World News
Cardinal Dolan urges graduates to reflect Christ's self-giving love
Published: May 14, 2012
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan praised the class of 2012 at The Catholic University of America, saying in his May 12 commencement address that the 1,500 students receiving degrees that day had all majored in "the Law of the Gift" -- learning to pattern their lives after the self-giving love of Jesus. Cardinal Dolan noted how Blessed John Paul II described the "Law of the Gift" this way: "For we are at our best, we are most fully alive and human, when we give away freely and sacrificially our very selves in love for another." The cardinal noted how Jesus spoke about the "Law of the Gift" when the Lord said, "Greater love than this no one has, than to give one's life for one's friends." New York's archbishop, who also is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, encouraged the graduates to draw on their faith to help in the effort to stand up for religious freedom in the United States and to oppose efforts to redefine marriage. "Religion, faith, the church promote a culture built on the 'Law of the Gift,'" the cardinal said. "Thus, wise people from Alexis de Tocqueville to John Courtney Murray ... have observed that an essential ingredient in American wisdom and the genius of the American republic is the freedom it allows for religion to flourish." He predicted that a challenge the class of 2012 "will inevitably face is the defense of religious freedom as part of both our American and creedal legacy."
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