Having spent the past few weeks reflecting on some of the modern thinkers who prove to be a threat to our Christian understanding of faith and hope, Pope Benedict pauses the conversation to ask an important question: [W]hat may we hope? (Spe salvi, 22) With this question, he turns our attention away from those thinkers and invites a turn in, inviting us to see what, in light of all of these developments, hope means to us, that Christians “must learn anew in what their hope truly consists, what they have to offer to the world and what they cannot offer.” (ibid.)

To begin to address that question, the Holy Father asks specifically about what we as Christians mean about the word “progress” which has been at the center of modern thinkers; critiques of faith, as we have shown.  I find the following words provocative:

In the twentieth century, Theodor W. Adorno formulated the problem of faith in progress quite drastically: he said that progress, seen accurately, is progress from the sling to the atom bomb. Now this is certainly an aspect of progress that must not be concealed. To put it another way: the ambiguity of progress becomes evident. Without doubt, it offers new possibilities for good, but it also opens up appalling possibilities for evil—possibilities that formerly did not exist. (ibid.)

The Church is not opposed to progress in the areas of science, technology, and medicine, but the pope offers an important caveat:

If technical progress is not matched by corresponding progress in man’s ethical formation, in man’s inner growth (cf. Eph 3:16; 2 Cor 4:16), then it is not progress at all, but a threat for man and for the world. (ibid.)

Just because progress has made something possible does not mean that it should be done.  This is where the role of the Church continues to offer a valuable voice in evaluating developments in these areas so as to avoid the threat that comes from those forms of progress.  There is no shortage of examples of when the Church in modern decades has spoken strongly against what the world proposes to be acceptable because of what progress makes possible, including: artificial contraception, abortion, physician assisted suicide, human cloning, various gender manipulation treatments, just to name a few.

One area of progress that is emerging with rapid development is artificial intelligence.  No doubt, there are many good possibilities that AI make available, but there are dangers as well.  This is something our new Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, has identified as a key place where the Church’s voice is urgently needed.  He said the following to the Cardinals just a few days after his election, explaining the choice of his name and how it speaks to the present challenge:

Sensing myself called to continue in this same path, I chose to take the name Leo XIV. There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour. (Pope Leo XIV, Address to the College of Cardinals, 10 May 2025)

Let us pray that the Church will continue to offer that voice of truth, helping us to discern what is good and worthy of adoption, and what is contrary to human dignity and progress, and should be avoided so that the common good of all can be secured and maintained.

On the Feast of Pentecost, you may have heard a special hymn sung before the Alleluia and after the second reading. This does not happen often – really only twice a year, on Easter and Pentecost. This hymn is called a “Sequence,” and it is a unique prayer which serves to open our hearts to the particular gifts of grace God has to offer through the celebration of the feast day. The Easter sequence begins with the words, “Christians to the Paschal Victim, offer your thankful praises!” It recounts the victory of Christ and gives us hope in the new life God now brings to us. 

The Pentecost sequence is a poetic prayer to the Holy Spirit, begging Him to come and bring his healing presence to our hearts. For the next 10 weeks, I will be offering a brief reflection on each of the ten stanzas of the Pentecost Sequence. Even though we’re now in Ordinary Time, there is never a bad time to reflect on the Holy Spirit and his work in our life! Plus, we can see how the power of Pentecost is meant to spring forth into the entirety of our lives – the ordinary and the extraordinary.

The prayer begins:

Veni, Sancte Spiritus, Come, Holy Spirit,
et emitte caelitus send forth the heavenly
lucis tuae radium.    radiance of your light.

Darkness, thirst, need, want, desire, lack – these words describe well the state of a heart that awaits the Holy Spirit. In that heart, there is something missing. There is something – someone, rather – who must come to fill this void. Nothing else will satisfy. Nothing else can fill the heart in a truly satisfying way except the one who made it. As St. Augustine famously wrote, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

The first word of the Pentecost Sequence is therefore, “Come!” This plea pours forth from the hearts of all Christians. In this first stanza, He is described as heavenly light. Throughout this Sequence, the Holy Spirit is additionally sketched as a comforter, our consolation, heavenly dew, refreshment, fire, a healer, and a generous giver. In other words, He is everything we need and want from God. 

