Chicago's Cardinal George calls US to relationship with the world

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Chicago's Cardinal George calls US to relationship with the world
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Chicago's Cardinal George calls U.S. to relationship with the world
In an October 29 homily, Chicago's Archbishop Francis Cardinal George offered an unusually frank assessment of the United State's difficulties in its relationship, or lack thereof, with other nations around the world. "Our country has often been an instrument, I believe, of God's providence, to help others live more freely, to conquer tyranny, and many wonderful things," said George. "But there is another side also to our reality that came home to me precisely as a member of a missionary congregation."

Drawing on his experiences dealing with a serious illness—the Cardinal recently endured surgery for bladder cancer—and in the developing world, George argued: "The world distrusts us not because we are rich and free—many of us are not rich and some of us aren't especially free—they distrust us because we are deaf and blind, because too often we don't understand and make no effort to understand; because we know what is best.

"We have this cultural proclivity that says, 'We know what is best. And if we truly want to do something, whether in church or in society, no one has the right to tell us no.' That cultural proclivity, which defines us in many ways, has to be surrendered, or we will never be part of God's kingdom."

"Theology is always a conversation," George told those attending Mass at a building dedication at Hyde Park's Catholic Theological Union, "a dialogue between faith and reason within a particular culture in which the conversation takes place" with unity as its goal. Because of his illness, George said, he had particularly come to appreciate the importance of relationship.

"I had the sense in the midst of pain that often isolates that I was not alone. Because there is that relationship of faith and love that is far more profound than we think of as we go through the demands of ordinary life . . . We can forget that the church exists in this network of relationships, this communion, we call it . . . . That is there and we can always count on it, even when we forget about it. It is always there and it is a pure gift. And for having discovered that again, I am grateful to God, and for your having been a part of it, I am very grateful to you."

It is to that kind of solidarity that George called the United States in its relationship with the world, noting that it would prove a challenging task.

"That conversion of an entire culture is far more difficult than the personal conversion that is our challenge each time we pick up the gospel. But we know it is necessary—not only for us, but for every single culture and every single society, poor or rich, in the world today . . . There is always a need for something more, not only more, but for something radically different. And it won't come unless we ask for it as a gift. We cannot achieve it ourselves.

"This is also an occasion when we must ask what still has to be surrendered to Christ in order to receive it back as a gift from him."—Kevin Clarke

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