2024-6-14-eEdition

PAGE 4 THE CATHOLIC WEEK JUNE 14, 2024 la mayoría de las personas que conozco les gusta viajar. Ir a nuevos lugares no sólo amplía nuestros horizontes, sino que también nos expone a otras formas de vida, perspectivas, culturas y belleza natural.Viajar con los ojos abiertos a nuestro entorno también echa abajo algunas de nuestras nociones preconcebidas sobre cosas o personas que viven en lugares desconocidos para nosotros. A veces asumimos que para realmente conocer diferentes culturas es necesario viajar físi- camente a lugares foráneos. Y si bien esto es parcialmente cierto, Estados Unidos es un país muy diverso con enclaves poblaciona- les que representan a casi todas las nacionalidades del mundo. La Arquidiócesis de Mobile ha sido bendecida con personas de muchas partes del mundo, es- pecialmente de América Latina y el Caribe. Podemos conocer otros países, sus culturas y tradiciones pasando tiempo con algunos de nuestros vecinos Hispanos. De hecho,muchos de nosotros nos enamoramos de la cocina mexicana no enMéxico, sino en la taquería local.Muchos de nosotros nos enamoramos de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe no visitando la Basílica o participando en las procesiones en la Ciudad de México, sino a través de nuestros hermanos en la iglesia.Muchos de nosotros nos enamoramos de la gente de otros países y culturas al conocerlos a nivel personal, al escuchar sus historias, al partir el pan juntos y al adorar a Dios bajo el mismo techo. Asimismo, muchos de nosotros que venimos de otros lugares nos enamoramos de Estados Unidos, su cultura y su gente a través del compartir y forjar lazos de amistad. Dentro de unas semanas tendrá lugar en Indianápolis el Congreso Eucarístico Nacional. Muchos Católicos de todo el país se reunirán para, como afirman los organizadores del congreso, “cumplir, en un momento, la visión del Avivamiento Eucarísti- co…encontrar a Jesucristo vivo, experimentar la renovación y ser enviados 'para la vida del mundo'. A lo largo de estos cinco días, nuestra Iglesia vivirá un nuevo Pentecostés y será ungida para el Año de la Misión que viene”. Todos estamos llamados a ser parte de un avivamiento Eucarístico donde nos encon- tramos. Estamos llamados a salir a nuestro “mundo”, a nuestros barrios y parroquias.Todos es- tamos llamados a vivir un nuevo Pentecostés, una nueva forma de entender a los demás pueblos, culturas y tradiciones. Estamos llamados a hablar el lenguaje de Dios: el amor. Después de todo, todos somos miembros de un solo cuerpo: el cuerpo de Cristo.  Most people I know enjoy traveling. Going places not only broadens our horizons, but it also exposes us to other ways of life, perspectives, cultures and nature.Traveling with eyes wide open also shatters some of our preconceived notions about things or people who live in places unknown to us. We sometimes assume that in order to truly get acquainted with different cultures, it is necessary to physically travel to foreign places.While this is partially true, the United States is a very diverse country with population enclaves representing almost every nation- ality in the world. The Archdiocese of Mobile has been blessed with people from many parts of the world, especially from Latin America and the Caribbean.We can get to know about other countries, their cultures and traditions by spending time with some of our neighbors from abroad. Many of us fell in love with Mexican cuisine not in Mexico, but in the local taco joint.Many of us fell in love with Our Lady of Guadalupe not by visiting the Basilica in Mexico, but by getting to know our fellow parishioners better.Many of us fell in love with people from other countries and cultures by getting to know them at a personal level, listening to their stories, breaking bread to- gether and by worshipping under the same roof. Likewise, many of us coming from other places fell in love with America—its culture and its people—through fellowship, getting to know them personally and true friendship. In a few weeks, the Na- tional Eucharistic Congress will take place in Indianapolis. Many Catholics from around the country will gather to (as the organizers of the congress affirm) “fulfill, in a moment, the vision of the Eucharistic Revival …encounter the living Jesus Christ, experience renewal, and be sent out ‘for the life of the world.’Throughout these five days, our Church will experience a new Pentecost and be anointed for the Year of Mission to come.” We are all called to be part of a Eucharistic revival right where we are.We are called to go out to our “world,” to our neighborhoods and parishes.We are all called to experience a new Pentecost, a new way of under- standing other people, cultures and traditions.We are called to speak God’s language: love. Af- ter all, we are all members of one Body—the Body of Christ. —Deacon Hector J. Donastorg, is the Director of Hispanic Min- istry