As we ask Him to fill us with His light, we might meditate on the soft light of a candle, the ultimate power of the light of the sun, the lively light of a fire, or the raging light of an uncontrollable inferno. The Holy Spirit is Love itself, and in that regard, his light will look like all and each of these at different times in our life. I’m reminded of the Song of Songs, “for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame.Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.” May the light of that love fill our hearts. Come, Holy Spirit, set us on fire with your love!

Today marks the conclusion of the Easter Season as we celebrate the Solemnity of Pentecost, commemorating that glorious day on which the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles and Mary, ushering in the age of the Church.  From that moment, the Holy Spirit has been present in the Church, serving as her “principle of life, unity, and movement” (CCC 797) throughout the ages.  The Holy Spirit is the gift Jesus promises to the Church when He says that He “will not leave us orphans.” (John 14:18) He is anticipating His sending of the Holy Spirit at the Ascension when He tells His Apostles: “Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” (Mt 28:20)

As we reflect on the importance of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church, I think there is a fittingness to our celebrating this feast day as we continue our considerations of the modern voices of figures such as Francis Bacon, Immanuel Kant, and Karl Marx and their impact on our Catholic faith.  In this regard, I want to call our attention to an important passage from the New Testament that helps us to have a lens through which to look at these ideas.  It comes from the First Letter of St. John, and it begins:

Beloved, do not trust every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they belong to God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. (1 Jn 4:1)

St. John distinguishes between the Spirit of God which “acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh” (1 Jn 4:2) from “every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus [and therefore] does not belong to God.” (1 Jn 4:3) He then says the following about that spirit which does not belong to God: “They belong to the world; accordingly, their teaching belongs to the world, and the world listens to them.” (1 Jn 4:5)

In the paragraphs we have been looking at over the past few weeks, Pope Benedict has helped us in identifying how the principles proposed by these modern thinkers are more and more focused on “the world” and increasingly, the world pays more attention to those voices.  But the Church, guided by the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, continues to propose the truth, and as Jesus says of this truth: that it “will set you free.” (John 8:32)

In paragraph 21 of Spe salvi, as he continues to consider the thought of Karl Marx, Pope Benedict notes how a fundamental error Marx makes is his failure to account for human freedom.  Marx thinks that if the proper economic environment is created, everything will fall into place.  Pope Benedict offers the following critique:

He forgot that man always remains man. He forgot man and he forgot man’s freedom. He forgot that freedom always remains also freedom for evil. He thought that once the economy had been put right, everything would automatically be put right. His real error is materialism: man, in fact, is not merely the product of economic conditions, and it is not possible to redeem him purely from the outside by creating a favourable economic environment. (Spe salvi, 21)

One of the great opponents against Marxism and Communism was Pope St. John Paul II, having himself lived in a country infected by this error.  From the early days of his pontificate, he fought against this error by faithfully proclaiming the truths of the faith which extol man’s freedom, a freedom given by the Holy Spirit.  The pope considered Marxism as one of the most radical examples of modern man’s “resistance to the Holy Spirit” (Dominum et vivificantem, 56) which, paradoxically, results in his falling deeper into slavery, not the freedom such ideas promise. (cf. Redemptor hominis, 16)

On this Penetecost Sunday, let us pray that the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Truth, will be proclaimed with clarity and courage in our society by the Church, and so bring about the true freedom of the children of God that He desires for us to live.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God

• St. Cecilia (+230, Rome, Roman Empire) – Virgin martyr known for her purity and devotion to sacred music
• St. Agatha (+251, Catania, Sicily) – Virgin martyr who maintained purity under torture
• St. Agnes (+304, Rome, Roman Empire) – Young virgin martyr who chose death rather than compromise her purity
• St. Lucy (+304, Syracuse, Sicily) – Virgin martyr who chose martyrdom over marriage
• St. Angela Merici (+1540, Brescia, Italy) – Founded the Ursulines, dedicated to educating young women in purity
• St. Aloysius Gonzaga (+1591, Rome, Italy) – Maintained extraordinary purity of heart from childhood until death at 23
• St. John of the Cross (+1591, Úbeda, Spain) – Mystic whose pure heart experienced intimate union with God
• St. Rose Philippine Duchesne (+1852, St. Charles, USA) – Missionary nun known for her pure devotion to prayer
• St. Francisco Marto (+1919, Aljustrel, Portugal) – Child visionary of Fatima known for his innocent purity
• St. Jacinta Marto (+1920, Lisbon, Portugal) – Child visionary of Fatima known for her innocent purity
• St. Josephine Bakhita (+1947, Schio, Italy) – Former slave whose pure heart allowed her to forgive her captors

