory only to one another. In simple terms, there are two images of the Church: the evangelizing Church that comes out of herself: the Dei Verbum religiose audiens et fidente proclamans, (the first words of the Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation that can be translated as “Hearing the word of God with reverence and proclaiming it with faith”) and the worldly Church that lives within herself, of herself, for herself. This must give light to the possible changes and reforms which must be made for the salvation of souls. 

Thinking of the next Pope, he must be a man who from the contemplation and adoration of Jesus Christ, helps the Church to come out to the existential peripheries, that helps her to be the fruitful mother who lives from the sweet and comforting joy of evangelizing.”   

The Cardinal who spoke those words in the Vatican Synod Hall that Friday morning would be elected Pope the following week on March 13, 2013. In that brief intervention (as it is called in Vatican language), the future Pope presented a Mission Statement or plan of action that we have seen actualized and realized over the past five years. One could sum up Cardinal Bergoglio’s thought that day with these words: the Church is in the business of evangelization and she is only effective when she goes outside of herself and encounters people on the geographical and existential peripheries of life.

Over the past five years, Pope Francis has been modeling for us Fr. Carr’s great qualities: friendship, dialogue, and encounter as he teaches us how to evangelize, catechize, teach, inspire, and engage the culture around us. There is certainly a time for confronting the culture with the message of the Gospel and the Church, but such “confrontation” must be done with civility, conviction, and charity. We need to show the culture and the people of our times that we’re not against them, that we have a compelling story, and that the story can change their circumstances. When that happens, people will listen… as they stop and truly hear and receive the messages of this Pope who has come to us from the ends of the earth.

Pope Francis and preaching

It is encouraging to see how much of Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel) Pope Francis devotes to the homily and preaching (chapter III, 135-159). The Pope warns about the homily becoming a form of entertainment, and he is hard on some TV Bible-thumping preaching of the Gospel because the TV preachers are preaching themselves rather than Jesus Christ. We preach Jesus Christ and the kerygma, and we need to remember that Jesus is the message and we the messengers, not the opposite. The Pope encourages preachers to keep their homilies brief and not have them take on the appearance of a speech or a lecture. If we preach for 20 minutes or more, the pope contends, the liturgy loses its balance and rhythm. We can judge a pastor’s closeness to his people by his relevance. The Pope insists that we need to be out in the marketplace and know the heart of our community. We need to address real life, daily issues of our flocks and be tuned in to their wavelengths.

Pope Francis is blessed with a vivid imagination and uses vivid examples like “the Church is a field hospital, not a museum,” “we need to have the smell of the sheep,” “we can become mired in mediocrity,” “frills of fashion,” “throwaway culture.”

“I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting, and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.”

“God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy.”

“A little bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just.”

“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel.”

“Abortion isn’t a lesser evil, it’s a crime. Taking one life to save another, that’s what the Mafia does. It’s a crime. It’s an absolute evil.”

“How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure but it is news when the stock market loses two points?”

His use of stories has been very powerful and at times very moving. For Francis, what counts is to use images that are practical, familiar, and close to home. They colour the canvas of our homilies and act as multi-faceted diamonds on display.

Prayer and Fervor

Pope Francis also frequently emphasizes the need to set hearts on fire. Francis encourages ministers of the Word not to preach homilies that are moralistic, doctrinaire, or full of extensive biblical exegesis. We need to have warmth in our tone of voice, joy in our gestures, and be unpretentious in our manner, which might mean not bawling out people or finger pointing. The Pope insists that we cannot offer words which have not penetrated and transformed us. That is why prayer is so important, so that we let God’s Word challenge and impel us to preach with vigor, passion, and enthusiasm. We must have a lively desire to hear the Word first and let it move us deeply until it becomes incarnate in our daily lives. We must challenge God’s people on thorny issues like racism, sexism, immigration, the death penalty, euthanasia, abortion, consumerism, and materialism.

The art of dialogue

In his masterful encyclical letter Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home of 2015, Pope Francis reminds us that human beings find themselves in a state of deep fragmentation from each other and from the created order itself. Although “we were made for love,” we find ourselves isolated from one another and from creation. Pope Francis argues that all creatures are interconnected, but we cannot even see our connection with our fellow human beings. We exist in bubbles of our own making that shield us from actual encounter with other people, having organized our lives in such a way that we keep ourselves “from direct contact with the pain, the fears, and the joys of others and the complexity of their personal experiences.”

It is this conception of human relationality that compels Pope Francis to emphasize dialogue as key to the moral and spiritual conversion of humankind. Dialogue appears to be for the Pope an orientation towards the human and non-human other that opens humanity up fully to the possibility of real transformation. In contrast to the selfish individualism that currently dominates, Pope Francis argues that an orientation of dialogue is rooted in an understanding that each person and creature has an inherent dignity and worth, that we are interconnected and interdependent, and that each person and creature has something worthwhile to say to us. Unless we go out of ourselves toward the other, the current technocratic paradigm will continue unabated with the end result being the decimation of creation and human society.

To the peripheries

Jesus asked his followers to go to the ends of the earth, not just to places where they felt comfortable. He did not sit around in Capernaum waiting for people to come to him. He spoke in a language that people understood and used media that people found accessible. Using parables, he was not afraid of being seen as undignified by talking about commonplaces like mustard seeds or sheep. The Son of God did not see that as beneath him. And if he did not consider speaking in familiar styles as undignified, then why should we?

In Pope Francis’ 2015 Message for the World Day of Communications, he reminded us that “modern media, which are an essential part of life for young people in particular, can be both a help and a hindrance to communication in and between families. The media can be a hindrance if they become a way to avoid listening to others, to evade physical contact, to fill up every moment of silence and rest, so that we forget that ‘silence is an integral element of communication; in its absence, words rich in content cannot exist.’ The media can help communication when they enable people to share their stories, to stay in contact with distant friends, to thank others or to seek their forgiveness, and to open the door to new encounters.”

Whereas he can be called many things over the past five years, Pope Francis’ blunt assessment of the epidemic of fake news reveals an elderly pastor and world leader who is sophisticated, astute, wise, and bold in naming evil for what it is. His analysis also indicated how far the Church has come in her understanding of media and communications. In his message for this year’s World Communication Day that is normally commemorated on the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, Pope Francis blamed the serpent in the Garden of Eden for hissing out the first fake news to Eve! Such was the Pontifical assessment of the phenomenon of fake news. It didn’t start in newsrooms or other media agencies. It all began in the book of Genesis! Pope Francis wrote: “The strategy of this skilled ‘Father of Lies’ (Jn 8:44) is precisely mimicry, that sly and dangerous form of seduction that worms its way into the heart with false and alluring arguments.”

The effectiveness of fake news is primarily due to its ability to mimic real news, to seem plausible. Secondly, this false but believable news is “captious,” inasmuch as it grasps people’s attention by appealing to stereotypes and common social prejudices and exploiting instantaneous emotions like anxiety, contempt, anger, and frustration. The ability to spread such fake news often relies on a manipulative use of the social networks and the way they function. Untrue stories can spread so quickly that even authoritative denials fail to contain the damage. The difficulty of unmasking and eliminating fake news is due also to the fact that many people interact in homogeneous digital environments impervious to differing perspectives and opinions. Disinformation thus thrives on the absence of healthy confrontation with other sources of information that could effectively challenge prejudices and generate constructive dialogue; instead, it risks turning people into unwilling accomplices in spreading biased and baseless ideas. The tragedy of disinformation is that it discredits others, presenting them as enemies, to the point of demonizing them and fomenting conflict. Fake news is a sign of intolerant and hypersensitive attitudes and leads only to the spread of arrogance and hatred. That is the end result of untruth. The capacity to twist the truth is symptomatic of our condition, both as individuals and communities. On the other hand, when we are faithful to God’s plan, communication becomes an effective expression of our responsible search for truth and our pursuit of goodness. Pope Francis has argued that the most “radical antidote” to the scourge of fake news lies in “purification by the truth.” For us Catholic Christians, this simply means living the truth through faith in Jesus Christ, who said about himself that he is the truth and “the truth will set you free.” The truth leads to dialogue and “fruitful results.”

