When promoting church charities, Vatican official leads by example

Published: 2007-03-26

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Like most archbishops today, Archbishop Paul Cordes' ministry includes teaching, preaching, administering the sacraments and lobbying. But his hands-on experience takes place where people suffer most from war or natural disasters, and his lobbying often is with presidents and prime ministers of countries suffering massive death tolls and situations of serious injustice. Archbishop Cordes, a 72-year-old German, is president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, the Vatican agency that promotes and coordinates Catholic charitable giving. His job is to make sure Catholic teaching on charity becomes concrete, and that starts with his own example. In the name of the pope and the entire Catholic community, Archbishop Cordes travels to disaster sites bearing not only a papal blessing for the victims, but often also a check. "You cannot proclaim that God is good without showing it," the archbishop told Catholic News Service during a March interview. "You announce the good things the Lord does, and then you have to show it," he said.

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