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God

• St. Boniface (+754, Dokkum, Frisia) – Missionary who brought peace between Germanic tribes through evangelization
• St. Cyril (+869, Rome, Italy) and St. Methodius (+885, Moravia) – Brother missionaries who brought peace between cultures through evangelization
• St. Francis of Assisi (+1226, Assisi, Italy) – Traveled to speak with the Sultan during the Crusades, seeking peace
• St. Turibius of Mogrovejo (+1606, Lima, Peru) – Archbishop who brought peace to colonial Peru through reform
• St. Peter Claver (+1654, Cartagena, Colombia) – Brought peace and dignity to enslaved Africans in Cartagena
• St. Kuriakose Chavara (+1871, Mannanam, India) – Indian priest who worked for peace between religious communities
• St. John XXIII (+1963, Vatican City) – Pope who opened Vatican II and worked for peace during the Cold War and by opening Vatican II.
• St. John Paul II (+2005, Vatican City) – Pope and man of prayer, helped end the Cold War, proclaimed the hope and love of Christ around the world

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

• St. Stephen (+34, Jerusalem, Roman Judea) – First Christian martyr, stoned for preaching the Gospel
• St. James the Greater (+44, Jerusalem, Roman Judea) – First apostle martyred, killed by Herod Agrippa
• Ss. Simon (+65, Persia) and St. Jude (+65, Persia) – Apostles martyred together for their missionary work
• Ss. Peter (+64, Rome, Roman Empire) and St. Paul (+67, Rome, Roman Empire) – Apostles martyred in Rome under Nero
• St. Apollinaris (+75, Ravenna, Roman Empire) – First bishop of Ravenna, martyred for preaching the Gospel
• St. Linus (+76, Rome, Roman Empire) – Second pope who faced persecution under Domitian
• St. Ignatius of Antioch (+107, Rome, Roman Empire) – Bishop martyred for refusing to renounce his faith
• St. Polycarp (+155, Smyrna, Roman Asia) – Disciple of St. John, martyred at age 86 for his Christian faith
• St. Justin Martyr (+165, Rome, Roman Empire) – Philosopher martyred for defending Christianity
• St. Praxedes (+165, Rome, Roman Empire) – Roman virgin who suffered persecution for burying martyrs
• Ss. Perpetua and Felicity (+203, Carthage, Roman Africa) – Young mothers martyred in the arena for their Christian faith
• St. Cornelius (+253, Centumcellae, Roman Empire) and St. Cyprian (+258, Carthage, Roman Africa) – Pope and bishop martyred during Valerian persecution
• St. Lawrence (+258, Rome, Roman Empire) – Deacon martyred by being roasted alive for distributing Church wealth to the poor
• St. Maurice and the Theban Legion (+287, Agaunum, Switzerland) – Christian Roman soldiers martyred for refusing to persecute Christians
• Ss. Cosmas and Damien (+287, Cyrrhus, Syria) – Physician brothers martyred for their faith and refusal to recant
• St. Anastasia (+304, Sirmio, Roman Empire) – Martyr who died for ministering to persecuted Christians
• Ss. John and Paul (+362, Rome, Roman Empire) – Roman brothers martyred under Julian the Apostate
• St. Polydore Plasden (+1591, Tyburn, England) – English priest martyred during the Reformation
• Bl. Michaôl Nakashima Saburoemon (+1628, Nagasaki, Japan) – Japanese Christian martyred during persecution
• St. Lorenzo Ruiz (+1637, Nagasaki, Japan) – Filipino martyr killed in Japan during Christian persecution
• St. Isaac Jogues (+1646, Ossernenon, New Netherland) – Jesuit missionary martyred by the Mohawks in North America
• St. Peter Chanel (+1841, Futuna, Oceania) – Marist missionary martyred in the South Pacific
• St. Paul Chong Hasang (+1839, Seoul, Korea) – Korean lay martyr during the persecution of Christians
• St. Christopher Magallanes and Companions (+1927, Colotlán, Mexico) – Mexican priests and others martyred during the Cristero War
• Bl. Miguel Pro (+1927, Mexico City, Mexico) – Mexican Jesuit priest martyred during religious persecution
• St. Maximilian Kolbe (+1941, Auschwitz, Poland) – Priest martyred in Auschwitz for his faith and charity

– Fr. Dominic signing off. May all these saints help us all to become great saints! And let us pray for each other as well for that same end! (I’ll be around Cathedral until mid-August, so I will see you around between now and then. We’ll just be enjoying Fr. Daniel’s reflections from here and out in the Cathedral Weekly).

