Courage, Clarity and Charity

By Timothy Cardinal Dolan

April 1, 2014

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York finds the soul, mind and heart of Christ’s Church in the lives of Pope Francis and his predecessors

Now, as Father Raymond said, what I thought I'd do this evening is try to speak for about 25 minutes or so on the last three popes, because I think these giants, John Paul II, Benedict XVI and now our beloved Pope Francis, can teach us a great deal and especially bring home some tried-and-true lessons for our campus life here and the Catholic students that are trying their best to live life as faithful Catholic disciples on campus What can we learn here from John Paul's restoration of the soul? What can we learn here from the courage that John Paul talks about? Our young people, and they're here this evening, do you ever need courage now to lead a faithful Catholic life? I've heard Father Raymond say to you, "On any campus these days, you don't have to be embarrassed about doing debauchery or misbehaving on campus I'm going to propose to you the Blessed, soon-to-be Saint, John Paul II teaches a lot about the soul, Benedict XVI teaches us a lot about the mind, and Pope Francis teaches us a lot about the heart His master of ceremonies came over and said, "Holy Father, perhaps you should tell the crowd to be quiet so you can go on with your sermon," and he smiled and he said, "Are you kidding? This is what I came for, all right?" A million and a half people: "We want God Brothers and sisters in Christ who are here this evening, just to be in your company is a real inspiration — to see people who take your faith seriously, to see people who want to witness and give testimony to that faith in one of the tougher climates that we've got today, namely the campus of the secular university Peter's Square and of which Bernini said, "These are the arms of Holy Mother Church that want to bring all the people closer to Jesus in and through the Church This family, by the way, can be dysfunctional because this Church is always in need of reform, but with Saint Peter and with Saint Francis, while recognizing that the mystical body of Christ has tumours on it, while recognizing that the family of the Church is dysfunctional, this is a Church about which we say what Peter said about Jesus, "Lord, to whom else shall we go? You and you alone have the words of everlasting life This was the pope, as George Will said, "who knew how to pope," because of his strong interior spiritual life, because his soul was aflame with the Holy Spirit As André Frossard said the year after [John Paul II] was elected, when he wrote that masterful biography, "The world is saying we have the pope from Poland Joseph's Seminary in Dunwoodie, New York, the seminary for the Archdiocese in New York, just a couple of months ago, said that John Paul II did for Poland in June of 1979 what Winston Churchill did for England during the Second World War: restored her soul First of all, Patrick is 46, and he says, "I'm the oldest guy in the square," because hundreds of thousands there were young people Placing Jesus Christ at the middle, Jesus Christ in the Scriptures, Jesus Christ in prayer, Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, Jesus Christ in the Sacraments, Jesus Christ in the arms of His mother, Jesus Christ in the poor

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