New Horizons & Pastoral Challenges of Social Media

Speaking recently on May 1 of this year “to directors and employees of Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference, Pope Francis said that the use of new digital platforms not only requires significant technological updates but also a willingness to accept that ‘the attachment to the past may prove to be a dangerous temptation.’

“Catholic journalists and news organizations must realize that ‘only by shutting down the noise of the world and our own gossip will it be possible to listen, which remains the first condition of every communication.’ Particularly in today’s world where ‘the speed of information surpasses our capacity of reflection,’ he said, church members are exposed ‘to the impact and influence of a culture of haste and superficiality’ and risk reducing the church’s mission to a ‘pastoral ministry of applause, to a dumbing down of thought and to a widespread disorientation of opinions that are not in agreement.’”

The Pope has spoken of the example set forth by St. Joseph, who “is a reminder for all Christians working in the field of communications to ‘recover a sense of healthy slowness, tranquility and patience.’ …Recalling the words of Blessed Paul VI,” (soon to be canonized) “Pope Francis said that Catholic newspapers shouldn’t just report news to ‘make an impression or gain clients’ but rather to educate their readers ‘to think, to judge’ for themselves.”

One of the most important contributions of the Church in the whole area of Social Media is our ability to ask significant questions of all those who live in the digital world. Does online life threaten to obliterate religious tradition and memory? What are Facebook, Twitter, and even the online version of our favorite newspapers doing to our attention spans, our ability to concentrate, the quality of our worship and reflection, our relation to the corporeal world, and our relationships with people and communities therein? What is digital citizenship and social networking doing for us? What is it doing to us? What is it doing to our sense of social boundaries? To our sense of individuality? To our friendships? We expose everything, but are we feeling anything? Digital social media are real places where people gather – like a town square or fellowship hall-and we must be present in these places just as we would be present in any of these other physical locales. If we are not there, then we are ceding the space to someone else. Our external technologies will certainly continue to advance. What is very uncertain is whether our inner technologies of consciousness will grow along with them. We need to make sure we connect to that place inside us of ease and focus, the creative mind. This is where we pastoral ministers have a critical role to play.

Pope Francis warns us: “some people… want their interpersonal relationships provided by sophisticated equipment, by screens and systems which can be turned on and off.” He continues, “the Gospel tells us constantly to run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others, with their physical presence which challenges us, with their pain and their pleas, with their joy which infects us.” (Evangelii Gaudium, 88)

In the digital world, no matter how hasty, undigested, unreflective the responses may be from our audience, our patient listening must always triumph. Internet culture conditions us to think that quick, instant responses to complex questions are the most valuable responses. Some people work so hard to be relevant that they spin hopelessly into irrelevance. We must avoid the great danger of chasing after relevance. We run the risk of becoming choreographers of immediacy rather than midwives of a slower wisdom. Our mission it to always seek in depth that solid soil of the vital relationship with God and others, a place to really build a culture of respect, of dialogue, and of friendship.

Field Hospitals in the Digital Universe

Allow me to develop one of Pope Francis’ powerful, frequently used images: that of the “field hospital” that is drawn from the Spiritual Exercises. In Ignatius’ masterful work, God sees the world as a battlefield full of the dead and wounded. When Jorge Mario Bergoglio speaks of the Church as a “field hospital after a battle,” he appeals to Ignatius’ understanding of “the role of the Church in light of God’s gaze upon the world: ‘so many people ask us to be close, that ask us for what they were asking of Jesus: closeness, nearness.’ It is the opposite image of a fortress under siege. The image of a church as a field hospital is not just a simple, pretty poetic metaphor; from this very image we can derive an understanding of both the church’s mission and the sacraments of salvation.”

What and where are the battlefields today? We can each name a country or land where blood, terror and violence seem to have the upper hand. But the big battlefield before humanity is the digital world: one that requires no passport and travel ticket to enter. You only need a keyboard, a screen, or a hand-held device. It is in that universe that many wars are waged each day and where many wounded souls live, walk, or troll. It is an immense battleground that needs many field hospitals set up to bind wounds and reconcile warring parties. In the heart and mind of Pope Francis, we need “a church that is again capable of restoring citizenship to so many of its children that walk as if in exodus. Christian citizenship is above all the result of God’s mercy.

Francis the “defibrillator”

Some have called the Argentine Jesuit Bishop of Rome a “tweetable” Pope made for 140 characters! We delight in his words of wisdom telling us: “Eternity will not be boring”; “Long faces cannot proclaim Jesus”; “The confessional is not a torture chamber”; “We are not part-time Christians”; and “The Church is not ‘spa therapy.’” He’s got the world and the Church talking and listening! Pope Francis is an agent of change for the Church and the world. He has reminded Curial types in Rome that it’s time for a change, that the Church does not belong to them, that the movement of the Holy Spirit cannot be managed or scripted. He is sending a message with the style, as well as the substance, of his remarks.

A French journalist referred to Francis as a “defibrillator” pope. We need defibrillators when we have serious heart problems. Defibrillation is a common treatment for life-threatening heart rhythms, blocked arteries, and problems with pulses. Defibrillation consists of delivering a therapeutic dose of electrical energy to the affected heart. This depolarizes a critical mass of the heart muscle, terminates the dysrhythmia, and allows rhythm to be reestablished by the body’s natural pacemaker. Papa Francesco is a badly-needed ecclesial defibrillator for our times!

Simply consider a few of Francis’ electroshocks over the past five years: He started changing the tune of the papacy from day one, when he returned to the Casa Paolo VI to pack his bags and pay his bills! He has made it pretty clear to us that he is not fascinated with a certain form of unhealthy traditionalism and pomp which seemed to be on the rise. He speaks out against clericalism: that of the ordained and that of the laity!

He jolted liturgists and canonists on his first Holy Thursday night as Pope, when in a Roman prison, he washed the feet of outcasts, including two women and two Muslims, in a gesture of profound service.

He has established a new form of magisterium at Domus Sanctae Marthae, by celebrating Mass with various groups of Vatican employees each morning and giving a homily which has become a staple in spiritual nourishment for millions around the world – Christian and non-Christian. The colourful, unscripted homilies he delivers have become one of the distinctive features of his pontificate. He has revitalized preaching.

He has railed against the scandal of poverty and stressed the importance of personal involvement with the poor. Money must “serve” man, not “rule” over him. The Pope’s condemnation of runaway capitalism and an exclusive focus on profit are ideologically in line with Pope Benedict, but the energy and frequency with which Francis strikes these chords are definitely new.

He has decried the “self-referential” mentality of Catholics. He has challenged the mentality of ecclesial framework managers and been critical of a Church that loses its dynamic spiritual principles.

He has challenged priests and bishops in the exercise of their ministry and their stewardship of material goods. Several years ago, in a heartfelt address to a rare meeting of the Nuncios of the world gathered in Rome, Francis told them that pastors “must know how to be ahead of the herd to point the way, in the midst of the flock to keep it united, behind the flock to prevent someone being left behind, so that the same flock… has the sense of smell to find its way.”

