I recently finished reading Glorifying Christ, a new biography by Michael Heinlein about Francis Cardinal George (1937-2015), who served as Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago from 1997-2014. Cardinal George was by all accounts a devoted pastor, but also a brilliant man, who was widely seen as the intellectual leader of the American episcopacy. Before becoming a bishop in 1990, George was a member of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (O.M.I.), a missionary order founded in Canada. As a missionary, George saw evangelization of culture as central to his identity as a priest. One of the main driving forces of American culture, in his opinion, was law. He argued that, because the United States is a society composed of many different cultures, religions, and language, “law is the primary carrier of culture.” For him, the great challenge posed to Christian evangelization of our culture was the exaltation of personal autonomy over everything else in the name of freedom. This idea had become the foundational principle for law and its interpretation, leading to legislation and judicial decisions that upheld things like abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, and the death penalty, among other issues.
This past Saturday, June 24, was the first anniversary of the Supreme Court decision Dobbs v Jackson, which overturned the 1973 decision Roe v Wade that had established a Constitutional right to abortion. In this historic legal victory for the Pro-Life movement, Dobbs returned the question of abortion legislation to the states. But Roe has had a lasting cultural impact, that George likened to the lasting cultural impact of the institution of slavery. “The law’s refusal to interfere with the institution of slavery helped to establish and maintain a culture corrupted by an ideology of racial superiority and inferiority…. The law’s refusal to protect the unborn similarly shapes and hardens a culture corroded by the treatment of unborn human beings as ‘nonpersons,’ lacking the right to life that for the rest of us is protected by law.” Such laws both cheapen human life and have a lasting negative impact on our culture. George provocatively made the connection between our society’s approach to abortion and its approach to engaging in war. “Certainly, the way we talk about both abortion and war and the reasons given for engaging in either practice tend to sound eerily alike: protecting freedom, using no more violence than necessary, reluctantly concluding that we have no choice, needing to maintain our way of life.” We are a culture, he argued, that has convinced itself that we must kill to be free. Although Roe has been overturned, there remains the work of evangelization and addressing the cultural wounds that still exist. For George, pro-life evangelization had to begin with listening. Catholics should speak about the issue “in a tone and manner that is always compassionate and caring, judging the act, being very slow to judge a person.” A cultural missionary, George believed that “with great respect we look for opportunities to proclaim the Gospel of life because it’s impossible for us not to speak lovingly what we know is the truth. But we also have to look for the appropriate moment and the appropriate forum because, precisely, we have discerning and loving hearts.”
No Music at 5:30 Vigil Mass
Starting in July and through the month of August, there will be no music at the 5:30 Vigil Mass at St. Cecilia. Based on how that goes, I will decide at that time whether it makes sense for it to remain a quiet Mass, similar to our 7:30 Sunday morning Mass.
posted 6/24/23
The Parish of St. Cecilia-St. Gabriel 