Walking With Others: the Nostra Aetate Conference at CUA

By Father John Crossin

The Second Vatican Council’s document on interreligious relations—Nostra Aetate—was one of the last of the Council's documents to appear, one of the shortest, and one with incredible impact. The May 19-21 Symposium at The Catholic University of America will explore the past, present and future of interreligious dialogue.

Three distinguished Cardinals, two from Rome and one from New York, will keynote the Symposium. Cardinals Tauran, Dolan and Koch provide leadership in Catholic relationships with the Muslim and Jewish communities-- among others.

I believe that this is the kind of Symposium where one can gain a lifetime of learning from the distinguished speakers. And one can gain lots of practical knowledge by speaking to people at lunch or in the corridor or over a cup of coffee [all food will be kosher--halal].

There will be an initial offering on dialogue for the person who feels he or she knows nothing. But the key will be that the presenters—both scholars and church leaders—have the experience that allows them to summarize effortlessly, illustrate aptly, and project the future realistically.

In a time when interreligious relations appear in daily headlines in all media, this Symposium will offer constructive paths for the future. In 1965, Nostra Aetate offered a positive challenge to walk together, to leave prejudices and misperceptions behind, and to build real understandings of others.

In 2015, this challenge is even more relevant. We are still seeking a world in which collaboration, not conflict, is the norm.  With Pope Francis, we believe that if we walk together sharing our lives and listening intently to one another, we can come to the deeper understanding that makes for peace.

Father John Crossin is an Oblate of St. Francis De Sales and executive director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Don't Forget the Past: Concerns Raised by Jewish-Catholic Dialogue

By Father John W. Crossin, OSFS

The USCCB Dialogue with the Council of Synagogues meeting in New York, December 1, was both disconcerting and instructive for me.  Rabbi Kenneth Jacobsen’s presentation in particular on “Rising Anti-Semitism in Europe” provided substance and cause for concern. He spoke candidly about people’s experience and backed this up with recent studies. He noted, for example, that around 60 percent of the Jews in France expect to be a victim of an “incident” in one way or another.
He believes that the cultural and economic stress in Europe, generally more serious than that in the States, is one of the roots of the rise in anti-Semitic deeds and words. For many too the Holocaust is a distant memory.

All is not bleak, however. Many leaders of European countries have taken strong stands against these words and deeds. This makes the situation very different from Germany in the 1930s.
My concern is closer to home. For years I have wondered if we are taking for granted the post-Vatican II cordial relationships between Jews and Catholics. The status quo may cause us to neglect our history—things were not usually this way.  We too have negative economic conditions for many people. We too can be forgetful of the past.

Cardinal Dolan, Catholic Co-Chair of the Dialogue, noted in the discussion with Rabbi Jacobsen that the Church’s diminished standing in Europe reduces its ability to combat anti-Semitism. I am wondering if that situation could be repeated here.

One of the key solutions is leadership. I am comforted by the fact that the Bearing Witness program for Catholic school teachers enables them to learn Jewish and Catholic history in depth. They can share accurate history with their students.

This raises another key solution, what we in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue call reception. If understanding and friendship grow out of a dialogue between leaders or scholars of two religious groups, then that progress has to be reflected in the daily realities of those faith communities. The dialogue has to be received by the average person and lived out through understanding, respect and even friendship.

Catholic leaders speak out against acts of violence and intolerance against synagogues and other religions. However, most of our people are aware that things have changed and we don’t want them to drift or abruptly change back to how they were before. In fact, ideally, our people should be moving forward, toward what Pope Francis calls a “culture of encounter” between people.

A detailed report on the dialogue session can be found online.

Father John W. Crossin is an Oblate of St. Francis De Sales and executive director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Catholic Education Ad Campaign in the Empire State Strikes Back

By Sister Mary Ann Walsh

An ad campaign in the Empire State has Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and a handful of Catholic school kids, some wearing sweaters from St. Mark’s School in Harlem, addressing Governor Andrew Cuomo directly.

The issue? The governor’s apparent reneging on a promise to the state’s bishops to include in the state budget a tax credit to benefit all schools, Catholic and otherwise. Known as the Education Investment Tax Credit, the proposal lets people lower tax bills by donating to schools. Money to private schools could be used for scholarships for student who otherwise would find Catholic school education beyond their reach.

It is no surprise that opposition to the idea comes from public school teacher unions who tend to see any help to non-public schools as a threat to their survival. This despite the proposal’s plan to also reimburse public school teachers for out-of-pocket expenses.

A tax credit would allow donors to subtract the total amount of the donation from what they owe the state in taxes, up to a certain amount. The state would not hand over money, but citizens who want to help schools would. New Yorkers would be free to decide whether to give to public or private school coffers or to no one at all. New York State already gives tax credits to breweries and film makers. Why not to kids?