Christianity, for Francis, is not a “salon Christianity” where we sit around at high tea and discuss religious or theological things that do not have a direct impact on our lives. He has cried out against hypocrisy, clericalism, duplicity, narcissism, consumerism, and hedonism in all their ugly forms.

To representatives of communities and movements gathered in Rome on Pentecost weekend several years ago, Francis asked them if they were open to surprises of God. Are we brave enough to go through the new paths that the novelty of God offers us, or do we defend ourselves, trapped in obsolete structures that have lost the purpose?

His recent retraction of statements about a bishop in Chile and his public admission that he was wrong in his judgement of the situation, only to be followed by the welcoming of victims of sexual abuse to the Vatican – and to be repeated again next week – was a stunning witness to the world to Pope Francis’ humility and bold leadership. He walks his talk and walks the walk.

Pope Francis’ daily mantra can be summed up in one expression: “Go out to the peripheries.” He calls us out of our cocoons to go to “the existential peripheries.” Think outside the box. Go to uncharted places on the fringes. You will be surprised who you find there! For the Pope, the Church is missionary, or she will die. Do we really want to go to these “existential peripheries”? How many times do we feel assaulted and challenged by them?

I think the Church needed to experience these aftershocks. They are never pleasant, but they often reverse death-dealing powers, unblock arteries of life, give us back our pulse, depolarize our atrophied muscles, and help us to live again and love again. They invite us into a deep conversion of mind and heart.

Benedict and Francis

My favourite biography of St. Francis of Assisi is that of the great British writer, G.K. Chesterton. I have read that work many times throughout my life, and one passage has taken on new meaning for me over the past years. Listen to Chesterton’s words:

“St. Francis must be imagined as moving swiftly through the world with a sort of impetuous politeness; almost like the movement of a man who stumbles on one knee half in haste and half in obeisance.  The eager face under the brown hood was that of a man always going somewhere, as if he followed as well as watched the flight of the birds.  And this sense of motion is indeed the meaning of the whole revolution that he made; for the work that has now to be described was of the nature of an earthquake or a volcano, an explosion that drove outwards with dynamic energy the forces stored up by ten centuries in the monastic fortress or arsenal and scattered all its riches recklessly to the ends of the earth. 

In a better sense than the antithesis commonly conveys, it is true to say that what St. Benedict had stored St. Francis scattered; but in the world of spiritual things what had been stored into the barns like grain was scattered over the world as seed.  The servants of God who had been a besieged garrison became a marching army; the ways of the world were filled as with thunder with the trampling of their feet and far ahead of that ever swelling host went a man singing; as simply he had sung that morning in the winter woods, where he walked alone.”

“What Benedict had stored, Francis scattered…” Many in both religious and secular media have been a bit too quick to interpret Francis’ gestures as a sign of discontinuity with the work of his predecessor. What we forget is that more than any of the choices made by Francis, it was Benedict XVI’s resignation that represented the greatest change of the papal office. Benedict’s decision does not in any way undermine the papacy.

Benedict, the great teacher, also taught us that the Petrine ministry is not about externals, power, prestige, and privilege. Pope Benedict brilliantly emphasized the need for intense theological life, constant prayer, and quiet contemplation which would naturally give way to good moral living, a commitment to others, and a life of charity and justice. With Francis, it seems that the perspective is the other way around – it is concrete, charitable actions and visible human affection that redefine the theological life, giving it depth and breath. And such actions attract others to Christ and the Church and serve as privileged instruments of evangelization.

What Benedict stored, Francis scatters… Francis’ striking symbolism is becoming substance. Francis seeks a simpler church, more closely identified with the poor. He is undoubtedly aware of the scandals, the corruption, the hypocrisy, the challenges, the leaks and the lobbies, and the things that need to be fixed inside the Vatican. But many around the world, inside and outside the Church, from the left, right, and centre of the Church are witnessing something new happening. Smallness of mind and meanness of spirit are slowly transformed into wideness of thought and generosity of spirit.

What Benedict stored, Francis scatters… “In the world of spiritual things what had been stored into the barns like grain was scattered over the world as seed… .” Let us never forget the deep continuity between Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, Bishop of Rome. It is manifested in their outlook on faith and their awareness that it is the Lord who leads the Church, not the Pope. Francis teaches the doctrine identical to that of his predecessors. He reminds us of the words of his predecessor Saint John over 50 years ago at the beginning of the Second Vatican Council: “The substance of the ancient doctrine of the Deposit of Faith is one thing, and the way it is presented is another.” With Francis, it’s the same Petrine brand but the packaging has changed!

I conclude my address with Pope Francis’ prayer for this year’s World Day of Communications. He was inspired by the other Francis, the one from Assisi, to formulate this prayer for all of us involved in the work of education and communications:

 

Lord, make us instruments of your peace.
Help us to recognize the evil latent in a communication that does not build communion.
Help us to remove the venom from our judgements.
Help us to speak about others as our brothers and sisters.
You are faithful and trustworthy; may our words be seeds of goodness for the world:
where there is shouting, let us practise listening;
where there is confusion, let us inspire harmony;
where there is ambiguity, let us bring clarity;
where there is exclusion, let us offer solidarity;
where there is sensationalism, let us use sobriety;
where there is superficiality, let us raise real questions;
where there is prejudice, let us awaken trust;
where there is hostility, let us bring respect;
where there is falsehood, let us bring truth. Amen.

The post Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB, delivers the Carr Lecture at St. Mark’s College in Vancouver appeared first on Salt + Light Blog.

Watch the Daily Mass for Saturday June 2nd, with Fr. Thomas Rosica, C.S.B. Catholic Mass videos are uploaded every day. Please visit and subscribe to our Salt + Light channel for notifications on new material.

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One of the most popular devotions within the Church is the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  The geographic and historic center of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is in Paray-le-Monial, a small village in Burgundy, where St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690) lived. She was a Visitation nun to whom Jesus appeared.  The message Jesus gave this French religious, whose first vision was on Dec. 27, 1673, was an image of God that was in great contrast to the Jansenist tendency of that century. In December 1673, during Christ’s first apparition to St. Mary Margaret, he gave her this message, as she later recounted: “My Sacred Heart is so intense in its love for men, and for you in particular, that not being able to contain within it the flames of its ardent charity, they must be transmitted through all means.”

Jesus showed Himself to Sr. Margaret Mary in a way that she could understand – with a human heart aflame with love. He told her that He would be present in a special way to those devoted to His Sacred Heart and that His presence would lead to peace in families, the conversion of sinners, blessings in abundance, and perseverance when death was near.

To know God’s love in Jesus and to share it with others is the central message of the gospels. There has been no change in this message for two thousand years. Ways of explaining our faith may change, forms of prayer may be altered, certain devotions may come in and out of style, but at the core is the loving heart of Jesus, which remains constant and true.

The message of the Sacred Heart is one of God’s deep and intimate love for us. Devotion to the Sacred Heart is an integral part of our Catholic heritage because it helps us to live the basic Christian message of faith and love.

The symbol of the heart

A symbol is a real sign, whereas a metaphor is only a verbal sign; a symbol is a thing that signifies another thing, but a metaphor is a word used to indicate something different from its proper meaning.  A visible heart is necessary for an image of the Sacred Heart, but this visible heart must be a symbolic heart.  We know that the symbolism of the heart is a symbolism founded upon reality and that it constitutes the special object of the devotion to the Sacred Heart.

The heart is, above all, the emblem of love, and by this characteristic, the devotion to the Sacred Heart is naturally defined. However, being directed to the loving Heart of Jesus, it naturally encounters whatever in Jesus is connected with this love.  A first extension of the devotion is from the loving Heart to the intimate knowledge of Jesus, to His sentiments and virtues, to His whole emotional and moral life; from the loving Heart to all the manifestations of Its love.

