In the fight to eradicate material problems such as poverty and
drugs, we must work to remove the spiritual obstacles in our own hearts,
said Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia.
Speaking to Church leaders from across the Americas on Nov. 16,
Archbishop Chaput noted that God is calling us “to build a new 'New
World' – a world of mercy, justice, patience and love.”
“The biggest obstacle to that new 'New World' is not the enemies who hate us, and not the unbelievers who revile the Church and the Gospel,” he said.
“The biggest obstacle to that new 'New World' is not the enemies who hate us, and not the unbelievers who revile the Church and the Gospel,” he said.
“The biggest obstacle is the Old World that lives in our own hearts,
even in those of us who are bishops, and maybe especially in some of us
who are bishops: our pride, our cowardice, our lack of trust in the
promises of God.”
The archbishop addressed a gathering of bishops, priests, religious and
lay leaders from North, Central and South America, assembled for a
four-day conference on “Our Lady of Guadalupe, Star of the New
Evangelization on the American Continent.”
The conference was sponsored by the Pontifical Commission for Latin
America, the Knights of Columbus, the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe,
and the Higher Institute of Guadalupan Studies.
It built on a similar gathering in Rome last year and drew from Bl. Pope
John Paul II's exhortation “Ecclesia in America,” examining the role
and mission of the Church throughout the region, with an emphasis on Our
Lady of Guadalupe.
Despite progress in cooperation and dialogue throughout the American
Church in recent years, grave problems abound in the modern world,
Archbishop Chaput said, and the Church must respond to this reality,
with all of its confusion, anxieties and indifference.
He spoke of the crippling poverty that exists particularly in the southern part of America, such as in the slums of Brazil.
“Poverty is an acid that destroys human kinship. It burns away the bonds
of mutual love and obligation that make individuals into a community,”
he said, adding that poverty brings with it a host of other problems
ranging from homelessness to human trafficking.
Even in the U.S., the wealthiest nation in the world, one in six people
is now living below the poverty line, and these people are often
ignored, he noted. Furthermore, despite its wealth, the United States is
not exempt from “the moral poverty that comes from an advanced culture
relentlessly focused on consuming more of everything.”
This culture, which focuses on satisfying the self while ignoring the
needs of others, is “like a parasite of the soul,” which leaves people
“constantly eating but constantly hungry for something more – all the
while starving the spirit that makes us truly human.”
Moral poverty distorts attitudes towards life, marriage and sexuality,
breeding depression, greed and more violence, he said. Robbed of meaning
in life, much of the contemporary world numbs itself on consumer
comforts, becoming “a cocoon of narcotics, from pornography and abortion
to crack cocaine.”
Noting the grave consequences of the drug trade, from poverty and
despair to prostitution, corruption and murder, the archbishop argued
that the real solution lies not in decriminalizing the drug trade, but
in “deeper social and political reform.”
Poverty and drugs feed on each other, he observed, and yet both also
reveal a deeper “crisis of identity and purpose” which can be seen
throughout the Americas.
“Real human development takes more – much more – than better science,
better management and better consumer goods, though all these things are
wonderful in their place. Human happiness can’t be separated from the
human thirst for meaning.”
Therefore, he reflected, efforts that aim solely at satisfying material
needs will always fall short of fully serving the human person.
This is also true in responding to other attacks on human dignity,
particularly on the family, which is threatened by the “cult of
abortion,” the disintegration of marriages, the loneliness of the
elderly and laws that “cripple a family’s right to survive and find
work, even across borders when necessary.”
In searching for answers, he said, we must remember that “material,
programmatic solutions to problems like these, no matter how good they
might be, will never work unless they begin with direct human contact
and the tenderness of Christian love.”
To thoroughly address the problems facing the Church in America today,
Catholics leaders must take an honest – and when necessary,
self-critical – approach, Archbishop Chaput said.
Because they have been called by God and ordained by the Church to lead,
the bishops bear responsibility, and their weaknesses and failures
affect their flocks, he said. Although they cannot control the factors
that shape the world around them, the bishops are responsible for
examining their own hearts and reforming them when necessary.
“Success in the work of evangelization belongs to God, in his own time,
in his own way,” the archbishop recognized. “But the work belongs to us,
now. And it needs to involve more than passing along good doctrine. It
needs to lead our people – including the well-catechized – to embrace
Jesus Christ and his teaching in a new, more personal way.”
As an example, he pointed to some Catholic colleges and charitable ministries that “seem to be 'Catholic' in name only.”
“Are we willing to admit this? And are we willing to do something about it?” he asked his fellow bishops.
Ultimately, Archbishop Chaput said, we can see that the “new” evangelization is very much like the “old” evangelization.
“We need to understand the hopes and fears of today’s world, and
especially its young adults. And we need to master the new technologies
and methods to reach people as they are today,” he said.
“But programs
and techniques don’t convert the human heart. Only the witness of other
people can do that.”