WASHINGTON, D.C., OCT. 1, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The American project is to live out the consequences of Judeo-Christian humanism, Archbishop Timothy Dolan said in the presence of six Supreme Court justices at an annual Red Mass.
The Mass at St. Matthew the Apostle Cathedral in Washington was attended Sunday by some 1,500 civil leaders, including Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer and Samuel Alito Jr.
Breyer is Jewish; the other five justices are Catholic. Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington was the lead celebrant.
The annual Red Mass is held each year before the Supreme Court begins its fall session. The session started today.
Archbishop Dolan of Milwaukee began his homily telling the story of a woman who said her life was saved by the experience of World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto.
The 24-year-old woman worked as a prostitute to support her alcohol and heroin addictions. But youth from a church invited her to World Youth Day, where she "met an old man who has changed my life. This old man told me he loved me. Oh, a lot of old men tell me they love me, for 15 minutes. This old man meant it.
"He told me God loved me, and that I'm actually God's work of art. He told me that the God who made all the stars actually knows my name. […] This old man makes sense. This old man got through to me. I now want to live."
She was referring to Pope John Paul II, Archbishop Dolan explained, adding, "Ideas have consequences, don't they? Convictions have corollaries."
The prelate went on to explain the "idea" and "conviction" of Judeo-Christian humanism.
He said: "This noble tenet -- that human nature reflects God's own nature, that God looks at us and smiles with delight, that a human being shares in God's own life and is destined for eternity -- this soaring conviction which resonates in the human heart, that was made explicit in God's Word, which animated the thinking of our most normative philosophers, and is a constant of Judeo-Christian humanism, this grand idea has particularly cogent consequences for the republic we call home, for the country we love."
Responsibility
The Milwaukee archbishop affirmed that the United States was founded on humanism.
He said: "It is a cherished part of our American heritage, then, to rejoice in a mutually enriching alliance between religion, morality and democracy, since, as de Tocqueville observed, 'Respect for the laws of God and man is the best way of remaining free, and liberty is the best means of remaining upright and religious.'
"So this soaring idea has consequences, and has throughout our history: in the quest for independence itself, in the formation of a republic, in abolition and civil rights, in the waging of war and promotion of peace, in care for the other, in the strengthening of marriage and family, and in the promotion of a culture of life."
Archbishop Dolan continued: "Maybe we're here because we realistically acknowledge that, in a world where we're tempted to act like animals instead of like God's icon, in a culture where life itself can be treated as a commodity, seen as a means to an end, or as an inconvenience when tiny or infirm, in a society where rights are reduced to whatever we have the urge to do instead of what we ought to do in a civil society, we need all the wisdom and fortitude God can give us, as civic leaders, magistrates, as ordinary citizens, to achieve, as Cardinal James Gibbons exhorted, 'liberty without license, authority without despotism.'"
ZE07100104 - 2007-10-01