When we designate Jesus as the Sacred Heart, we mean Jesus manifesting His Heart, Jesus all loving and amiable. Jesus entire is thus recapitulated in the Sacred Heart as all is recapitulated in Jesus.

It is in the eleventh and twelfth centuries that we find the first indications of devotion to the Sacred Heart. Through the wound in the side, the wounded Heart was gradually reached, and the wound in the Heart symbolized the wound of love. It was in the fervent atmosphere of the Benedictine or Cistercian monasteries that the devotion arose, although it is impossible to say positively what were its first texts or its first votaries. To St. Gertrude, St. Mechtilde, and the author of the “Vitis mystica” it was already well known.

From the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, the devotion was propagated, but it did not seem to have developed in itself. It was everywhere practised by privileged souls, and the lives of the saints and annals of different religious congregations, of the Franciscans, Dominicans, Carthusians, etc., furnish many examples of it. It was nevertheless a private, individual devotion of the mystical order.

It appears that in the sixteenth century, the devotion took a major step forward step and passed from the domain of mysticism into that of Christian asceticism.  We learn from the writings of two masters of the spiritual life: the Lanspergius (d. 1539) of the Carthusians of Cologne, and Louis of Blois (Blosius; 1566), a Benedictine and Abbot of Liessies in Hainaut. To these may be added Blessed John of Avila (d. 1569) and St. Francis de Sales, the latter of the seventeenth century.

It was to Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690), a humble Visitandine of the monastery at Paray-le Monial, that Christ chose to reveal the desires of His Heart and to confide the task of imparting new life to the devotion. There is nothing to indicate that this contemplative religious had known the devotion prior to the revelations, or at least that she had paid any attention to it.

A few days after the “great apparition” of June 1675, Margaret Mary made all known to Father de la Colombière, and the latter, recognizing the action of the spirit of God, consecrated himself to the Sacred Heart, directed the holy Visitandine to write an account of the apparition, and made use of every available opportunity discreetly to circulate this account through France and England.

At his death on February 15, 1682, there was found in his journal of spiritual retreats a copy in his own handwriting of the account that he had requested of Margaret Mary, together with a few reflections on the usefulness of the devotion.  The little text was widely read, even at Paray, although not without being the cause of “dreadful confusion” to Margaret Mary, who, nevertheless, resolved to make the best of it and profited by the book for the spreading of her cherished devotion.

The death of Margaret Mary on October 17, 1690, did not dampen the ardour of those interested in the devotion.  In spite of all sorts of obstacles and of the slowness of the Holy See (which in 1693, imparted indulgences to the Confraternities of the Sacred Heart and, in 1697, granted the feast to the Visitandines with the Mass of the Five Wounds, but refused a feast common to all, with special Mass and prayers), the devotion spread, particularly in religious communities.

The Marseilles plague of 1720 furnished perhaps the first occasion for a solemn consecration and public worship outside of religious communities. Other cities of the South followed the example of Marseilles, and thus the devotion became a popular one.

Oftentimes, especially since about 1850, groups, congregations, and states have consecrated themselves to the Sacred Heart, and, in 1875, this consecration was made throughout the Catholic world.  Finally, on June 11, 1899, by order of Leo XIII, and with the formula prescribed by him, all mankind was solemnly consecrated to the Sacred Heart.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart Today

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus has suffered cardiac arrest in recent decades.  This decline of devotion is all the more striking because of its pre-eminence in the first half of the 20th century, when so many Catholic families had a picture of Jesus and his Sacred Heart displayed in their homes, and when Thursday night holy hours and first Fridays proliferated in parishes.

Like many forms of heart disease, such atrophy could have been prevented through a healthy diet—in this case, Scripture and tradition. The heart is a powerful metaphor in the Bible, what Karl Rahner, S.J., has called a  “primordial word.” It signifies the wellspring of life, the totality of one’s being. The prophet Ezekiel, for instance, records God’s promise to change Israel’s  “heart of stone” into a “heart of flesh,” while John’s Gospel gives the heart its most profound scriptural expression: Jesus’ heart is the source of living water, of rest for the Beloved Disciple, of the church and its sacraments, of doubting Thomas’ faith.

I believe that the deepest meaning of the devotion, however, is glimpsed in a poet who does not even mention it: Dante Alighieri. At the dark bottom of Hell, Satan is frozen in ice up to his chest, crying tears and drooling bloody foam, his six wings bellowing cold wind upward. Wedged into the inverted apex of the underworld, he is locked in his own resentment, impotent and utterly alone. Hell, the Inferno makes clear, is not fire, but ice: cold, crabbed isolation. Paradise is pure communion, illuminated and warmed by the love that moves the sun and the other stars.

In today’s love-starving world, how we need to follow the example of Jesus Christ in His unspeakable love for us. If there is one adjective that describes the modern world, this world is a loveless world. This world is a selfish world. This world is so preoccupied with space and time that it gives almost no thought to eternity and the everlasting joys that await those who have served God faithfully here on earth.

How do we serve God faithfully? We serve Him only as faithfully as we serve Him lovingly, by giving ourselves to the needs of everyone whom God puts into our lives. No one reaches heaven automatically. Heaven must be dearly paid for. The price of reaching heaven is the practice of selfless love here on earth.

That is what devotion to the Sacred Heart is all about. It is the practice of selfless love toward selfish people. It is giving ourselves to persons that do not give themselves to us. In all of our lives, God has placed selfish persons who may be physically close to us, but spiritually are strangers and even enemies. That is why God places unkind, unjust, even cruel people into our lives. By loving them, we show something of the kind of love that God expects of His followers.

The Heart of the Priesthood

“If you are afraid of love, don’t ever become a priest, and don’t ever celebrate Mass.  The Mass will cause a torrent of interior suffering to pour down upon your soul, with one purpose only– to break you in half, so that all the people of the world can enter into your heart.”  – Thomas Merton

“If you are afraid of people, don’t celebrate Mass!  Because when you start to say Mass, the Spirit of God will awaken in you like a giant and break through the locks of your private sanctuary and invite all of the people of the world into your heart.”  – Thomas Merton

“If you celebrate Mass, condemn your heart to the torment of love that is so vast and so insatiable that you will not resist in bearing it alone.  That love is the love of the Heart of Jesus that burns inside your miserable heart, and allows the immense weight of his mercy for all the sins of the world to fall upon you! Do you know what that love will do if you allow it to work in your soul, if you don’t resist it?  It will devour you.  It will kill you.  It will break your heart.”  – Thomas Merton

Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB
CEO, Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation

Who are the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus? What is their mission like? Who do they serve? Find out in our 7- part series Sisterhood (Link: https://goo.gl/ZoPLxf )

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One of the lingering questions we all ask is about the origin of evil in the world and in our own lives. Our Catholic Christian faith teaches us that evil is not God’s will, nor can it be. God cannot create something that is inherently wicked or evil. One would think that the right place to reflect on such lofty thoughts is a church, a faculty of theology, a quiet retreat house, a monastic library, or a quiet place filled with holy images and angelic music, and certainly not the likes of a Broadway theatre in Manhattan or even the Ed Mirvish Theatre in Toronto’s Theatre District.

WICKED, the Broadway sensation, is a witty and imaginative “prequel” to L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and is highly effective because it offers something that many musicals have not been able to do: it appeals wildly to young people but can be taken very seriously by adults. It makes people think about such important themes as the origin and meaning of evil, the possibility of redemption for bad people, the gift of friendship, the nature and long-lasting effects of family strife and tragedy, and the power of forgiveness.