As noted in the previous article, Immanual Kant provides key philosophical principles that have found their way into our modern thought, especially our views toward faith and reason.  When Kant speaks about the “Kingdom of God”, he is proposing more of a moral ideal in which we become a community that is just and virtuous, founded on principles from practical reason and moral autonomy, and not so much from external influences like the Church and Divine Revelation.

Doing a little research on the development of this view of the Kingdom of God, which he proposed as something essential for society, it appears that Kant saw this as something that would come about somewhat gradually over time.  He writes the following interesting point which will set us up for rest of our reflection:

Once this transition has been grasped through mature reflection, it is carried out—insofar as this is something that human beings are to do—through gradually advancing reform. As for revolutions that might shorten this process, they are left to providence and can’t be deliberately created without damage to freedom. (Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason)

In the next paragraph of Spe salvi, Pope Benedict turns his attention to another significant figure, Karl Marx.  Though he also recognizes the same need for a transformation in the modern world, he is not so willing to wait for the gradual transformation which Kant seems to expect.  Rather, he saw the need for a more immediate and dramatic change.  Here is how the Holy Father describes it:

After the bourgeois revolution of 1789, the time had come for a new, proletarian revolution: progress could not simply continue in small, linear steps. A revolutionary leap was needed. Karl Marx took up the rallying call, and applied his incisive language and intellect to the task of launching this major new and, as he thought, definitive step in history towards salvation—towards what Kant had described as the “Kingdom of God.” (Spe salvi, 20)

Marx was calling for a more radical revolution that would speed up the process to get where society needed to be, according to the general trend of thinking that was emerging.  This revolution, unlike Kant’s view, would require more than just a moral development that was more individualistic in nature.  It would require radical changes affecting the whole collective of society and thus would need to engage the world of politics as well.  The Holy Father will offer more thoughts on the influence of Marx in the next paragraph, but I think this suffices to show the significance of his contribution to this disturbing trend undermining the traditional teachings of the Church on faith and hope.

This Sunday, the Church in many parts of the world celebrates the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord into Heaven.  This event reminds us that our ultimate destination as human beings, made for communion with Him, is Heaven, not this earth.  True peace and happiness cannot be found in this world.  No revolution that focuses exclusively on this world will suffice.  Nevertheless, that does not mean that we simply abandon the world and just wait it out until Jesus comes again.  No, we remain committed to preparing this world for the coming of the Kingdom by ordering all things according to His most perfect and peaceful rule, so that when He comes again in glory, all might welcome Him as the goal for our existence and the hope for what we shall be and experience for eternity in our homeland in Heaven.

I was talking with Fr. Daniel last week about concluding my long-running series of articles on the lives of the saints and we agreed on me finishing up this Pentecost, letting him begin writing articles as the Church returns to Ordinary Time. That means I have 2 weeks left! I wanted to do some sort of recap of the many saints that we have gotten to know, covering every century, dozens of countries, every possible state of life and a huge number of circumstances, particular virtues, age-ranges, and interests. How possibly to summarize? 

What about comparing them all to Christ, in particular the characteristics that Christ not only exemplifies perfectly for all of us, but also calls us to? Drum-roll please … Here are only some of the saints we covered (turns out, you cannot fit all 200 or so into two of these articles…), situated within the beatitude they particularly exemplify. You might consider going down the list, simply saying “pray for us”, or “help me to be humble” (or whatever virtue they exemplify), as a prayer to each one.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

• St. Joseph of Arimathea (+1st century, Judea, Roman Empire) – Wealthy man who gave up his own tomb for Jesus, showing spiritual detachment from material possessions
• St. Celestine V (+1296, Fumo, Italy) – Pope who abdicated the papacy, choosing humility over worldly power
• St. Joseph of Leonessa (+1612, Amatrice, Italy) – Capuchin friar who lived in radical poverty while serving the poor
• St. Jean-Baptiste de la Salle (+1719, Rouen, France) – Founded schools for poor children, living simply despite noble birth
• St. John Vianney (+1859, Ars-sur-Formans, France) – Simple parish priest who lived in poverty and humility, becoming the patron of parish priests
• St. Andre Bessette (+1937, Montreal, Canada) – Humble brother known as the “Miracle Man of Montreal”

