[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 156 (Tuesday, October 10, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14947-S14949]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       VISIT OF POPE JOHN PAUL II

 Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to 
the visit of His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, to the United States over 
the past several days. In the space of just 5 days, the Pope left a 
lasting impression in the lives of millions of his faithful followers, 
including many people from the State of Connecticut, thousands of 

[[Page S 14948]]
whom journeyed to New York to see the Pope in person.
  As the Rev. Aldo J. Tos, pastor of St. Joseph's Church in Greenwich 
Village said, ``Let us say the stone has been dropped into the pools of 
humanity. We await the ripples.'' In the hope of stirring the pools and 
encouraging the ripples, I ask that the text of the Pope's homily at 
the Mass at Camden Yards in Baltimore on Sunday, as compiled by the 
Associated Press, be printed in the Record following my remarks. In 
that homily, the Pope speaks of timeless virtues with a timely message, 
asking us, `` `How ought we to live together?' In seeking an answer to 
this question, can society exclude moral truth and moral reasoning? Can 
the Biblical wisdom which played such a formative part in the very 
founding of your country be excluded from that debate?''
  Mr. President, we are at a moment in our history when society is 
engaged in serious debate over the place of moral truth in public 
policy, especially as we grapple with the deteriorating condition of 
aspects of our culture. The debate is alive in this Chamber, affecting 
our views and our votes on a wide range of government laws and programs 
that have an impact on the behavior and destiny of the people of this 
and other nations. As we participate in that debate, we would do well 
to keep these words of Pope John Paul in mind: ``It would indeed be sad 
if the United States were to turn away from that enterprising spirit 
which has always sought the most practical and responsible ways of 
continuing to share with others the blessings God has richly bestowed 
here.''
  The spirit of America (the ``extraordinary human epic,'' as the Pope 
proclaimed) has been lifted up by the visit of this wise and holy man, 
and I hope his words will echo in millions of hearts and inspire many 
to do great things. As Pope John Paul II said, ``Every generation of 
Americans needs to know that freedom consists not in doing what we 
like, but in having the right to do what we ought.''
  The text follows:

 Transcript of Pope John Paul II's Homily at Camden Yards, Baltimore, 
                            October 9, 1995

       Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, each day, the church 
     begins the Liturgy of the Hours with the pslam which we have 
     just prayed together: ``Come, let us sing joyfully to the 
     Lord.'' In that call, ringing down the centuries and echoing 
     across the face of the globe, the psalmist summons the people 
     of God to sing the praises of the Lord and to bear great 
     witness to the marvelous things God has done for us.
       The psalmist's call to hear the Lord's voice has particular 
     significance for us as we celebrate this Mass in Baltimore. 
     Maryland was the birthplace of the church in colonial 
     America. More than 360 years ago, a small band of Catholics 
     came to the New World to build a home where they could 
     ``singe joyfully to the Lord'' in freedom. They established a 
     colony whose hallmark was religious tolerance, which would 
     later become one of the cultural cornerstones of American 
     democracy. Baltimore is the senior metropolitan See in the 
     United States. Its first bishop, John Carroll, stands out as 
     a model who can still inspire the church in America today. 
     Here we held the great provincial and plenary councils which 
     guided the church's expansion as waves of immigrants came to 
     these shores in search of a better life.
       Here in Baltimore, in 1884, the bishops of the United 
     States authorized the ``Baltimore Catechism,'' which formed 
     the faith of tens of millions of Catholics for decades. In 
     Baltimore, the country's Catholic school system began under 
     the leadership of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton. The first 
     seminary in the United States was established here, under the 
     protection of the virgin mother of God, as was America's 
     first Catholic college for women. Since those heroic 
     beginnings, men and women of every race and social class have 
     built the Catholic community we see in America today, a great 
     spiritual movement of witness, of apostolate, of good works, 
     of Catholic institutions and organizations.
       With warm affection, therefore, I greet your archbishop, 
     Cardinal Keeler, and thank him for his sensitive leadership 
     in this local church and his work on behalf of the bishops' 
     conference. With esteem I greet the other cardinals and 
     bishops present here in great numbers, the priests, deacons 
     and seminarians, the women and men religious, and all God's 
     people, the ``living stones'' whom the spirit uses to build 
     up the body of Christ. I gladly greet the members of the 
     various Christian churches and ecclesial communities. I 
     assure them of the Catholic church's ardent desire to 
     celebrate the jubilee of the year 2000 as a great occasion to 
     move closer to overcoming the divisions of the second 
     millennium. I thank the civil authorities who have wished to 
     share this sacred moment with us.
       (Remarks in Castilian, followed by this English 
     translation) . . . I greet the Spanish-speaking faithful 
     present here and all those following this Mass on radio or 
     television. The church is your spiritual home. Your parishes, 
     associations, schools and religious education programs need 
     your cooperation and the enthusiasm of your faith. With 
     special affection, I encourage you to transmit your Catholic 
     traditions to the younger generations.
       Our celebration today speaks to us, speaks to us not only 
     of the past. The eucharist always makes present anew the 
     saving mystery of Christ's death and resurrection, and points 
     to the future definitive fulfillment of God's plan of 
     salvation. Two years ago, at Denver, I was deeply impressed 
     by the vitality of America's young people as they bore 
     enthusiastic witness to their love of Christ, and showed 
     that they were not afraid of the demands of the Gospel. 
     Today, I offer this Mass for a strengthening of that 
     vitality and Christian courage at every level of the 
     church in the United States: among the laity, among the 
     priests and religious, among my brother bishops. The whole 
     church is preparing for the third Christian millennium. 
     The challenge of the great jubilee of the year 2000 is the 
     new evangelization: a deepening of faith and a vigorous 
     response to the Christian vocation to holiness and 
     service. This is what the successor of Peter has come to 
     Baltimore to urge upon each one of you: the courage to 
     bear witness to the gospel of our redemption.
       In today's Gospel reading, the apostles ask Jesus: 
     ``Increase our faith.'' This must be our constant prayer. 
     Faith is always demanding, because faith leads us beyond 
     ourselves. It leads us directly to God. Faith also imparts a 
     vision of life's purpose and stimulates us to action. The 
     Gospel of Jesus Christ is not a private opinion, a remote 
     spiritual ideal, or a mere program for personal growth. The 
     Gospel is the power which can transform the world! The Gospel 
     is no abstraction: it is the living person of Jesus Christ, 
     the word of God, the reflection of the Father's glory, the 
     Incarnate Son who reveals the deepest meaning of our humanity 
     and the noble destiny to which the whole human family is 
     called. Christ has commanded us to let the light of the 
     Gospel shine forth in our service to society. How can we 
     profess faith in God's word, and then refuse to let it 
     inspire and direct our thinking, our activity, our decisions, 
     and our responsibilities towards one another?
       In America, Christian faith has found expression in an 
     impressive array of witnesses and achievements. We must 
     recall with gratitude the inspiring work of education carried 
     out in countless families, schools and universities, and all 
     the healing and consolation imparted in hospitals and 
     hospices and shelters. We must give thanks for the practical 
     living out of God's call in devoted service to others, in 
     commitment to social justice, in responsible involvement in 
     political life, in a wide variety of charitable and social 
     organizations, and in the growth of ecumenical and 
     interreligious understanding and cooperation.
       In a more global context, we should thank God for the great 
     generosity of American Catholics whose support of the foreign 
     missions has greatly contributed to the spiritual and 
     material well-being of their brothers and sisters in other 
     lands. The Church in the United States has sent brave 
     missionary men and women out to the nations, and not a few of 
     them have borne the ultimate witness to the ancient truth 
     that the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christianity. In my 
     visits to Catholic communities around the world I often meet 
     American missionaries, lay, religious and priests. I wish to 
     make an appeal to young Catholics to consider the missionary 
     vocation. I know that the ``spirit of Denver'' is alive in 
     many young hearts.
       Today, though, some Catholics are tempted to discouragement 
     or disillusionment, like the prophet Habakkuk in the first 
     reading. They are tempted to cry out to the Lord in a 
     different way: why does God not intervene when violence 
     threatens his people; why does God let us see ruin and 
     misery; why does God permit evil? Like the prophet Habakkuk, 
     and like the thirsty Israelites in the desert at Meribah and 
     Massah, our trust can falter; we can lose patience with God. 
     In the drama of history, we can find our dependence upon God 
     burdensome rather than liberating. We too can ``harden our 
     hearts.'' And yet the prophet gives us an answer to our 
     impatience: ``If God delays, wait for him; he will surely 
     come, he will not be late.'' A Polish proverb expresses the 
     same conviction in another way: ``God takes his time, but he 
     is just.'' . . . (Remarks in another language, then English 
     translation): Our waiting for God is never in vain.
       Every moment is our opportunity to model ourselves on Jesus 
     Christ--to allow the power of the Gospel to transform our 
     personal lives and our service to others, according to the 
     spirit of the Beatitudes. ``Bear your share of the hardship 
     which the gospel entails,'' writes Paul to Timothy in today's 
     second reading. This is no idle exhortation to endurance. No, 
     it is an invitation to enter more deeply into the Christian 
     vocation which belongs to us all by Baptism. There is no evil 
     to be faced that Christ does not face with us. There is no 
     enemy that Christ has not already conquered. There is no 
     cross to bear that Christ has not already borne for us, and 
     does not now bear with us. And on the far side of every cross 
     we find the newness of life in the Holy Spirit, that new life 
     which will reach its fulfillment in the resurrection. This is 
     our faith. This is our witness before the world.

