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One of the Fathers of the Church, St. Cyril of Alexandria, wrote the
following statement describing the presence of the Holy Spirit alive
and at work within us:
It’s quite natural for people who have been absorbed by the things
of this world to become entirely other-worldly in outlook and for
cowards to become people of great courage.
On this Solemnity of Pentecost, what would it mean for those who
have been absorbed the things of this world to become entirely
other-worldly in outlook and for their cowardice to be transformed
into great courage?
I know for sure what our nation’s Catholic bishops are saying it
requires: Confronting the threats being posed today to religious
liberty.
As you may know, this past week the nation’s Catholic bishops filed
12 lawsuits on behalf of 43 different Catholic institutions and
groups to defend religious liberty. The focus of the lawsuits is
the Department of Health and Human Services’ healthcare mandate.
While many in the media have called the bishops’ lawsuits part of
the Vatican’s larger “war against women” and a dispute that’s of
concern “only to a tiny minority of Catholics who hold rather
peculiar views about human sexuality,” that kind of vitriol is
purposely intended to deflect attention away from the merit of the
substantive argument, which is the slow but steady erosion of
conscience protections for religious institutions and individuals in
what’s for the most part a secular society…one having no roots in
God’s
law.
The substantive issue being contested can be stated in the form of a
question: Does the federal government possess the right to mandate
Church-sponsored institutions and individuals to promote what
its moral teachings forbid?
More practically, should an organization—like Catholic Charities—be
compelled by the federal government to provide its employees access
to contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortifacients? Or, should
Catholic Relief Services—one of the world’s premiere disaster
assistance organizations—be compelled by the federal government to
provide “the full range of reproductive services,” including
abortion, when attempting to aid people who have been afflicted by
natural disasters?
The bishops’ lawsuits are not contesting those practicalities, but
something that’s much more substantive, the constitutional principle
guaranteeing free expression of religion. The bishops believe this
principle has been gradually eroding in such ways that the federal
government and its agents now actually believe they possess the authority to
make those practicalities the issue.
The Catholic
HHS Secretary has maintained that the goal of her mandate
is to protect women’s health. That may be, depending upon what it
means “to protect women’s health.” But, Ms. Sebelius’ mandate has
the intentional effect of compelling religious institutions and
individuals to facilitate and to fund services that violate their
beliefs and, worse yet, within their own institutions. The irony is
that, in fact, those services are already widely and for the most
part cheaply available, and most employers provide coverage for
them.
What the mandate is, is bad enough. It’s nothing other than an
unprecedented assault by agents of the federal government to compel
religious institutions and individuals to violate their deepest
moral convictions. But, there’s something even more insidious about
Ms. Sebelius’
mandate. If government policy can close down or force religious
providers of healthcare, social services, and education to serve as
agents of the government’s policy, then the federal government will
have consolidated its monopoly over those services, making the
government all-powerful in those areas.
The President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal
Timothy Dolan said: “Never before have we faced this kind of
challenge to our ability to engage in the public square as people of
faith.”
But it’s not just the nation’s Catholic bishops who are concerned.
Baptist, Orthodox Jew, Orthodox Christian, Mormon, and other
religious leaders gathered this past week for a daylong summit in
Washington, DC, at the Ethics and Public Policy’s American Religious
Freedom Program. There they discussed the eroding state of
religious freedom in the United States and formulated a plan to
confront this moral malignancy.
Then, too, in what would have seemed impossible even just
six decades ago, the largely evangelical Protestant group sponsoring
the summit awarded Archbishop Lori of Baltimore the “American
Religious Freedom Award” for his “vigorous but gracious defense of
religious liberty in the face of increasing hostility and legal and
policy challenges.” Then, too, in response to the bishops’ defense
of religious freedom, the one-time Southern Baptist minister, former Arkansas
Governor, and Fox News host, Mike Huckabee, flatly declared, “We’re
all Catholics now.”
Today’s scripture reminds us that when the Holy Spirit is alive and
at work within us, people who don’t comprehend what they are saying
to one another as well as what they are debating or arguing with one
another about, miraculously understand one another. No more
bickering religious leaders. No more bickering spouses.
No more bickering siblings. Those differences matter not when
people are rooted in God’s
law.
Today’s scripture also reminds us that when the Holy Spirit is alive
and at work within us, differences in race, nationality, and
creed—externals that would otherwise divide people—suddenly
disappear. There are no Hispanic Americans. There are no
Asian Americans. There are no White Americans and subsets of
White Americans. There are no Black Americans. Those
differences matter not when people are rooted in God’s
law.
Today scripture also reminds us that when the Holy Spirit is alive
and at work within us, people who possess different talents and
capabilities don’t use them exclusively for their personal
aggrandizement or benefit, but offer those talents and capabilities
for the good of all. There are no
“have’s” and “have not’s.” There are no “upper class citizens”
and “lower class citizens.” There are no “privileged” and
“underprivileged.”
Those differences matter not when people are rooted in God’s
law.
But those differences do make all the
difference, St. Paul reminded us in today’s epistle, when people
root their lives in the things of this world. The evidence is
not only overwhelming, but also damning: immorality, impurity, lust,
idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealous, outbursts of fury,
acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy,
drinking bouts, orgies, and the like.
Doesn’t that pretty well describe the
sad State of the Union on this Pentecost Sunday?
It’s when people realize that
the source of all these differences
is God and root themselves in God, then it’s possible for love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and
self control to overcome all of the immorality, impurity, lust,
idolatry, sorcery, hatred, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury,
acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy,
drinking bouts, orgies, and the like that are rooted in all of those
differences, not in the divine source of those differences.
Why?
Because, as we heard in the Sequence, the presence of the Holy
Spirit
“heals
wounds,”
“bends
stubborn hearts and wills,”
and
“guides
the steps that go astray.”
Allow me to suggest that what we may be witnessing on this Solemnity
of Pentecost are religious leaders who for all too long have been
absorbed in the things of this world suddenly becoming entirely
other-worldly in outlook, as their cowardice is being transformed
by the Holy Spirit into great courage. As Cardinal Dolan said to Bob Scheifer on
“Face the Nation” back on April 8: “We didn't ask for this fight,
but we won’t back away from it.”
I’m wondering whether this series of
events taken as a
“stream of time”
may be one of those “signs of the times” the Second Vatican
Council said we should be alert to and, in particular, what may be a
sign of the Holy Spirit making possible the first concrete step in
authentic ecumenism in the United States of America. For once, religious leaders are rooted in
upholding God’s law rather than defending who was right and who was
wrong in religious battles that took place more than four centuries ago. If that
doesn’t demonstrate the power of the Holy Spirit alive and at work
in those religious leaders, then I don’t know what possibly could.
And, if it is, then it’s time for all of us to get to work
confronting the threats being posed to religious liberty.
This Memorial Day, we recall those who gave their lives to ensure
that future generations would enjoy the blessings—God’s
blessings—of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Their sacrifice would be in vain if we fail to do the same.
On this Solemnity of Pentecost, let’s those of us who have been
too absorbed in the things of this world will become entirely
other-worldly in outlook, as St. Cyril of Alexandria reminds us, by
allowing the Holy Spirit to transform our cowardice into great
courage.
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HOMILY
