Timothy Cardinal Dolan: Remarks on the Universal Church

Two major events happened in the Diocese of Fargo this past year. John Thomas Folda was named as Bishop, and there was a Hepatitis scare. To their west, the Diocese of Bismarck held their Thirst Conference about a month ago. Timothy Cardinal Dolan gave the keynote address. As he addressed the dignitaries in the audience, he inquired, “Where’s Bishop Folda?” Halfway through his scan of the audience, he exclaimed, “Ah! There he is! Good!…I didn’t get that shot for nothing.”

That’s how I always think of Cardinal Dolan; personable with a bit of sass, gracious with an edgy charm. I can say without hesitation that of all the Cardinals in the United States, I would prefer to take Cardinal Dolan with me to the pub. But there is another side to the man, a more somber side. Here for you, in a shortened  form, are his remarks at the close of his tenure as President of the USCCB:

This morning I want to invite us to broaden our horizons, to “think Catholic” about our brothers and sisters in the faith now suffering simply because they sign themselves with the cross, bow their heads at the Holy Name of Jesus, and happily profess the Apostles’ Creed.

Brother bishops, our legitimate and ongoing struggles to protect our “first and most cherished freedom” in the United States pale in comparison to the Via Crucis currently being walked by so many of our Christian brothers and sisters in other parts of the world, who are experiencing lethal persecution on a scale that defies belief. If our common membership in the mystical body of Christ is to mean anything, then their suffering must be ours as well.

The twenty-first century has already seen in its first 13 years one million people killed around the world because of their belief in Jesus Christ – – one million already in this still young century.

That threat to religious believers is growing. The Pew Research Center reports that 75 percent of the world’s population “lives in countries where governments, social groups, or individuals restrict people’s ability to freely practice their faith.” Pew lays out the details of this “rising tide of restrictions on religion,” but we don’t need a report to tell us something we sadly see on the news every day.

While Muslims and Christians have long lived peacefully side-by-side in Zanzibar, for instance, this past year has seen increasing violence. Catholic churches have been burned and priests have been shot. In September one priest was the victim of a horrific acid attack. Nigeria has also been the site of frequent anti-Christian violence, including church bombings on our holiest days.

The situation in India has also been grave, particularly after the Orissa massacre of 2008, where hundreds of Christians were murdered and thousands displaced, and thousands of homes and some 400 churches were torched. Just recently, a Christian couple was recently attacked by an angry mob just because of their faith, their Bibles torn from their hands.

We remember our brothers and sisters in China, where Catholic bishops and other religious leaders are subject to state supervision and imprisonment. Conditions areonly getting worse, as the government closes churches and subjects members of several faiths to forced renunciations, so-called re-education, and torture.

I don’t have to tell anyone in this room that our brothers and sisters in the Middle East face particular trials. As Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople has observed, for Christians in the Middle East, “even the simple admission of Christian identity places the very existence of [the] faithful in daily threat…Exceptionally extreme and expansive occurrences of violence and persecution against Christians cannot leave the rest of us – who are blessed to live peacefully and in some sense of security – indifferent and inactive.”

We as bishops, as shepherds of one of the most richly blessed communities of faith on the planet, as pastors who have spoken with enthusiastic unity in defense of our own religious freedom, must become advocates and champions for these Christians whose lives literally hang in the balance.

Pope Francis recently invited us all to an examination of conscience in this regard during his General Audience on September 25:

“When I hear that so many Christians in the world are suffering, am I indifferent, or is it as if a member of my own family is suffering? When I think or hear it said that many Christians are persecuted and give their lives for their faith, does this touch my heart or does it not reach me? Am I open to that brother or that sister in my family who’s giving his or her life for Jesus Christ?  Do we pray for one another? How many of you pray for Christians who are persecuted?  How many? Everyone respond in his own heart. It’s important to look beyond one’s own fence, to feel oneself part of the Church, of one family of God!”

I am convinced that we have to answer those questions of Pope Francis, not merely as individual believers, but collectively as a body of bishops.

