FAITH AND NEW WORKS

On the eve of Lent, our Holy Father, Pope Benedict, organized a great reason for a party. This past Saturday he created 22 new Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church.  Among them were two New Yorkers: one by birth, Cardinal Edwin O’Brien, a priest of New York born in the Bronx, Archbishop of Baltimore, and Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, born in St. Louis and formerly Archbishop of Milwaukee before being sent by the Holy Father to lead the Archdiocese here.

Both are former Rectors of the North American College, Cardinal Dolan succeeding Cardinal O’Brien. Both have doctorates, Cardinal O’Brien in Moral Theology from the Angelicum University in Rome and Cardinal Dolan in Church History from The Catholic University of America. Both are holy men and zealous pastors. The Church is blessed to have them now in the “senate” of the Church as counselors to the Pope and electors of his successors. Both continue to count the faithful of the Catholic Church here in greater New York as one of the most wonderful blessings of their priestly lives and Episcopal service.

They joined 20 other new cardinals in St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday morning for a consistory. Several New Yorkers there with me asked what that word means. A consistory traditionally was the gathering of the Pope’s closest advisors who gave counsel and offered direction to the Pope in his governance of the Church. Over the years, as the world became more complex and means of communication more developed, the consistory system was used less and less. But it still remains one of the options of the Pope in his governance. The most important of these various ways of governance is of course an ecumenical council. People my age can remember when Blessed Pope John XXIII 50 years ago opened the Second Vatican Council which met four times till 1965. That Council which sought to go back to the sources of the early Church and express the ancient faith in new and more modern ways gave the Church that teaching through 16 documents which remain a profound treasure trove for living the faith today and in the century before us. Thanks to the Servant of God Pope Paul VI, the ancient practice of holding periodic synods was revived in 1967. Every three or four years, bishops selected by their brother bishops in their home bishops’ conferences spend most of a month discussing a specific topic and sharing their thoughts and suggestions with the Holy Father. The Holy Father, who attends the sessions of the Synod, listens to their propositions and then takes those propositions and shapes an apostolic letter which then becomes a contribution of the Pope with his brother bishops to all the rest of the Church. This October, there will be a Synod on the New Evangelization which will help us live our faith with greater understanding and witness that faith more broadly through the Year of Faith that begins on October 11 of this year.

Let’s go back to a consistory. Today there are two kinds of consistories: one is usually called a “white” consistory and the other a “red” consistory. Last Saturday, Pope Benedict held both in the same morning. The “red” consistory was the creation of the 22 new Cardinals at a prayer service that included a Gospel reading, homily by the Pope, the recitation of the Creed and the Oath of Fidelity by the 22 new cardinals who then received from the Pope their red biretta, Cardinalatial ring and the name of the Church entrusted to each one as a sign that they are now part of the Diocese of Rome. Then the Pope convened a “white” consistory. To all the Cardinals he proposed for canonization the names of seven men and women all of whom had already been beatified. He asked their approval of his decision that, after all the qualifications for sainthood were fulfilled, these seven would be canonized as saints for the whole Church on October 21 of this year. The Cardinals all acquiesced. Of great interest to us as New Yorkers is that two of them are native New Yorkers. The first is Blessed, soon to be Saint, Kateri Tekakwitha, “the Lily of the Mohawks” who as a Native American lived here in the area of New York and southern Canada and was martyred for the faith in the 17th century. The other is Sister Marianne Cope, a native of Syracuse, who became a religious and went to Hawaii to work with Saint Damien among the lepers. She, like Father Damien, was infected by the disease and died as a witness to the Church’s love for the poor, the sick and the marginalized. She is buried in Syracuse. Just as Native Americans will take great joy in one of their own being declared a saint, so too will the faithful of Hawaii and Syracuse be proud of their saint. They both merit this highest honor and recognition of God’s grace working through the Church and her servants for the good of all.

In his homily Pope Benedict called special attention to the Chair of Peter which is venerated in the apse of the Basilica surrounded by four Doctors of the Church with the magnificent Gloria of Bernini, the alabaster window that sheds a golden light like the Holy Spirit’s light and love that makes us the Church. The Pope pointed out that the Church of Rome is the Seat of Peter where the Pope “presides in charity.” That is not any kind of charity; it is the charity of a love that is founded on and shaped by the Eucharist. “The Petrine ministry is a primacy of love in the Eucharistic sense, that is to say solicitude for the universal communion of the Church in Christ.”

The Gloria of Bernini which shines with the love that comes from the Holy Spirit reminds us that faith and love intertwine in the life of the Church and every Christian. For us this is the source of joy and peace in the Lord.  Gathered around the Holy Father this past weekend, we experienced that renewal of faith with and through the new Cardinals. We rejoiced in the Eucharistic life that nourishes that love which is the gift of the Holy Spirit that makes us one spiritually as the Holy Father is the visible symbol of that same unity. We celebrated this knowing, as Pope Benedict told us, “the gift of this love has been entrusted to us, every Christian. It is a gift to be passed on to others through the witness of our lives … witness to the joy of Christ’s love.”