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted

• St. Columbanus (+615, Bobbio, Italy) – Irish monk who mourned the spiritual state of Europe, finding comfort in missionary work
• St. Lidwina (+1433, Schiedam, Netherlands) – Mystic who offered her sufferings for the conversion of sinners
• St. John of Canty (+1473, Kraków, Poland) – Polish priest who mourned for sinners and found comfort in prayer
• St. Faustina Kowalska (+1938, Kraków, Poland) – Experienced profound spiritual suffering and mourning for sinners, comforted by private revelations of Divine Mercy

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth

• St. Joseph (+1st century, Nazareth, Roman Judea) – Silent, humble foster father of Jesus who accepted God’s will without question
• St. Linus (+76, Rome, Roman Empire) – Second pope who served with quiet humility
• St. Clement of Rome (+99, Rome, Roman Empire) – Third pope known for his gentle pastoral approach
• St. Hilary of Poitiers (+368, Poitiers, France) – Doctor of the Church known for his gentle defense of orthodoxy
• St. Casimir (+1484, Grodno, Grand Duchy of Lithuania) – Polish prince who chose prayer and gentleness over worldly power
• St. Francis Xavier Seelos (+1867, New Orleans, USA) – Gentle Redemptorist priest known for his pastoral care
• St. Padre Pio (+1968, San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy) – Despite his mystical gifts, remained humble and gentle with penitents

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied

• St. Justin Martyr (+165, Rome, Roman Empire) – Philosopher who sought truth and defended Christian doctrine
• St. Jerome (+420, Bethlehem, Palestine) – Sought scriptural truth through biblical scholarship and translation
• St. Anselm (+1109, Canterbury, England) – Sought to understand faith through reason in his theological works
• St. Thomas Becket (+1170, Canterbury, England) – Archbishop who died defending the Church’s rights against royal power
• St. Thomas Aquinas (+1274, Fossanova, Italy) – Pursued truth and righteousness through theological scholarship
• St. Albert the Great (+1280, Cologne, Germany) – Dominican scholar who sought truth in natural philosophy and theology
• St. John Henry Newman (+1890, Birmingham, England) – Sought religious truth throughout his life, converting from Anglicanism to Catholicism

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy

• St. Martin I (+655, Chersonesus, Crimea) – Pope who showed mercy even while being persecuted by the emperor
• St. John of God (+1550, Granada, Spain) – Founded hospitals and showed extraordinary mercy to the sick and poor
• St. Camillus de Lellis (+1614, Rome, Italy) – Cared for plague victims and reformed hospital care
• St. Joseph Cafasso (+1860, Turin, Italy) – Prison chaplain who showed mercy to condemned criminals
• St. Don Bosco (+1888, Turin, Italy) – Showed mercy to street children and juvenile delinquents, introducing them to Jesus and real Christian friendship
• St. Maximilian Kolbe (+1941, Auschwitz, Poland) – Showed ultimate mercy by giving his life for a fellow prisoner in Auschwitz
• St. Alberto Hurtado (+1952, Santiago, Chile) – Chilean Jesuit who devoted his life to helping the poor and homeless

– Fr. Dominic is sad to not even fit all the saints he had researched, and there are thousands more beyond that! My first stop in researching them was always: https://www.catholic.org/saints/sofd.php 

The next figure introduced by Pope Benedict into the conversation on the impact of modern philosophy on Christian faith and hope is Immanuel Kant.  Recall a previous article when I lamented my lack of exposure to modern philosophy in my seminary formation – that regret returns with just the mention of Kant’s name!  Although I was not in the Modern Philosophy class that first year of seminary, some of my classmates were, and I recall how often they spoke about Kant, especially in a way that they found him difficult to understand.  Though glad to not have had the struggle then, it would have been helpful to me now as I read this current paragraph in Spe salvi.

In his presenting Kant’s thought as an important thinker to consider, the Holy Father draws our attention to a concerning trend that Kant was proposing.  Kant suggests that with the rapid development of rational thought and knowledge, there is a gradual transition away from what he calls “ecclesiastical faith” toward a more “pure religious faith.”

