Fr. Franco's Letters

Dear Readers of the Flame,

On July 4th, the United States of America will be 250 years old. That span of time has been characterized by growth: in population, territory, prosperity, power and influence. Set in motion by these words from the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…

Though not perfectly protected and exercised over the last 250 years, these freedoms have paved the way for the blessings we share as American Catholics.

Before the founding of the United States, Catholics were a religious influence in this land. The first Mass in America was on September 8, 1565 in St. Augustine, Florida. Two hundred years later, Charles Carroll, a wealthy Catholic from Maryland, became the only Catholic signer on the Declaration of Independence. His brother, Bishop John Carroll, was the first Catholic bishop in the United States, serving as the Bishop of Baltimore from 1789 to 1815.

Through the ages the Catholic Church quietly but powerfully influenced the growth of our country. We have welcomed immigrants, promoted educational institutions at every level, built and run hospitals, proclaimed the gospel and celebrated the sacraments.

God raised up Catholic saints over these 250 years. For example, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, canonized in 1948, founded schools and hospitals throughout the United States and beyond. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, wife, mother, widow and foundress of the Sisters of Charity, founded the first Catholic schools in the United States. St. John Neumann oversaw the opening of 90 Catholic schools in ten years during his tenure as Bishop of Philadelphia. Much more can be said of the North American Martyrs, St. Katherine Drexel, Bl. Stanley Rother and others. During this 250th year of the United States, we will witness the Beatification of Archbishop Fulton Sheen and the Georgia Martyrs (five Franciscan priests who were martyred in 1597 while proclaiming Christ to native Americans.)

More recently, the United States was the birthplace of what we call the Catholic charismatic renewal. In February of 1967, college students from Duquesne University gathered at the Ark and the Dove retreat house in the north hills of Pittsburgh. They studied Acts 2 and prayed earnestly for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Drawn away from a Saturday evening birthday party, they found themselves in the chapel, praying in tongues and worshipping the Lord. Their experience of baptism in the Holy Spirit spread to other college campuses and eventually throughout the world. This prophetic movement, accompanied by signs, wonders and miracles has done much to answer the prayer of Vatican II: renew your wonders as if by a New Pentecost…

The Catholic religious history of the United States ought to embolden us to live our faith without apology. Some people in the United States want to sideline religion. They attempt to characterize religious people as anti-intellectual and socially backward. They believe that religious thinking and acting gets in the way of their utopian vision of a society that has lost its moral compass.

I recently heard part of an interview with Bishop Andrew Cozzens of Crookston, Wisconsin. He spoke of the Catholic Church as the soul of the United States. His comments reminded me of an early Church writing called Letter to Diognetus, found in the Liturgy of the Hours, Wednesday, Week Six of Easter in the Office of Readings:

To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world. As the visible body contains the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their religious life remains unseen. The body hates the soul and wars against it, not because of any injury the soul has done it, but because of the restriction the soul places on its pleasures. Similarly, the world hates the Christians, not because they have done it any wrong, but because they are opposed to its enjoyments.
Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members despite the body’s hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world is held together. The soul, though immortal, has a mortal dwelling place; and Christians also live for a time amidst perishable things, while awaiting the freedom from change and decay that will be theirs in heaven. As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution. Such is the Christian’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself.

No one chooses when to be born. However, we all choose how we are to live during our earthly journey. As Catholic Christians in the United States during these prosperous but spiritually perilous times, let us choose to live for Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. We will draw others out of indifference and bondage and into Christ. This is what you and I are called to be:

“a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises” of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:9)

See you at the conference on July 25 at St. Albert the Great in North Royalton!