The idea has appeal. The NYS Senate passed it 55-4. Two-thirds of the NYS Assembly co-sponsored it. Similar ideas have proven successful elsewhere, for example in the states of Wisconsin, Ohio, Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, District of Columbia, Utah, Rhode Island, Iowa, Georgia, Louisiana, Indiana, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Colorado, Virginia, Mississippi, New Hampshire and Alabama.

Arguments in support of Catholic schools seem like no-brainers. The government requires parents to educate their children, but in doing so, it should not deny parents the freedom to choose what they deem the best school for their offspring. It even can be seen as a religious freedom issue for parents who seek holistic schooling, which includes moral, ethical and religious education.

Parents also have the right – even the duty – to do best by their child when it comes to education. Where schools are substandard, as many schools in urban areas are, parents have a right to enroll a child in an alternative school where the child feels and is safe. These are basic prerequisites for learning. With choice, parents can opt for a public school, parochial school, private school, or charter school. When it comes to something as vital as a child’s education, parents need the freedom to choose.

Even a top-flight school, public or otherwise, may not be right for some youngsters. To ask children to tough it out for several years can be cruel. Who wants to be miserable for six hours a day, five days a week, ten months annually for who knows how many years? When in a miserable work experience, adults have the option to seek other employment. Why should vulnerable children simply be stuck and expected to tough it out?

Governor Cuomo associates himself with choice in other areas; it’s puzzling that he won’t support freedom in education.

Smell Like the Sheep; Make God Your Escape Key

By Sister Mary Ann Walsh

Pope Francis has a knack for metaphorical speech. So far his best may be noting that shepherds should get so close to the ewes and rams that they “smell like the sheep.” One archbishop told me he was trying to work that into advice for new priests in his homily at their ordinations but hadn’t figured out how. Maybe he worried that the pungent image wouldn’t fit at an illustrious ritual or might draw laughs, but it certainly was worth consideration.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York at World Youth Day used metaphor as he spoke about how God moves people. He told the crowd, "We want a microwave, but God works like a crock pot." That message sticks with you, like dog hair on a couch in the den.

Cardinal Seán O’Malley used metaphor and simile. In a Q&A session at World Youth Day he quipped that witnessing to your faith in a secular society isn’t easy. “Being Catholic in Boston is a contact sport,” he said. That’s not only memorable; its incongruity makes it funny. On the Eucharist, he said, not going to Mass is like being a branch cut off from the vine. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see what that branch eventually becomes.

Scripture relies on such literary devices: God’s love is like a mother’s love from Isaiah 49:15, and our relationship with Jesus is like the branches to the vine, John 15.  One image gives us comfort; the other says gently hold on.

Word pictures that make for memorable homilies do not come easy. Reflection on God present in today’s world might help us develop some modern ones.

When I am in pain can I ask God to be like the computer escape key: take it all away?

Should I consider God to be like the Wi-Fi that I search for:  unseen but there?

Is God like my mobile device, always with me?

Is a favorite prayer is like a favorite cookie, a source of comfort.

One goal of the U.S. bishops this year is to improve homilies at Mass. Homilies and music are integral to helping people experience God’s presence. A priest once told me that if I want to introduce someone to the Catholic Church I should look for a parish with good preaching, good music and well-read Scripture, in that order. Reaching people through their senses comes first. There is much to be said for ambiance, why Catholicism uses smells and bells to lift us to God.

Some years ago a young priest asked me to critique his weekend homilies. With opinions about much, I agreed quickly. I couldn’t do it however. I didn’t know what to say because I couldn’t figure out how I’d do better. I gained a new appreciation of the preacher’s challenge. Since then I’ve heard some really good homilies and recognize that solid metaphors enhance them. But I’d sure hate to be a homilist coming up with one every day or even every week. It would be like finding a literary image in a haystack of words or an oasis in a desert mind. It might have to come from the sounds of silence.

(CNS Photo/Paul Haring)

Pope Francis: Rebuilding the Church Through Communication

Bishop of Rome, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Servant of the Servants of God and... Global Communications Focal Point?

It may already be happening.

Pope Francis appointed a working group of eight cardinals on April 13 to advise him on the governance of the Catholic Church and reform of the Roman curia. This move has many wondering what shape such reform might take. As a communications professional, my thoughts immediately go to something the Canadian communications genius and Catholic Marshall McLuhan once said about the papacy.

Several commentators have already invoked McLuhan's famous line, "the medium is the message," to describe the new pope's gestures of humility, such as refusing to live in the apostolic palace and washing the feet of young inmates. But three years before his death in 1980, McLuhan, who coined the term "surfing" and predicted the Internet as early as the 1960s, addressed how the papacy would be affected by a world of instant communication: "When things speed up, hierarchy disappears and global theatre sets in," he said.