The “Kingdom of God” proclaimed by Jesus receives a new definition here and takes on a new mode of presence; a new “imminent expectation”, so to speak, comes into existence: the “Kingdom of God” arrives where “ecclesiastical faith” is vanquished and superseded by “religious faith”, that is to say, by simple rational faith. (Spe salvi, 19)

As I read this, I thought about the modern trend present in our society where people proclaim that they are “spiritual but not religious.”  It appears as though Kant’s contributions to modern thought offer some philosophical roots to this position.  

After doing a little research on some of the basic tenets of Kant’s philosophy, it is evident that he focuses on a sort of personal spirituality rooted in achieving a form of moral perfection that is supported by moral reason and autonomy, developed primarily from within.  Any sense of an external authority (Divine Revelation, Church documents, Church authority) is held in suspicion as dangerous to his views.  Kant does not outright reject the faith or the Scriptures, but he sees them helpful only insofar as they support the overall goal of living a good, reasonable, moral life.

With the “spiritual but not religious” trend we are seeing more of, we likewise have a distrust of religious organizations as imposing limits on our freedom.  There is a desire to live a good and moral life, but that comes not through obedience to fixed creeds and rules, but is open to a variety of experiences that may speak more to one’s personal preferences.  Many in this position will acknowledge the existence of God, and even pursue a meaningful personal relationship with Him, but having that be in the context of institutions and rituals is seen as unnecessary on the universal level, even if some might find it useful in their pursuit of attaining personal fulfillment and personal well-being.

Last week, I quoted a section of the homily our new Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV preached to the College of Cardinals the day after his election.  I think it is worth repeating that quote as it fits well with this current discussion.  

These are contexts where it is not easy to preach the Gospel and bear witness to its truth, where believers are mocked, opposed, despised or at best tolerated and pitied. Yet, precisely for this reason, they are the places where our missionary outreach is desperately needed. A lack of faith is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family and so many other wounds that afflict our society.  (Pope Leo XIV, Holy Mass with the College of Cardinals, 9 May 2025)

Though not mentioned specifically, one of those contexts where we are invited to share the good news of our Catholic faith, and the hope of following Jesus in the context of the Catholic Church, is our family, friends, and colleagues who may identify with this attitude of being “spiritual but not religious.”

May 25^th, 1961. It was the day when President John F. Kennedy addressed a special join session of congress and asked our whole nation for the money and commitment necessary for “achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth. … I believe we should go to the moon.”  They were famous words, now with greater emotional weight than they had when he slowly and solemnly delivered them, stemming both from the success of that risk, and his being assassinated a year and a half later. 

But I would like you to focus on a different event that took place on the same day. Across the Atlantic Ocean, in a town near Paris, an expert in latex molding, Mr. Rampeau brought to market a little rotomolded rubber giraffe painted with brown spots and black eyes and sold it as a teething toy for little babies. It was a hit. 50 million of the hand-crafted squeezable and chewable figures have been sold since, in many years more of the toys are sold than new babies born in France (and its popularity has now spread around the world). It was called Sophie the Giraffe because Mr. Rampeau was a Catholic, and he sold the first one on St. Madeline Sophie Barat’s feast day in that year of 1961.

It had been almost exactly one hundred years before that Madeline had passed away in the generalate of the Society of the Sacred Heart not so far away in the middle of Paris. She knew her popularity and had refused photographs to be taken of her, so we only have pictures from her deathbed and portraits painted after her death. Still, she was a kind and holy woman, and her countenance reflected those qualities. Yet her story is one that stretches beyond a worldly kindness and into the extraordinary charity of a saint. 

She was born on December 12^th, 1779, actually about two months premature because her mother went into labor amidst the chaos of a house fire next door. She was baptized immediately given how small she was, necessitating pressing into service a local woman who just happened to be going to Mass that morning and her 10 year old brother Louis to stand in for her godparents. It was the beginning of a life that would be often marked by God’s grace in the midst of chaos. Her brother, Louis, had returned home from his seminary studies because he was not yet old enough to be ordained a deacon (he was a precocious student), leading to his becoming Madeline’s tutor and giving her an extraordinary education in philosophy, theology, languages, natural science, and rhetoric. When she was only 10 however, he was arrested as a seminarian during the beginnings of the reign of terror. He would eventually swear the required oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, a year later renouncing his oath once the Pope had condemned it (and being imprisoned again, barely escaping the guillotine). 