Based on Gregory Maguire’s best-selling novel of the same name, WICKED features music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (of Godspell and Pippin fame). It tells the story of two women: the clever, green-skinned Elphaba and the beautiful, ambitious Glinda. How did one become the Wicked Witch of the West and the other the Good Witch of the North? This musical explores one possibility. But it does more than take our understanding of the world of Oz and turn it on its head. It makes us examine our understanding of good and evil, and criticizes a society that conflates appearance and reality.

Between its clever storytelling and its thrilling musical score, WICKED is wildly entertaining. And it will definitely make you think twice before calling someone good and the other person evil!

At the end of Act II, Glinda and Elphaba create a “religious” moment on stage and summarize beautifully much of the human struggle to make sense out of bad things that befall good people and the human quest for authentic friends. Their magnificent duet, “For Good,” sums up their friendship as they are seeing each other for the last time. Although it begins as an altercation, in the end they come to see each other with gratitude and learn to forgive one another.

I haven’t been able to get Glinda’s words out of my head since the first time I saw the musical in New York City back in 2006:

“I’ve heard it said
That people come into our lives
For a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well I don’t know if I believe that’s true
But I know I’m who I am today
Because I knew you

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say
If I’ve been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed
For good.”

The duet reaches its apex when Elphaba sings:

“And just to clear the air, I ask forgiveness
for the things I’ve done you blame me for,”

to which Glinda replies:

“But then, I guess we know there’s blame to share,
and none of it seems to matter anymore.”

Both have been changed for good!

WICKED, returning for a Toronto run from June 20 to August 5 is wonderful, and not a bad way to think about some of the things that really matter! You, too, might be changed for good after seeing it.

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The Theology On Tap summer speaker series gets off to a great start in Chicago with a performance by Fr. Rob Galea, Australia’s X Factor contestant, author and founder of FRG Ministry. Fr. Rob talks about his interesting and challenging background with Fr. Tom Rosica, Chief Executive Officer of Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation in Canada.

For more information on the event, behind the scenes photos, and how to get involved, visit their Facebook page here.

To learn more about Fr. Rob Gaela and his mission, visit his website.

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July 1, 2018, marks the 15th anniversary of the first broadcast of Salt and Light Television Network. Born on the wings of the 2002 World Youth Day in Canada and launched in July 2003, Salt and Light is the first national Catholic television channel in Canada. The network was the dream and vision of the late Gaetano Gagliano, an Italian-Canadian Catholic business man who had a passion for communications and saw it realized at the age of 86 with the establishment of the Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation. Gaetano died in 2016 at the age of 99.

The channel airs programming in several languages, predominantly in English along with several French programs airing under the brand Télévision Sel et Lumière as well as Italian and Chinese programs in both Cantonese and Mandarin. Salt and Light operates on numerous media platforms, including radio on the Catholic Channel on Sirius Radio, on YouTube, ROKU, and Social Media.

The name of the station is drawn from the theme of World Youth Day 2002, “You are the salt of the earth… you are the light of the world,” part of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:13-14). Following my work as National Director and CEO of WYD 2002, I was invited to become the founding Chief Executive Officer of Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation. Salt and Light programs range from daily news and current events to special features, cultural programs and films. Most programming falls into one of five categories:

• National and International Stories of Catholic Action and Social Justice
• Stories of Catholic Communities
• Learning and Faith Development
• Prayer, Devotion, Meditation and Stories of the Saints and Blesseds
• Liturgy, including daily Mass, Vatican ceremonies and Vatican events

Salt and Light serves the francophone community in Canada and around the world through its branch office in Montreal, made possible through the generosity of the Archdiocese of Montreal. Soon we will have a small office in New York City.

Our connectedness with the Church and her message is our authentication of our teaching, story, and message.  What we have to say, what Salt and Light presents, is verified by its communion with the teaching of the Church and its identification with the rock that is the touchstone of that teaching. We have had the unique privilege of serving three Bishops of Rome since our foundation. We hear on the lips of the Successors of Peter different accents but always the one true voice of the faith. Whether it was Pius XII, Saint John XXIII, Blessed Paul VI, John Paul I, Saint John Paul II, Benedict XVI or now Francis, we recognize Peter.

We strive to teach others to echo Christ with a Roman heart so that our message rests firmly connected to the rock of the Church. This is the trademark of Salt and Light.  One great privilege we have had has been to serve the Universal Church from inside four Synods of Bishops at the Vatican, in 2008 on the Word of God, in 2012 on the New Evangelization, and the 2014 and 2015 Synods on the Family. We brought the world the sounds and visions, the daily messages of these very important ecclesial assemblies of Bishops.

What distinguishes us from many other Catholic Television Networks and broadcasting platforms is the youthful presence, leadership, and vision of the staff of Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation. We were born from the dynamic vision, energy, and spirit of World Youth Day 2002 in Canada.  If we are still here today – despite so many challenges that accompany a bold project of this magnitude – it is a testimony to the Lord, who wishes us to be here, and to your unfailing generosity, friendship, encouragement, and support. Thank you for believing in us, supporting us, and praying for us as we continue bearing the flavour of the Gospel and the Light of Christ to Canada and to the world. Join us in praying our special prayer:

God our Father,
on a hillside in Galilee,
your Son Jesus called us to be the salt of
the earth and the light of the world.
Give us strength and wisdom to become
the people of the Beatitudes in our day,
so that our words may season the world
with the flavour of the Gospel and
our lives be shining examples of Jesus,
who is the true Light of the World.
We ask you this through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

The post The Flavour of the Gospel and the Light of Christ for Canada and the World: <br>Salt and Light Television at 15! appeared first on Salt + Light Blog.

“Doubting Thomas” or “Honest Thomas”

Feast of St. Thomas the Apostle – July 3

A proverb says, “When the heart is not applied, hands can’t do anything.” It seems as if this were written for Thomas the Apostle! John’s first appearance of the Risen Lord to the disciples is intense and focused, a scene set with realistic detail: it is evening, the first day of the week, and the doors are bolted shut. Anxious disciples are hermetically sealed inside the room. A suspicious, violent world is forced tightly outside. Jesus is missing. Suddenly, the Risen One defies locked doors, locked hearts, and locked vision. He simply appears. Gently, ever so gently, Jesus reaches out to the broken and wounded Apostle.

“Doubting Thomas” is often used to describe someone who refuses to believe something without direct, personal evidence: a skeptic. It refers, of course, to Thomas, one of the Twelve, whose name occurs in all the Gospel lists of the Apostles. Thomas is called Didymus, the Greek form of an Aramaic name meaning “twin.” When Jesus announced his intention of returning to Judea to visit Lazarus, Thomas said to his fellow disciples: “Let us also go, that we may die with him” (John 11:16). It was Thomas who, during the great discourse after the Last Supper, raised an objection:

“Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” (John 14:5).

Little else is recorded of Thomas the Apostle in the New Testament; nevertheless, thanks to John’s Gospel account of Jesus’ meeting with Thomas (John 20:19-31), we have a better understanding of his personality than that of some of the other Apostles. Thomas would have listened to Jesus’ words, and he certainly experienced dismay at Jesus’ death. That Easter evening when the Lord appeared to the disciples, Thomas was not present. When he was told that Jesus was alive and had shown himself, Thomas said, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe” (John 20:25). Eight days later, Thomas made his act of faith. He hesitatingly put his finger into the wounds of Jesus and love flowed out. He is blessed beyond belief for his sincerity. Jesus exclaims to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (John 20:29).

