Gulf Pine Catholic
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June 3, 2016
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Pohl spoke at length about how religious freedom
in the U.S. in being threatened. He leads a team of at-
torneys with the Jones Day law firm representing more
than 50 Catholic organizations, including Franciscan
University, in lawsuits against the federal contraceptive
mandate.
“There is a war going on out there in which we are
thrust whether we like it or not. There is a war being
fought for your soul and there is a war being fought for
the soul of our nation,” he said.
A day earlier Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley re-
ceived an honorary doctorate of sacred theology during
Franciscan University’s baccalaureate Mass.
In his homily, he spoke about Christ’s disciples as
students, particularly St. Peter. He noted three questions
that Christ asked in the Gospels and how it was like a
final exam on his teachings: Who do you say that I am?
Do you want to leave me, too? Do you love me?
Cardinal O’Malley encouraged graduates to use Pe-
ter’s answers: You are the Christ. To whom else should
we go. Yes, Lord, you know that I do.
“The correct answers need to be on your heart as
well as your lips,” he said. “Here at Franciscan Uni-
versity, you have such an extraordinary opportunity to
deepen your life of faith hope and love.”
On May 15, Washington Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl
told Marymount University’s graduates that their gen-
eration faces great challenges to the idea that we are
part of God’s plan and that there is an interaction and
interconnectedness to what God asks of us and how we
live out our lives.
“Jesus came to announce that he was going to make
all things new but he was going to invite all of us to
make that happen, that we wouldn’t just be passive by-
standers,” he said during undergraduate commencement
exercises at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington. The
university is located in suburban Arlington, Virginia.
“Never give up the hope, never give up the vision,
never give up the dream you can make this a better
world,” Cardinal Wuerl said.
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From page 22
Archbishop: World Meeting of Families is part of
wider church renewal
BY CAROL GLATZ
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The 2018 World Meeting
of Families in Ireland is part of a broad program of re-
newal of the church’s pastoral care for all families, said
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin.
“In Pope Francis’ mind, the IX World Meeting of
Families in Dublin is not an isolated event. It belongs
within a process of discernment and encouragement,
of accompaniment and animation of families,” he said
during a news conference at the Vatican May 24.
“It belongs within a program of renewal of the
church’s pastoral concern and pastoral care for the fam-
ily and for families,” he said.
Archbishop Martin and Archbishop Vincenzo Pa-
glia, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family,
presented the official theme of the encounter, which is
held every three years.
The gathering is dedicated to
“The Gospel of family,
joy for the world,”
and it will run Aug. 22-26, 2018, in
Dublin.
The meeting’s preparation and celebration will be
inspired in large part, Archbishop Paglia said, by Pope
Francis’ apostolic exhortation, “Amoris Laetitia” (“The
Joy of Love”), which followed a two-year-long synod
process focused on families.
The postsynodal document, he said, demands “not a
simple updating of family pastoral care, but much more
-- a new way of living the church, a new way of fulfill-
ing that love that renders the life of the people of God,
of families and of society happy.”
Archbishop Martin said he hoped the meeting
would be “an important milestone in the application of
the fruits of the synodal process.”
Archbishop Paglia said having the meeting in Ire-
land, which is “marked by a delicate moment of transi-
tion,” will help the country “recover the strength, en-
ergy and missionary zeal through the rediscovery of the
vocation and mission of the family.”
All Christian communities and members of other
religious faiths need to work together with government
and civil society to find common ground in a “family
spirit,” he said, in order to tackle “that individualist di-
mension that unfortunately is increasingly embroiling
religious and civil settings all over the world.”
The meeting is meant to highlight the Christian ideal
of marriage and family life, as well as to be a resource
to accompany and encourage all those who “who can’t
achieve the Christian ideal” as of yet, Archbishop Pa-
glia said in response to a reporter’s question.
It will be about “inclusivity,” he said, in tune with
the pope’s approach in his ministry and the postsynodal
document.
Archbishop Martin said in his talk that “the church’s
catechetical programs regarding marriage and the fam-
ily need a complete overhaul in line with what ‘Amoris
Laetitia’ sets out,” and he hoped churches around the
world would prepare for the Dublin meeting by sharing
in that catechetical process.
The priority in planning is to look at what families
are facing and, in Ireland, that includes great economic
difficulties and a severe housing crisis. Some families
in Dublin, he said, live in a hotel room “because there
aren’t enough homes.”
The gathering is an opportunity to “encourage a
very inclusive culture” for people who are struggling
and want a more dignified life for themselves and their
families, he said.
“In the face of the many challenges of a changing
culture of marriage and the family, the church is called
to accompany families in a new way and to enable fam-
ilies to experience more profoundly the joy of living the
Gospel of the family,” he said.
“It is also vital that church and society commit them-
selves to enabling families to experience that joy more
fully through appropriate political, social and economic
measures which support families and help remove bur-
dens which families face,” the Irish archbishop said.
At the news conference, Archbishop Martin again
confirmed that Pope Francis would like to attend the
meeting in Ireland in 2018, but he said a concrete sched-
ule would be set closer to the actual date of the event.
The archbishop said it would be very important for
the pope to visit Northern Ireland and bring to comple-
tion the 1979 historic pilgrimage of St John Paul II,
when rising tensions in the North made a visit there im-
possible.
In Ireland, Anglican Archbishop Michael Jackson
of Dublin called the 2018 meeting “an event of inter-
national proportions and of considerable significance
right across society in general. Wherever people con-
gregate and share lives, issues associated with family
life, care and nurture are always to the fore.”
He pledged the church’s help to make it a success.
Contributing to this story was Michael Kelly in
Dublin.
Archbishop
Diarmuid Martin
of Dublin,
pictured in a
2015 photo,
said the 2018
World Meeting
of Families in
Ireland is part of
a broad program
of renewal of the
church’s pastoral
care for all
families.
CNS photo/Paul
Haring