Those same years were ones in which little Madeline grew up in a home tilted towards Jansenism in its practice of the faith. That heresy is notoriously difficult to pin down (especially given its existence for multiple centuries during this time, and the fact that its adherents ferociously rejected that pejorative title to name their standpoint). In general, it stemmed from an over-emphasis on the absolute holiness of God and a related over-emphasis on human sin, depravity, and unworthiness of grace. It led to a rigid and harsh life of faith and a reading of human weakness as a sign of moral depravity. The Little Flower is perhaps known as the best response that God gave to this perennial temptation, but I would like to propose Madeline as another one. 

As she grew, she found a growing desire to become a Carmelite. Sadly, with religious communities of all sorts abolished in 1790, this dream would never be realized. As often is the case though, it is these setbacks that actually grow our trust and openness to God and such was the case with Sophie. The rigid version of grace and tendency to seek to earn God’s love by hard work (and perhaps the hardest vocation she could think of) melted into a decision to begin a new congregation, the Society of the Sacred Heart, dedicated to the education of girls. They gained followers, and opened more and more schools – always making sure to offer a free education to poor girls alongside of the exceptional education they offered to the better-off young women. Their highest priorities were to love the girls and teach them how to carry love into the rest of their lives. She guided the order for 65 years, passing on Ascension Day in 1865 with more than 3500 members as part of that congregation.

50 million babies have been comforted Sophie the Giraffe. 650 million people were inspired by watching the moon landings. 1 million young people have been directly educated by the Society of the Sacred Heart, but how many more have been impacted by that message of love?

– Fr. Dominic is heading to Washington DC as he writes this for a quick visit to a place I will return this fall to study God’s love, and how human love reflects it. Here’s to continuing the mission!

Before returning to the next paragraph in Pope Benedict’s document on Christian hope, Spe salvi, it is worth taking a moment to acknowledge and celebrate the newest successor of St. Peter, newly elected Pope Leo XIV.  As a sort of humorous aside, since I do not normally write with Roman numerals, I fully expect to make the mistake of transposing the numbers for his name since I have become so accustomed over the years to typing the same letters used for Pope Benedict’s name, though in a different order.  So if I accidentally put XVI instead of XIV, I hope you will be patient with me!

After watching the announcement of the new pope, I found myself reading and listening to people talk about the new Holy Father.  He only spoke briefly when he came out on the loggia to offer his first Urbi et orbi (to the city and to the world) blessing.  I listened to a podcast early the next morning that commented on a variety of things regarding his track record, and what we might expect during his papacy.  But as I said, those were words about him, they were not words from him.  Later that morning, I came across the homily that he preached earlier that day to the College of Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel.  After reading it, I was put at ease, for I had now heard from the pope himself.  I was encouraged at what I read, and there was a section from his homily that really resonated with me.  In speaking about the challenges we face in our present time with preaching the Gospel, he said:

Even today, there are many settings in which the Christian faith is considered absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent. Settings where other securities are preferred, like technology, money, success, power, or pleasure.

These are contexts where it is not easy to preach the Gospel and bear witness to its truth, where believers are mocked, opposed, despised or at best tolerated and pitied. Yet, precisely for this reason, they are the places where our missionary outreach is desperately needed. A lack of faith is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family and so many other wounds that afflict our society.  (Pope Leo XIV, Holy Mass with the College of Cardinals, 9 May 2025)

In many ways, this acknowledgment of the challenges being faced is very much in line with what we have been considering over the past two weeks from Spe salvi.  The relatively modern shift away from faith toward science and reason has made the Good News seem less and less relevant, and even foolish to the world’s “more advanced” understanding and sensibilities.

In the next paragraph for our consideration in Spe salvi, Pope Benedict notes that “two categories become increasingly central to the idea of progress: reason and freedom.” (Spe salvi, 18) But reason and freedom, according to these modern thinkers “were tacitly interpreted as being in conflict with the shackles of faith and of the Church as well as those of the political structures of the period.” (ibid.)