Thomas, the Honest Lover

Thomas the Apostle is one of the greatest and most honest lovers of Jesus, not the eternal skeptic or the bullish, stubborn personality that Christian tradition has often painted. This young Apostle stood before the cross, not comprehending the horrors of what had happened. All his dreams and hopes were hanging on that cross. Thomas rediscovered his faith amidst the believing community of Apostles and disciples. This point must never be forgotten, especially in an age when so many claim that faith and spirituality are attainable without the experience of the ecclesial community. We do not believe as isolated individuals, but rather, through our baptism, we become members of this great family of the Church.

Centuries after Thomas, we remain forever grateful for the honesty and humanity of his struggle. Though we know little about him, his family background and his destiny, we do know that his name means “twin.” Who was Thomas’ other half, his twin? Maybe we can see his twin by looking in the mirror. Thomas’ other half is anyone who has struggled with the pain of unbelief, doubt, and despair and has allowed the presence of the Risen Jesus to make a difference.

Long ago, St. Gregory the Great said, “If, by touching the wounds on the body of his master, Thomas is able to help us overcome the wounds of disbelief, then the doubting of Thomas will have been more use to us than the faith of all the other apostles.”

Excerpt from “Stay with us…” Encounters with the Risen Lord

Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB

Order your copy of the book here.

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CNS photo/Paul Haring

The Ignatian Qualities of the Petrine Ministry of Pope Francis
Reflection on the Feast of the Founder of the Society of Jesus
July 31, 2018

For the July 31st Feast Day of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, I offer you the following reflections about this great saint and how his vision for the Church and for Christians has found a home in the life and witness of Pope Francis. One of the main themes permeating the thought of St. Ignatius of Loyola is his exhortation “Sentire cum ecclesia” or “think with the Church.” “Sentire cum ecclesia” also means to feel with the Church and to love the Church.  It is necessary to cultivate this communion of shared devotion, affection, and purpose in a very disciplined way, for not all aspects of the Church are lovable, just as we are not always lovable as individuals. The structures of the Church cannot exist without human mediation, with all its gifts and defects of the persons present in the Church. Such thoughts are vitally important, especially in the midst of current crises facing the Church, Catholics and Christians around the world.

Ignatius of Loyola founded the society after being wounded in battle and experiencing a religious conversion. He composed the Spiritual Exercises to help others follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. In 1534, Ignatius and six other young men, including Francis Xavier and Peter Faber, gathered and professed vows of poverty, chastity, and later obedience, including a special vow of obedience to the pope in matters of mission direction and assignment. Ignatius’ plan of the order’s organization was approved by Pope Paul III in 1540 by a bull containing the “Formula of the Institute”.

The Society of Jesus is present today in education, schools, colleges, universities and seminaries, intellectual research, and cultural pursuits. Jesuits also give retreats, minister in hospitals, parishes, university chaplaincies, and promote social justice and ecumenical dialogue. One of them with a longstanding Jesuit identity happens to be leading the Catholic Church at this moment in history. Francis of Argentina is the first pope from the Society of Jesus – this religious congregation whose worldly, wise intellectuals are as famous as its missionaries and martyrs. It’s this all-encompassing personal and professional Jesuit identity and definition that the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio brought with him from Buenos Aires to Rome, and one that continues to shape almost everything he does as Pope Francis. From his passion for social justice and his missionary zeal to his focus on engaging the wider world and his preference for collaboration over immediate action without reflection, Pope Francis is a Jesuit through and through.

What kind of a Jesuit is Francis?

Jorge Mario Bergoglio fully embraced the Jesuits’ radical turn to championing the poor; though he was seen as an enemy of liberation theology by many Jesuits, others in the order were devoted to him. He turned away from devotional traditionalism but was viewed by others as still far too orthodox. Critics labeled him a collaborator with the Argentine military junta even though biographies now clearly show that he worked carefully and clandestinely to save many lives. None of that ended the intrigue against Bergoglio within the Jesuits, and in the early 1990s, he was effectively exiled from Buenos Aires to an outlying city, “a time of great interior crisis,” as he himself described it. As a good, obedient Jesuit, Bergoglio complied with the society’s demands and sought to find God’s will in it all. His virtual estrangement from the Jesuits encouraged then-Cardinal Antonio Quarracino of Buenos Aires to appoint Bergoglio as auxiliary bishop in 1992.

In 1998, Bergoglio succeeded Quarracino as Archbishop. In 2001, John Paul II made Bergoglio a cardinal, one of only two Jesuits in the 120-member College of Cardinals at that moment in history. The other Jesuit cardinal was Carlo Maria Martini of Milan.

We all know what happened to Cardinal Bergoglio on March 13, 2013, when his brother Cardinals elected him Bishop of Rome and Successor of Peter during the Conclave that followed the historic resignation of Pope Benedict XVI from the papacy.

The Pope among his brother Jesuits

On Monday, October 24, 2016, Pope Francis went to the General Congregation of the Jesuits – their general chapter underway in Rome – with a message. His whole address was characterized by an openness to what lies ahead, a call to go further, a support for caminar, the way of journeying that allows Jesuits to go toward others and to walk with them on their own journey.

Francis began his address to his Jesuit confrères quoting St. Ignatius and reminding them that a Jesuit is called to converse and thereby to bring life to birth “in every part of the world where a greater service of God and help for souls is expected.” Precisely for this reason, the Jesuits must go forward, taking advantage of the situations in which they find themselves, always to serve more and better. This implies a way of doing things that aims for harmony in the contexts of tension that are normal in a world with diverse persons and missions. The pope mentioned explicitly the tensions between contemplation and action, between faith and justice, between charism and institution, between community and mission.

The Holy Father detailed three areas of the Society’s path, yet these areas are not only for his religious family, but for the universal Church. The first is to “ask insistently for consolation.” It is proper to the Society of Jesus to know how to console, to bring consolation and real joy; Jesuits must put themselves at the service of joy, for the Good News cannot be announced in sadness. Then, departing from his text, he insisted that joy “must always be accompanied by humour,” and with a big smile on his face, he remarked, “as I see it, the human attitude that is closest to divine grace is a sense of humour.”

Next, Francis invited the Society to “allow yourselves to be moved by the Lord on the cross.” The Jesuits must get close to the vast majority of men and women who suffer, and, in this context, it must offer various services of mercy in various forms. The Pope underlined certain elements that he had already had occasion to present throughout the Jubilee Year of Mercy. Those who have been touched by mercy must feel themselves sent to present this same mercy in an effective way.

Finally, the Holy Father invited the Society to go forward under the influence of the “good spirit.” This implies always discerning, which is more than simply reflecting, how to act in communion with the Church. The Jesuits must be not “clerical” but “ecclesial.” They are “men for others” who live in the midst of all peoples, trying to touch the heart of each person, contributing in this way to establishing a Church in which all have their place, in which the Gospel is inculturated, and in which each culture is evangelized.

These three key words of the pope’s address are graces for which each Jesuit and the whole Society must always ask: consolation, compassion, and discernment. But Francis has not only reminded his own religious family of these three important gifts that are at the core of Jesuit spirituality, he has also offered them to the universal Church, especially through the recent Synods of Bishops on the Family. As Pope Francis goes about his daily work and slowly implements the reform that he was commissioned to bring about in the Church by his brother Cardinals, it has become clear that his aim is to make the Church the Church of Jesus Christ, welcoming to all, and appealing and attractive because it shows its care for all people.

