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ST. PAUL’S LAY COMMITTEE ON CONTEMPORARY SPIRITUAL-&-PUBLIC CONCERNS
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Opening Remarks:

 

 

Introductory Remarks
 

Jerome Dwight Maryon, Esq.,
 

President,

The Committee on Contemporary Spiritual-&-Public Concerns
 
 

 

            Reverend Clergy & Chaplains, Ladies & Gentlemen:

 

            We now move to the heart of our Inaugural. Once again, I’m Jerome Maryon, the President of the Committee on Contemporary Spiritual-&-Public Concerns.

 

            On this, the Feast of St. Francis, we extend a special greeting to two groups of our neighbors and friends. Our Jewish neighbors recently celebrated Rosh Hashanah, the New Year 5767, and now, of course, you have just kept Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. To you, we say, “A Belated Happy New Year: ‘Le-Shanah Tovah!’”

 

            Our Muslim neighbors are now observing the month of Ramadhan, the month of keeping a strict fast from sunrise to sunset, every day. To you, we say, “May you have a blessed month of fasting: ‘Ramadhan Mubarak!’”

 

            For each of our three monotheistic faiths – in other words, for the faith communities that our Muslim friends call the three “Peoples of the Book” – and for all people of good will, our Committee should like to suggest a common rule. It is taken from the Prophetic Books in the Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament, from the Book of Micah, chapter 6, verse 8. It is the counsel of Our Lord, as received, understood, and relayed by the Prophet Micah; it reads thus: “He has showed thee, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of thee, but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” This echoes through Hosea, Amos, Isaiah, and John: that we should seek to be full of grace and truth, and that we should, always and everywhere, seek to do justice.

 

            That’s a counsel that very much animated the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, in the Montgomery Bus Boycott and throughout the Civil Rights movement in the 1950-60s. It’s a counsel that Mohandas K. Gandhi, the Mahatma, very much embodied as he led the peoples of the Raj – Hindus and Muslims, Sikhs and Jains, Christians and Jews – in movements like the Salt Boycott. And it is the counsel that inspired my ancestors when they worked with their neighbors, in County Mayo, in the summer and autumn of 1880, to create the Boycott: the power of the powerless: a gift of non-violence from impoverished Irish Catholics to the world.

 

            It is gifts like that which have inspired our Committee here at St. Paul’s. Founded on Mother’s Day in May, 2005, our Committee seeks to realize the hopes of the Second Vatican Council, hopes spelled out in the Mission Statement and the Vision Statement enclosed in tonight’s Program. We Catholic laity have come of age.  We bring our faith to the public forum; but when we do so, we distinguish what is dogma, that which we may share privately, but never impose, from that which is our formulation of a universally recognized good, a good that we can share, a good, indeed, that we must share. As we make these distinctions, we do not act in a vacuum, we work in tandem with our neighbors. We respect our neighbors, we dialogue with them, we celebrate with them, we weep with them. When Katyusha rockets strike Kiryat Shemona, a part of us dies. When cluster bombs strike Tyre, a part of us dies. Only through difficult dialogue and, even more difficult to attain, mutual respect, shall we stop the fighting. Only then shall we do justice, and love mercy, and walk with our God.

 

            That, Ladies & Gentlemen, is the sense of our Committee’s work. It is, if you will, our charism: to meet our neighbors where they are, and to seek to walk forward together, each strengthening the other’s faith – and thereby doubling the common good.

 

            That is our Mission and our Vision. And just as we have our historical inspiration, reaching from the South through the Raj back to County Mayo, so, too, we have our personal inspiration: the late, great Pope John Paul II. As George Weigel notes in the 2005 Preface to Witness to Hope, the official 1999 biography of the Pope, “Karol Wojtyla … influenced more lives in more diverse circumstances than any human being of his time.” [p. xix] Yet, how could a Pope have moved a world of often clashing faiths – and of a crusading anti-faith, the secularism of Western Europe? That’s a mystery.

 

            Who better to shed light on that mystery and on the state of the faith-and-secular dialogue today than our guest and Inaugural Speaker? Mr. Weigel is a Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies. The author or editor of nearly 20 books, the author of a weekly column, “The Catholic Difference,” syndicated to some 60 American newspapers, the founding President of the James Madison Foundation, the recipient of eight honorary doctorates, and the recipient of the Papal Cross, Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, Mr. Weigel is simply the single best placed person in the world to give a view of Washington and of the Vatican, to share concerns that are very rarely heard in Cambridge – and to hear, in turn, the concerns of Cambridge, concerns even more rarely registered in Washington.

 

            Mr. Weigel...

Original Announcement:
 
“Europe’s Civilizational Crisis, & What It Means for the Rest of Us”

 

A Lecture by George Weigel

 

 

 

The Lay Committee on Contemporary Spiritual-&-Public Concerns (The “CSPC Committee”) of St. Paul Parish, Cambridge, will hold its Second Inaugural Lecture on Wednesday, October 4, 2006,

29 Mount Auburn Street, Cambridge, MA.  A reception will follow.

 

Mr. Weigel is the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) in Washington, DC, where he is also a Senior Fellow.  He served as president of EPPC, 1989-June 1996.  Mr. Weigel completed his studies at St. Mary’s Seminary College, Baltimore, MD, and at the University of St. Michael’s College in Toronto.  He taught at St. Thomas Seminary School of Theology, Kenmore, WA, as Assistant Professor of Theology, and served as Assistant Dean of Studies, and later became Acting Dean.  He was a Scholar-in-Residence at the World Without War Council, was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and was founding president at the James Madison Foundation.  Mr. Weigel authored and edited many books including the international, highly-acclaimed biography of Pope John Paul II, Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II, which has been translated into several languages.  Mr. Weigel is a regular contributor to numerous, major publications, including newspapers, journals, and op-ed columns.  He is a much sought-after commentator for broadcast media and serves as a NBC News consultant on Vatican affairs.  He is a syndicated columnist to sixty U.S. newspapers; his weekly column is entitled, “The Catholic Difference.”  Mr. Weigel is also an editorial board member of the journal, First Things, and on the board of directors for many organizations that promote human rights and religious freedom.

 

CSPC is a Roman Catholic lay-administered committee established by a group of St. Paul parishioners who, guided by faith and reason, seek to promote deepened dialogue by exploring significant contemporary issues in a public forum.  The CSPC 2006-2007 Lectures will focus on a series of major issues, including the highly-charged relations with Islam, the practice of law, and the progression toward social and economic justice.