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My Dear People:
When Our Holy Father, Pope Paul VI, visits our country to speak of
peace to the United Nations, he will speak in the names of all of us, - bishops
of India and Pakistan, silent churchmen behind the Iron Curtain, exiles from
the Chinese and Russian spheres, Cuba and Vietnam, bishops of Europe and the
emerging nations, of Latin America and the United States. With him will be
cardinals of all races and continents.
He will bring to New York a message of peace, set in a framework
of “harmony, justice and brotherhood.” He will come not as a
sovereign ruler, nor a professional consultant, but as the spiritual father of
hundreds of millions of Christians. Our pride in this, as American Catholics,
must be sobered by our own humility and responsibility. This was the theme of
Pope John’s address in 1962 -- “the medicine of mercy.” And it
continues to be the theme of the present pope; in 1963, he made his historic
admission of guilt, asking that the Church’s faults be forgiven.
During the First Vatican Council a century ago, a bishop wrote to
his diocese in the language of triumph, that is, victory of the past over the
present and future with their hopes, dangers, and opportunities. He began his
letter with a flourishing salute, “From Out the Flaminian Gate...” a
term reminiscent of Imperial Rome. Honest and devout, this bishop with many
others believed that intensely human problems could be solved by tight formulas
and broad condemnations. Today that spirit is called “triumphalism.”
We must sense this new spirit. In a decade of crisis, there is no time for
self-righteousness, isolation or complacency. Surely there is no room in our
tense, crowded world for narrow and selfish pride of any kind, -- whether it be
nationalistic or religious, racial or social. The banners of triumphant
supremacy must be dismantled. Whether they flaunt the supremacy of the West or
of America; of Christians or Catholics, they are not the authentic flags of
Christ’s band of pilgrims. Justice and love, mercy and compassion, and
especially the true unity of His Church, are smothered when the virtue of
responsibility is perverted into the sin of supremeacism.
Certainly everyone of us must guard the deposit of faith and the
teaching office of the Church in 1965 just as staunchly and clearly as if it
were 1870, -- or the 16th century. Conciliar documents on the Church, the
Liturgy and Ecumenism, and the Motu Proprio on the Apostolic Synod require of
us more study, profound prayer and deeper loyalty. But, as Pope Paul said in
his beautiful discourse on Christian Love when this session opened:
“We are not alone as we meet here; with us is Christ in whose
name we are gathered, whose help goes with us on our journey.”
It is often the fate of great words that their impact is lost in
the ceremonies of the occasion. This almost happened to Abraham Lincoln and his
address at Gettysburg. On the opening day, Pope Paul mentioned the new
Apostolic Synod -- this made the headlines. It was really only a footnote, to
be fully explained and enacted the next day. The main thrust of his opening
address was that the Council must be “great three-fold act of love for
God, for the Church, for all mankind.”
Every Catholic should read it and think about it. Without its deep
concern, we will never understand why he is going to the United Nations, why he
goes there to plead, as he said Sunday, September 19, - “That those
responsible be enlightened in searching for civil and peaceful means to solve
controversies, and that the world and all of us be spared the grave menace of
war.” Unless we love, we may fail, as Paul is not failing, to bind up the
wounds of all the children of God, in and out of the Catholic Church, and
especially among our own, -- the conservatives and liberals, the progressives
and the resisters. Unless we grasp and live this great Act of Charity, the
Council might end with “victors and vanquished” -- may God avert this
awful climax in which the seamless robe of Christ would be tested and torn
again. It would be a tragedy if those who are displeased with the changes go on
to live in a tight Catholicism of their own, a closed and hostile corporation.
And it would be equally tragic if the champions of changes that were badly
needed ever took the Council’s actions as a mandate for total and endless
change.
The pope asks a question that some future historian might raise:
“What was the Catholic Church doing at that moment?” And he answers
it thus: “She loved. She loved with a pastoral heart, with a missionary
zeal, with an ecumenical heart. She loved all men, whoever they are or wherever
they are, even when the art of loving transforms itself into the act of
suffering. She loved those who oppose Christ and restrict the liberty of those
who believe in God. She did not condemn them; she prayed for them.” We,
everyone of us, are that Church of the 20th century which the Holy Father is
describing. Can we measure up to that description? I ask you to welcome Pope
Paul to the United Nations in this growing spirit of love. To express it. I
make two requests of the Catholics of our Archdiocese: (1) In our community of
Sunday Mass, that the Lord’s prayer be solemnly and humbly recited in all
churches and chapels,
right after the Homily of the Mass, for true and lasting peace.
(2) In your daily lives, that each of you give your support to the
United Nations by your prayer and study and interest, by your conversation and
your generosity. It may be mankind’s “last best hope” for peace
and even for survival. Surely it strives to do at the secular level what popes,
bishops, priests and laity are seeking to do in the sphere of the religious
spirit, that is to work toward peace. There are those who oppose the United
Nations, just as another generation fatefully opposed the League of Nations in
the 1920’s. Their sincerity can hardly be questioned, but it is difficult
to reconcile their intense (and often hateful) condemnations with the yearnings
of a truly Christian heart.
While Pope Paul VI comes to the United Nations as the world’s
most open podium for peace, we pray with him and for him. In the words of the
Church’s litany:
“May almighty God have mercy upon His servant, our Pope, Paul
VI,” “May he guide him on the way to eternal salvation.
May he desire only those things that please God, and into the
achievement of these duties, may he put all of his strength. Amen.” The
archdiocese is with me always in Mass, prayers and thought. May God bless all
of you.
Sincerely in Christ,
Paul J. Hallinan
Archbishop of Atlanta |