Discernment

Over the past five years, Pope Francis has stressed that quintessential quality of Ignatius of Loyola: discernment.  Discernment is a constant effort to be open to the Word of God that can illuminate the concrete reality of everyday life. A clear example of this discernment emerged at the 2015 Synod of Bishops on the Family and in the Synod’s Apostolic Exhortation, Amoris Laetitia. It was a very Ignatian principle that illustrates the Church’s great respect for the consciences of the faithful as well as the necessity of formation of consciences:

“We have long thought that simply by stressing doctrinal, bioethical and moral issues, without encouraging openness to grace, we were providing sufficient support to families, strengthening the marriage bond and giving meaning to marital life. We find it difficult to present marriage more as a dynamic path to personal development and fulfilment than as a lifelong burden. We also find it hard to make room for the consciences of the faithful, who very often respond as best they can to the Gospel amid their limitations, and are capable of carrying out their own discernment in complex situations. We have been called to form consciences, not to replace them.” (37)

The Church does not exist to take over people’s conscience but to stand in humility before faithful men and women who have discerned prayerfully and often painfully before God the reality of their lives and situations. Discernment and the formation of conscience can never be separated from the Gospel demands of truth and the search for charity and truth, and the tradition of the Church.

In keeping with his own Jesuit formation, Pope Francis is a man of discernment, and, at times, that discernment results in freeing him from the confinement of doing something in a certain way because it was ever thus. In paragraph 33 of his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium. Francis writes:

“Pastoral ministry in a missionary key seeks to abandon the complacent attitude that says: “We have always done it this way”. I invite everyone to be bold and creative in this task of rethinking the goals, structures, style and methods of evangelization in their respective communities. A proposal of goals without an adequate communal search for the means of achieving them will inevitably prove illusory.”

The first Jesuits were “a holiness movement,” inviting everyone to lead a holy life. Francis of Assisi was committed to a literal imitation of the poor Christ. Ignatius was inspired by that poverty and originally planned that Jesuits would follow the same route. But as the renowned American Jesuit historian Fr. John O’Malley has indicated, just as Ignatius learned to set aside his early austerities to make himself more approachable, he later moderated the Society’s poverty to make it possible to evangelize more people especially through educational institutions. Even evangelical poverty was a relative value in relation to the good of souls and their progress in holiness. That same apostolic reasoning is found in Pope Francis’ instructions to priests around the world about their ministries.

An inclusive, listening Church

The spirit of openness is foundational to the Jesuit way of proceeding. Jesuit parishes are known for their inclusiveness and Jesuit confessors for their understanding and compassion. Ignatius insisted in favour of the goodness of everyone we encounter and a prescription for a style of encounter that makes condemnation of those in error a last resort. Early in his Pontificate when Pope Francis made his controversial statement about even atheists having a chance to get into heaven, he was following the teaching of Vatican II, but he was also following a very Ignatian approach to the good of souls.

Care of those most in need

Ignatius of Loyola’s recommended style of ministry anticipates the positive pastoral approach Pope Francis has taken to evangelization. Pope Francis’ attention to refugees, the abandoned elderly, and unemployed youth exhibit the same concern as the first Jesuits for the lowliest and neediest people in society. Ignatius’ twin criteria for choice of ministries were serving those in greatest need and advancing the more universal good. The Jesuit Refugee Service and creative Jesuit projects in education, like the Nativity and Cristo Rey schools, are contemporary embodiments of the same spirit of evangelical care for the neediest. These apostolates are part of the post-conciliar renewal of the Society of Jesus, but they have deep, formative roots in Jesuit history and spirituality as well. In the mind and heart of Pope Francis, even elite Jesuit institutions can combine the intellectual apostolate with service to the poor in the spirit of Ignatius.

Humility and clerical reform

Pope Francis’ humility has impressed many people around the entire world. His style has truly become substance.  It is the most radically evangelical aspect of his spiritual reform of the papacy, and he has invited all Catholics, but especially the clergy, to reject success, wealth, and power. Humility is a key virtue in the Spiritual Exercises. One of its key meditations focuses on the Three Degrees of Humility. In Ignatius’ eyes, humility is the virtue that brings us closest to Christ, and Pope Francis appears to be guiding the Church and educating the clergy in that fundamental truth. Reform through spiritual renewal begins with the rejection of wealth, honours, and power, and it reaches its summit in the willingness to suffer humiliation with Christ. Humility is the most difficult part of the Ignatian papal reform, but it is essential for the Church’s purification from clericalism, the source of so many ills in the contemporary church.

How can we characterize Francis’ leadership and how is that leadership “Ignatian”?

Ignatius did not use the word “leadership” as we commonly do today. Jesuit or Ignatian spirituality and Jesuit traditions lend themselves well to manifesting leadership in one’s life and work. Someone whose style of leadership is inspired by the Ignatian tradition will particularly emphasize certain habits or priorities as a leader, in ways that distinguish him/her from the way leadership is generally taught and practiced. Those habits or priorities include the importance of formation – not just learning to do technical tasks (like strategic planning) but also commitment to lifelong self-development; the importance of deep self-awareness (of coming to know oneself, for example, as happens in the Spiritual Exercises); becoming a skilled decision-maker, as happens through the discernment tools of the Exercises; committing oneself to purposes bigger than self, to a mission of ultimate meaning (Jesuits often refer to this commitment by the expression of “magis”); deep respect for others, “finding God in all things.” Yet the difference between the worldly style of leadership and that traced by Ignatius is that the Jesuit style of leadership always points to God, the ultimate source of meaning. Great Jesuit figures like Peter Faber, Francis Xavier, Matteo Ricci, or Alberto Hurtado were able to accomplish the feats they did not simply because they had some good leadership skills but because they were inspired by love of God.

What does a Jesuit pope mean for the church?

The Jesuit pope is well versed in the Spiritual Exercises, so able to spread the knowledge and practice of this counterfeit way of conversion – a way that does not use the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ to simply convict his hearers of sin, righteousness, and the judgment to come but invites people to experience Jesus, his mercy, his love, his goodness, and his invitation to sinners to draw closer to him. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises invites people to imagine the gory details of hell, the warm embrace of the prodigal father, and the presence of Jesus walking with people on the highways and byways of life. Ignatius learned this way of meditation from his reading of the lives of the saints and mystics, but it is not necessarily the way of Scripture that can at times be devoid of imagination. Pope Francis follows Ignatius’ imaginative method in a remarkable and vivid way. He reminds us day in and day out that Jesuit spirituality is not only mystical, but it is ethical and can help us in our daily living.

The whole concept of setting up committees, consulting widely, convening smart people around you is how Jesuit superiors usually function. Then they make the decision. This sort of discernment – listening to all and contemplating everything before acting – is a cardinal virtue of the Ignatian spirituality that is at the core of Francis’ being and his commitment to a “conversion” of the papacy as well as the entire church.  It’s hard to predict what will come next. Francis is shrewd, and he has repeatedly praised the Jesuit trait of “holy cunning” – that Christians should be “wise as serpents but innocent as doves,” as Jesus put it. The pope’s openness, however, also a signature of his Jesuit training and development, means that not even he is sure where the spirit will lead. He has said: “I don’t have all the answers. I don’t even have all the questions. I always think of new questions, and there are always new questions coming forward.”

Pope Francis breaks Catholic traditions whenever he wants because he is “free from disordered attachments.” Our Church has indeed entered a new phase: with the advent of this first Jesuit pope, it is openly ruled by an individual rather than by the authority of Scripture alone or even its own dictates of tradition plus Scripture. Pope Francis has brought to the Petrine office a Jesuit intellectualism. By choosing the name Francis, he is also affirming the power of humility and simplicity. Pope Francis, the Argentine Jesuit, is not simply attesting to the complementarity of the Ignatian and Franciscan paths. He is pointing each day to how the mind and heart meet in the love of God and the love of neighbour. And most of all, he reminds us each day how much we need Jesus, and also how much we need one another along the journey.