This prophecy came true just a year later with the election of John Paul II, a rock star pope for modern media, if there ever was one. John Paul died in 2005, a year before the launch of Twitter and a year after the start of Facebook. Communications have only become more instantaneous, and the papacy has had to keep pace. The papal Twitter handle, @pontifex, launched in December 2012, is one reflection of this.

Additionally, Pope Francis has taken the interesting step of holding his daily Masses at the Vatican guest house. Earlier popes celebrated these Masses privately with their household staff and guests. Opting for a more open setting, Pope Francis has given himself a daily platform to address just about any topic he chooses in the context of the day's readings. The practical result has been that, by the time people in the United States are waking up, a story is waiting in our news feeds with the latest from the pope.

Vatican commentator John Thavis calls this development the pope's "mini-Magisterium." Another apt description might be that Pope Francis has decided to fill the media vacuum. This is profound not only in terms of exercising his ministry as a universal teacher and pastor, but also for his responsibility to promote unity in the Church and his choice to do so through mass communications. If every Catholic with access to modern media makes an effort to listen to Pope Francis on a daily basis, internalizes what he has to say and informs his or her actions with it, the pope becomes a pontifex maximus (chief bridge builder) like never before.

It also echoes McLuhan's prediction of bureaucracy giving way to communications.

We've seen other bishops follow versions of this model. For instance, to meet the challenges following his 2011 appointment to Philadeliphia, Archbishop Charles Chaput, OFM Cap., has simultaneously stripped back archdiocesan infrastructure while embracing his bully pulpit through digital media. USCCB President Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, who has been tweeting and blogging for a while now, has a newly launched online presence. And one of the pope's eight new advisers, Boston's Cardinal Seán O'Malley, OFM Cap., was the first blogging cardinal in the United States.

But it isn't only about popes and bishops utilizing social media. For instance, the far-reaching quality of Pope Francis' message is tied directly to the men and women of the Catholic press who cover him. Special praise goes to Vatican Radio, which has been on hand to cover the Masses at the Vatican guest house, the administrators at News.va, who promote what the pope says via social media, and Catholic News Service, which has combined web video and a traditional forum -- the pope's Wednesday General Audience -- to generate truly creative and attractive content that any pope would be pleased to have at the service of his message.

And of course social media aren't only in the hands of a few professional gatekeepers. Everyone has access. As a result, these platforms have transformed the Church into a landscape of blogs, tweets and viral content where real conversations happen and the public at large gets a pulse and a picture of life in the Church. Pope Francis seems to recognize that his role is to embed himself at the heart of this universe, evangelize it and draw people closer to each other and to Christ.

For more on Pope Francis' approach to communications, here's a recent reflection by Archbishop Claudio Celli, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.

(CNS Photo/Paul Haring)

Holy Thursday Holiday

By Sister Mary Ann Walsh

We're off work Thursday and Friday at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, USCCB president, gave us Thursday off in honor of the election of Pope Francis.  Good Friday always has been a holiday here. I hope giving us Holy Thursday as a day off continues. It is not a holy day of obligation, nor is Good Friday for that matter, but Holy Thursday is special to me. It celebrates the institution of the Eucharist, which lies at the heart of our Catholic faith. Maybe my warm feelings for the day go back to when I was a kid taking part in Holy Thursday processions and later as a teenager visiting churches to pray at beautifully decorated altars of repose.

A few years ago a young adult who wasn't a churchgoer asked if she could go to Mass with me on Holy Thursday. I said sure, but wondered why the sudden fervor. Come to find out that Holy Thursday was a big day when she was in college because students involved with campus ministry at  her school followed the Mass of the Lord's Supper with a pizza party. I am sure there was some connection to the meal in the Upper Room with the disciples, a shared supper among close friends. My young friend couldn't articulate it, but she knew the day was special, even if Sunday Mass was not at that point in her life.

Pope Francis will continue the custom of leading the Stations of the Cross at Rome's Colosseum on Good Friday. The Vatican has released the prayers he will say at http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/2013/documents/ns_lit_doc_20130329_via-crucis_en.html. The Vatican selects different groups of people annually to write the prayers. This year young people from Lebanon wrote them.

We're still debriefing after the papal transition. We've asked communications direrctors who were with us in Rome to come here in May for a post-up. It's not hard to get people to come to Washington in the spring. We're looking ahead too -- to the Catholic Media Convocation in Denver in June and World Youth Day with Pope Francis in Rio de Janeiro in July. Working to spread the Gospel can be fun.

Have a blessed Triduum and a happy Easter.