My brothers, we can make supporting the suffering Church a priority – – not one good cause among others, but a defining element of our pastoral priorities. As historians of this conference know, speaking up for suffering faithful abroad has been a hallmark of our soon-to-be-century of public advocacy of the gospel by the conference of bishops in this beloved country we are honored to call our earthly home.

Protecting religious freedom will be a central social and political concern of our time, and we American bishops already have made very important contributions to carrying it forward. Now we are being beckoned – – by history, by Pope Francis, by the force of our own logic and the ecclesiology of communion – – to extend those efforts to the dramatic front lines of this battle, where Christians are paying for their fidelity with their lives. As the Council reminded us, we are bishops not only for our dioceses, not only for our nation, but for the Church universal.

May all the blessed martyrs, ancient and new, pray for us, as we try to be confessors of the faith.

Praise be Jesus Christ!

Two things strike me about his words. The first is the implicit call for consistency among defenders of the faith. If government infringement upon the rights of conscience is wrong in the United States, it must also be wrong abroad in the world. Should we avert our eyes (or worse: our hearts) to our Christian brothers and sisters who bear crosses heavier than ours, then we have no grounds remaining on which to base our own defense of religious liberty. Dr. Robert George has been doing tremendous work to promote religious liberty around the globe. While not all of us share his position and influence (or intellect, I must admit), the most powerful political weapon against tyranny is one we all can wield: prayer.

Consider this: The universe is governed by an omnipotent, omni-benevolent God. This God has expressed his sacrificial love for each one of us by dying on a cross to redeem us. He seeks us in every moment of our lives. We can talk to him. He can talk to us. He has the power to bring about change in the world, because he holds it in being. In his name empires have been destroyed, plagues driven out, sight restored, the dead have been raised, the hardened have become merciful, the sinner has become the saint. What more could be done than to petition Him, before whom thrones and dominions, principalities and powers, tremble? If we pray for ourselves, let us also pray for others. As the Canadian humorist Red Green reminds his viewers every show: “We’re all in this together.”

The second aspect of his address, which bolsters a point I have tried to argue before, is that the pastoral takes prominence over the political. Archbishop Charles Chaput, emphasized this in his (admittedly dated) interview with the Hoover Institution. He is asked about comments he made concerning Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi had made reference to her pro-abortion view as being consistent with Catholicism. When Chaput wrote a letter to Catholics criticizing Mrs. Pelosi, it was taken by critics to be a political maneuver. He insists, correctly, that he was clarifying a portion of Catholic moral theology in response to a public figure who had made an incorrect claim. The concern was to ensure that faithful Catholics would know exactly where the Church stands. In Dolan’s address, this pastoral focus is made eminently clear by his continual reference, not only to Pope Francis, but to the Church as a unified whole.

The Washington Post wrote a cutesy-pie article to introduce “the 4 most influential U.S. Catholic Bishops.” I  label it such because it is entirely based on the premise that the Church is just like any other world organization; contingent upon the political tides within and the skill of the persons shaping them. Mr. David Gibson writes:

As the public face of the American hierarchy for the next three years, Kurtz will in fact spend most of his time and energy on administrative matters and the time-consuming process of herding clerical cats.

Meanwhile, in quieter ways, four other churchmen may wield more influence where it counts most: in Rome with Pope Francis.

It is stupid to write about influence “where it counts” when the Cardinals (and the Pope!) are called to be followers of Christ. It is true that churchmen are subject to human weakness and will sometimes treat their vocations as political positions rather than pastoral obligations. But there is more to the story than that.

I once told a joke to a few workers in our parish office. “The most iron-clad proof for the existence of God,” I began, “is an exhaustive list of all parish activities, ministries, services and growth placed next to an equally exhaustive list of all the people in the parish office and their respective skills. It will not be apparent from the latter that half of the former could be accomplished.”

We are all trying as best we can to follow Christ, but He is the one running the show. Let us pray that all may follow him in faith, and in freedom.