Lex Cordis Caritas - The law of the heart is Love

The month of October is officially designated as Respect Life Month. On Respect Life Sunday, Oct. 7, I will be running a marathon in Long Beach, Calif., with the LIFE Runners, a pro-life running organization with 8,500 teammates in all 50 states and 35 nations. This will be my 24th marathon in 24 years. Fundraising has always been a key element of my marathon running. The charitable cause that I have designated for the 2018 LIFE Runners Marathon is the Divine Mercy Senior Living Community that we are planning to build in Glen Carbon. This community, which will be located on the campus next to Father McGivney Catholic High School, will provide high-quality senior housing with a Catholic expression to people of all faiths.

In my previous column in the Aug. 19th issue of Catholic Times, I wrote about the recent revelations of what can only be described as horrifying abuse and neglect of authority among some priests and bishops of the church in our own country. While I felt compelled to respond immediately to the news, since that time, I have only experienced increasing anger, disgust, and a desire to act. I called for a response that must include several components, namely, public prayers of repentance and acts of atonement, new measures for review of bishops’ handling of cases and a reaffirmation of my own commitment to a zero-tolerance policy in our diocese, and a call for spiritual renewal at all levels of the church. I would like to share additional details and perspective on each of these three components of response — especially the first.

Immigration has been a hot button topic in recent times, but it has been a matter of keen interest for me during most of my adult life. My great-grandparents on both my mother’s and father’s sides of the family were Polish immigrants who came to the United States in the 1890s. The neighborhood where I grew up was heavily Polish when I was a young child. Hispanic immigrants from Mexico and Puerto Rico began to move into our neighborhood when I was in high school. My father, who spoke English and Polish, learned Spanish so he could speak to his customers in our family pharmacy. Similarly, the priests of my home parish learned Spanish so they could celebrate the Mass and the sacraments in English, Polish and Spanish.

The United States Supreme Court on June 27 decided that public sector employees can no longer be required to pay mandatory fees to support unions to which they do not wish to belong. When the case was decided against the union, Bishop Frank Dewane, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, expressed his disappointment with the Supreme Court’s decision, citing “the long-held view of so many bishops” in support of unions. I respectfully disagree. Let me explain why.

The 12th (and last) declaration of our fourth diocesan synod has three paragraphs. It is an essential aspect of our Catholic identity that we understand that we belong to the wider Catholic community beyond our local parish. The word “catholic” in fact means “universal,” so we belong to the universal church throughout the world as well as to our local diocese. Priests are collaborators with their diocesan bishop and bishops are successors of the Apostles in union with the Pope, who is the successor of St. Peter. As individuals tithe to their parishes, the parishes in turn will tithe with the diocese, which in turn contributes to the needs of the universal church in Rome and throughout the world.