for the Archdiocese of Mobile. He may be emailed at hdonastorg@ mobarch.org orty-five years ago, the New York Times cast its gimlet eye over the first three days of Pope John Paul II’s return to his Polish homeland. Reading the signs of those times through the conventional wisdom of the day, the Grey Lady then offered a typically ex cathedra judgment, in a June 5, 1979, editorial: As much as the visit of Pope John Paul II must reinvigorate and reinspire the Roman Catho- lic Church in Poland, it does not threaten the political order of the nation or of Eastern Europe. Oops. To begin with, the Polish Church did not need rein- vigorating or reinspiring in June 1979—it was the strongest local Church behind the Iron Cur- tain, the repository of Poland’s authentic national identity, and a constant thorn in the side of the communist authorities. (Stalin had famously said that trying to make Poland communist was like fitting a saddle on a cow. Little did he know.) As for the “political order of the nation,”well, Polish Com- munist party boss Edward Gierek surreptitiously watched John Paul’s homecoming Mass on June 2 from a hotel room high above what was thenWar- saw’s “Victory Square.”When he heard the pope call on the Holy Spirit to “renew the face of the Earth—of this land!”, as hundreds of thousands of Poles chanted “We want God! We want God!”, he surely felt the winds of change blowing, even if the anemometers in New York failed to register what amounted to a Force 10 storm on the Beau- fort Scale. And as to the “political order …of Eastern Europe,”America’s premier historian of the Cold War, Yale’s John Lewis Gaddis, would write in 2005 that “when John Paul II kissed the ground at the Warsaw Airport on June 2, 1979, he began the process by which communism in Poland— and ultimately everywhere else in Europe—would come to an end.” I had made precisely that argument thirteen years before in my bookThe Final Revolution. There, I suggested that, while many causal factors shaped what we know as the Revolution of 1989, the indispensable factor determining when the revolution happened, and how it happened, was John Paul II. What did he do, and how did he do it? What he did was ignite a revolution of conscience, which preceded and made possible the nonviolent political revolution that brought down the Berlin Wall, emancipated the coun- tries of east central Europe, and, through the auto-liberation of the Baltic States and Ukraine, imploded the Soviet Union.The tinder for such a revolution of conscience—the decisions of men and women determined to “live in the truth,” as Václav Havel put it —had been in place for some years in east central Europe. Activists encouraged by the 1975 Helsinki Final Act and its “BasketThree”human rights provisions built organizations like Czechoslovakia’s Charter 77, Lithuania’s Committee for the Defense of Believers’Rights, and Poland’s KOR (Work- ers’Defense Committee) that were linked to “Helsinki Watch Groups” in North America and western Europe. John Paul supplied the flame that lit that tinder and helped keep the fire burning by his vocal support for those who were taking “the risk of freedom” (as he would describe it at the United Nations in 1995). And how did that happen? John Paul’s revolution of con- science began when he restored to the Polish people the truth about their history and culture, which Poland’s communist regime had both distorted and suppressed since 1945. Live in that truth, the Pope suggested from June 2 through June 10, 1979, and you will find tools of resistance that communism’s brute force cannot match. John Paul didn’t design those tools; the Polish people did that when, fourteen months later, they formed the Solidarity trade union, which later evolved into a vast social movement. But the movement’s heart and soul – like its name—was shaped by the thought and witness of John Paul II. The Pope’s friend, philos- opher-priest Joseph Tischner, once described Solidarity-the- movement as a great forest planted by aroused consciences. Fr.Tischner’s brilliant image is one that bears reflection today. For the West needs “reforesta- tion:” a planting of new seeds of conscience, reflecting the built-in truths about human dignity to which John Paul II appealed during those nine days of June 1979. Those were days on which modern history pivoted—for once, in a more humane and noble direction. In Professor Gaddis’s words, John Paul II was one of those “visionaries”who, as “saboteurs of the status quo,”were able to “widen the range of historical possibility.” Are there such visionaries among us today? —George Weigel’s column "The Catholic Difference" is syndicated by the Denver Catholic, the official publication of the Archdiocese of Denver. F George Weigel A THE CATHOLIC DIFFERENCE Aroused consciences changing history Deacon Hector Donastorg HISPANIC MINISTRY Somos el Cuerpo de Cristo –We are the Body of Christ