From the first homily of Pope Leo, it is encouraging that he sees clearly what Pope Benedict is emphasizing as to what continues to be a threat to the spread of the Gospel message in our modern times.  And thanks be to God, the Holy Father is not willing to back down from the challenge.  In his homily, he is encouraged the Cardinals to join in this effort to faithfully proclaim the Gospel in the midst of difficult settings.  Of course, this is something to which we are all called.  He said as much in the words he addressed to the world that afternoon of his election:

All of us are in God’s hands. So, let us move forward, without fear, together, hand in hand with God and with one another other! We are followers of Christ. Christ goes before us. The world needs his light. Humanity needs him as the bridge that can lead us to God and his love. Help us, one and all, to build bridges through dialogue and encounter, joining together as one people, always at peace. (Pope Leo XIV, First “Urbi et Orbi” Blessing of the Holy Father, 8 May 2025)

Address by then Bp. Robert Prevost at the Synod on Evangelization in 2012 

BISHOP PREVOST: Western mass media is extraordinarily effective in fostering within the general public enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel — for example, abortion, homosexual lifestyle, euthanasia. Religion is at best tolerated by mass media as tame and quaint when it does not actively oppose positions on ethical issues that the media have embraced as their own. However, when religious voices are raised in opposition to these positions, mass media can target religion, labeling it as ideological and insensitive in regard to the so-called vital needs of people in the contemporary world. 

The sympathy for anti-Christian lifestyle choices that mass media fosters is so brilliantly and artfully ingrained in the viewing public that when people hear the Christian message, it often inevitably seems ideological and emotionally cruel by contrast to the ostensible humaneness of the anti-Christian perspective. Catholic pastors who preach against the legalization of abortion or the redefinition of marriage are portrayed as being ideologically driven, severe, and uncaring — not because of anything they say or do, but because their audiences contrast their message with the sympathetic, caring tones of media-produced images of human beings who, because they are caught in morally complex life situations, opt for choices that are made to appear as healthful and good. 

Note, for example, how alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children are so benignly and sympathetically portrayed in television programs and cinema today. If the new evangelization is going to counter these mass media-produced distortions of religious and ethical reality successfully, pastors, preachers, teachers and catechists are going to have to become far more informed about the context of evangelizing in a world dominated by mass media. 

The church fathers offered a formidable response to those non-Christian and anti-Christian literary and rhetorical forces at work throughout the Roman Empire in shaping the religious and ethical imaginations of the day. The Confessions of St. Augustine, with its central image of the cor inquietam, has shaped the way that Western Christians and non-Christians reimagine the adventure of religious conversion. In his City of God, Augustine used the tale of Alexander the Great’s encounter with a captured pirate to ironize the supposed moral legitimacy of the Roman Empire. 

Church fathers, among them John Chrysostom, Ambrose, Leo the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, were not great rhetoricians insofar as they were great preachers. They were great preachers because they were first great rhetoricians. In other words, their evangelizing was successful in 

great part because they understood the foundations of social communication appropriate to the world in which they lived. Consequently, they understood with enormous precision the techniques through which popular religious and ethical imaginations of their day were manipulated by the centers of secular power in that world. 

Moreover, the Church should resist the temptation to believe that it can compete with modern mass media by turning the sacred liturgy into spectacle. Here again, church fathers such as Tertullian remind us today that visual spectacle is the domain of the saeculum, and that our proper mission is to introduce people to the nature of mystery as an antidote to spectacle. As a consequence, evangelization in the modern world must find the appropriate means for redirecting public attention away from spectacle and into mystery. 

At least in the contemporary western world, if not throughout the entire world, the human imagination concerning both religious faith and ethics is largely shaped by mass media, especially by television and cinema. Western mass media is extraordinarily effective in fostering within the general public enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel. 

However, overt opposition to Christianity by mass media is only part of the problem. The sympathy for anti-Christian lifestyle choices that mass media fosters is so brilliantly and artfully engrained in the viewing public, that when people hear the Christian message it often inevitably seems ideological and emotionally cruel by contrast to the ostensible humaneness of the anti-Christian perspective. 

If the “New Evangelization” is going to counter these mass media-produced distortions of religious and ethical reality successfully, pastors, preachers, teachers and catechists are going to have to become far more informed about the challenge of evangelizing in a world dominated by mass media. 

The Fathers of the Church, including Saint Augustine, can provide eminent guidance for the Church in this aspect of the New Evangelization, precisely because they were masters of the art of rhetoric. Their evangelizing was successful in great part because they understood the foundations of social communication appropriate to the world in which they lived. 

In order to combat successfully the dominance of the mass media over popular religious and moral imaginations, it is not sufficient for the Church to own its own television media or to sponsor religious films. The proper mission of the Church is to introduce people to the nature of mystery as an antidote to spectacle. Religious life also plays an important role in evangelization, pointing others to this mystery, through living faithfully the evangelical counsels 

– Fr. Dominic wanted to give you a taste of our new Holy Father this week.