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The theological meaning of the Transfiguration is central to our understanding of the mission of Jesus of Nazareth. In the past, every icon painter began his or her career by reproducing the scene of the Transfiguration. It has been said that the destiny of every Christian is written between two mountains: from Calvary to the mountain of the Transfiguration. The Transfiguration is a celebration of the presence of Christ which takes charge of everything in us and transfigures even that which disturbs us about ourselves. God penetrates those hardened, incredulous, even disquieting regions within us, about which we really do not know what to do. God penetrates them with the life of the Spirit and acts upon those regions and gives them his own face.

During my years in the Holy Land, my frequent visits to Mount Tabor always left me with a great sense of awe, wonder, mystery, fear, and reverence before Jesus. Each time I visited Mt. Tabor and the beautiful church depicting the three tents for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, I was also very aware of the memory of Blessed Pope Paul VI, who climbed Tabor as a pilgrim in 1964 and had a very special place for the mystery of the Transfiguration in his own prayer and Petrine Ministry.

When the Second Vatican Council ended on December 8, 1965, Pope Paul VI was confronted with the monumental task of implementing the Council’s decisions, which affected practically every facet of Church life. It was not only a matter of initiating changes in an institution steeped in history and tradition but also against the backdrop of a world that was undergoing massive transformations on social, psychological, cultural, and political levels in the 20^th century.

Pope Paul VI’s critical decisions and actions in those years required boldness and courage. Fifty years ago this past July, Paul VI published his encyclical letter Humanae vitae (Of Human Life – On the Regulation of Birth). The important papal document provides a beautiful and clear teaching about God’s plan for married love and the transmission of life. In many sectors this encyclical provoked adverse reactions that could be described as the most violent attacks on the authority of papal teaching up to that time. Paul VI’s firm stand on the retention of priestly celibacy (Sacerdotalis caelibatus, June 1967) also evoked harsh criticism. 

From the very outset of his Petrine Ministry, Paul VI was keenly aware of and sensitive to social problems and their impact on world peace. Social questions had already been prominent in his far-reaching pastoral program in Milan (1954–63). Such problems dominated his first encyclical letter, Ecclesiam suam (“His Church”), August 6, 1964, and later became the insistent theme of his celebrated Populorum progressio (“On Progress of the Peoples”), March 26, 1967. This encyclical was a strong plea for social justice that caused some conservatives to accuse the pope of having Marxist tendencies. The pope was deeply concerned about workers and the poor.

In an address to the Council fathers at the end of the first session of the Second Vatican Council, the then-Cardinal Montini formulated a question that may be called the theme of his pastoral service as pontiff: “Church of Christ, what have you to say of yourself?” In an effort to answer this fundamental question, Paul VI undertook a series of apostolic journeys that were unparalleled occasions for a pope to set foot on every continent. His first journey was a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in January 1964, highlighted by his historic meeting on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem with the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople. At the end of that same year, he went to India, becoming the first pope to visit Asia.

The following year, on October 4, 1965, in the first visit of a pope to the United States, Paul VI delivered a moving plea for peace at a special session of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York City and celebrated Mass in New York’s Yankee Stadium.  In 1967 he undertook brief pastoral visits to Fátima (Portugal) and to Istanbul and Ephesus (Turkey) – a journey that had special ecumenical significance and included a second meeting with Athenagoras in the patriarch’s own episcopal city (Constantinople). In August 1968, the pope went to Bogotá in Colombia, and he addressed the International Labour Organization and the World Council of Churches of Geneva in 1969.  Later that year, he travelled to Uganda. In the fall of 1970, he undertook the longest papal journey to date: 10 days spent in visits to Tehran, East Pakistan, the Philippines, Samoa, Australia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and Ceylon. He was a true pilgrim who brought the Church off the banks of the Tiber to the ends of the earth.  His arrival in Manila almost ended in tragedy when a failed attempt was made on his life within minutes of his descent from the plane. The themes addressed by Paul VI on these intense pastoral journeys always centered on world peace, social justice, world hunger, illiteracy, brotherhood under God, and international cooperation.

Fortieth Anniversary of Death

August 6th this year marks the fortieth anniversary of the death of Pope Paul VI. He closed his eyes on “this stupendous, dramatic temporal and earthly scene” on the very feast that so marked his life and Petrine ministry in the Church. I was on a Basilian Formation Retreat on Strawberry Island in 1978 when we got word that Paul VI had died at Castel Gandolfo outside of Rome. The era of excitement and newness that so marked Vatican II seemed to be coming to an end. At Paul VI’s funeral in St. Peter’s Square on August 12, 1978, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Carlo Cardinal Confalonieri described him with these words:

“His greatness of soul was seen in his lively intelligence and a heart filled with goodness that opened up to the spiritual needs of his sons and daughters… He became a real prince of peace. He established with pressing solicitude a continuing dialogue with all peoples. He gave his attention with all affection and hope to the weak and defenseless, the poor and those in want of every assistance. He conversed with all in order to strengthen them in faith…”

At times we are very critical of the Church and even dismiss Church leaders and their messages without giving them a fair hearing. History is now teaching us that the patience and wisdom of Pope Paul VI, especially in the aftermath and implementation of the Second Vatican Council, were a great gift to God’s people and to the world. Pope Paul VI did not see dialogue merely as an instrument but as a method. He was so close to people, especially to those who were distant or who opposed him in theory or in practice. 

On October 19, 2014, at the conclusion of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family at the Vatican, Pope Francis proclaimed Pope Paul VI blessed. In his moving homily at the Mass of Beatification in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis said:

“When we look to this great Pope, this courageous Christian, this tireless apostle, we cannot but say in the sight of God a word as simple as it is heartfelt and important: thanks! Thank you, our dear and beloved Pope Paul VI! Thank you for your humble and prophetic witness of love for Christ and his Church!

In his personal journal, the great helmsman of the Council wrote, at the conclusion of its final session: ‘Perhaps the Lord has called me and preserved me for this service not because I am particularly fit for it, or so that I can govern and rescue the Church from her present difficulties, but so that I can suffer something for the Church, and in that way it will be clear that he, and no other, is her guide and saviour.’ In this humility the grandeur of Blessed Paul VI shines forth: before the advent of a secularized and hostile society, he could hold fast, with farsightedness and wisdom – and at times alone – to the helm of the barque of Peter, while never losing his joy and his trust in the Lord.”

Now this great, holy man and disciple of the Lord lives in the Resurrection of Jesus, in whose glorious Transfiguration sign he closed his eyes forty years ago. Blessed Paul VI let us feel on earth the joy and glory that awaits each of us in the New Jerusalem. Christ’s transfiguration was in the past. The God, whose Light breaks into the earth on this feast, is present. Let our prayers today be that the world will see the Light, the Light of healing and reconciliation. Let us strive to be counted among those who listen to Christ’s Word and are transfigured by it.

Blessed Paul VI (Giovanni Battista Montini) will be proclaimed a saint on Sunday, October 14, 2018, in St. Peter’s Square during the canonization ceremony for five others blesseds, including the martyred Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero Galdámez of El Salvador; Francesco Spinelli, diocesan priest, founder of the Institute of the Sisters Adorers of the Most Holy Sacrament; Vincenzo Romano, diocesan priest; Maria Katharina Kasper, virgin, founder of the Institute of the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ; and Nazaria Ignacia de Santa Teresa de Jesús (née: Nazaria Ignacia March Mesa), founder of the Congregation of the Missionary Crusaders of the Church.

Paul VI’s feast day is September 26, which is also the day of his birth in 1897.

All Photos Courtesy of Catholic News Service 

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