[[Page S 14949]]

       Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ: ``The spirit God has 
     given us is no cowardly spirit. . . . Therefore, never be 
     ashamed of your testimony to our Lord.''
       Thus wrote St. Paul to Timothy, almost 2,000 years ago; 
     thus speaks the church to American Catholics today. Christian 
     witness takes different forms at different moments in the 
     life of a nation. Sometimes, witnessing to Christ will mean 
     drawing out of a culture the full meaning of its noblest 
     intentions, a fullness that is revealed in Christ. At other 
     times, witnessing to Christ means challenging that culture, 
     especially when the truth about the human person is under 
     assault. America has always wanted to be a land of the free. 
     Today, the challenge facing America is to find freedom's 
     fulfillment in the truth: the truth that is intrinsic to 
     human life created in God's image and likeness, the truth 
     that is written on the human heart, the truth that can be 
     known by reason and can therefore form the basis of a 
     profound and universal dialogue among people about the 
     direction they must give to their lives and their activities.
       One hundred thirty years ago, President Abraham Lincoln 
     asked whether a nation ``conceived in liberty and dedicated 
     to the proposition that all men are created equal'' could 
     ``long endure.'' President Lincoln's question is no less a 
     question for the present generation of Americans. Democracy 
     cannot be sustained without a shared commitment to certain 
     moral truths about the human person and human community. The 
     basic question before a democratic society is: ``How ought we 
     live together?'' In seeking an answer to this question, can 
     society exclude moral truth and moral reasoning? Can the 
     Biblical wisdom which played such a formative part in the 
     very founding of your country be excluded from that debate?
       Would not doing so means that tens of millions of Americans 
     could no longer offer the contributions of their deepest 
     convictions to the formation of public policy? Surely it is 
     important for America that the moral truths which make 
     freedom possible should be passed on to each new generation. 
     Every generation of Americans needs to know that freedom 
     consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right 
     to do what we ought.
       How appropriate is St. Paul's charge to Timothy! ``Guard 
     the rich deposit of faith with the help of the Holy Spirit 
     who dwells within us.'' That charge speaks to parents and 
     teachers; it speaks in a special and urgent way to you, my 
     brother bishops, successors of the apostles. Christ asks us 
     to guard the truth because, as he promised us: ``You will 
     know the truth and the truth will make you free.'' Depositum 
     custodi! We must guard the truth that is the condition of 
     authentic freedom, the truth that allows freedom to be 
     fulfilled in goodness. We must guard the deposit of divine 
     truth handed down to us in the church, especially in view of 
     the challenges posed by a materialistic culture and by a 
     permissive mentality that reduces freedom to license. But we 
     bishops must do more than guard this truth. We must proclaim 
     it, in season and out of season; we must celebrate it with 
     God's people, in the sacraments; we must live it in charity 
     and service; we must bear public witness to the truth that is 
     Jesus Christ.
       Dear brothers and sisters: Catholics of America! Always be 
     guided by the truth--by the truth about God who created and 
     redeemed us, and by the truth about the human person, made in 
     the image and likeness of God and destined for a glorious 
     fulfillment in the Kingdom to come. Always be convincing 
     witnesses to the truth. ``Stir into a flame the gift of God'' 
     that has been bestowed upon you in baptism. Light your 
     nation--light the world--with the power of that flame! 
     Amen.

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