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Lawmakers, lawyers gather to celebrate annual Red Mass
By Joyce Coronel, The Catholic Sun
February 7, 2008
Hundreds of lawmakers, judges and attorneys from throughout the diocese gathered at St. Mary’s Basilica Jan. 23 to celebrate the annual Red Mass sponsored by the St. Thomas More Society.
Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, the principal celebrant, and Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver, the guest homilist, both wearing red vestments in honor of the Holy Spirit, drew a large crowd to the basilica in downtown Phoenix.
The Red Mass marks the opening of Arizona’s legislative session and is a chance for the Valley’s legal professionals to gather and pray for wisdom and understanding in the coming year.
The Mass, which included some hymns as well as a reading in Spanish, featured distinguished members of the legal community including the Honorable Maurice Portley of the Arizona Court of Appeals, who delivered the first reading, and the Honorable Maria Verdin, of the Maricopa County Superior Court, who delivered the second.
Archbishop Chaput’s homily dealt with a topic at the forefront of many legal minds: the coming election and how it relates to Catholics. He pointed out that the word “Catholic” was not invented by individuals, but rather inherited from the Gospel and the experience of the Church down through the centuries.
“We can’t truthfully claim to be Catholic and then act like we’re not,” he said. “If we say we’re Catholic, we need to show that by our love for the Church and our fidelity to what she teaches and believes.”
He also warned against the notion that the Church is a political organism, stating that “the more closely she identifies herself with any single party, the fewer people she can effectively reach.” Archbishop Chaput said that while the Catholic faith is never primarily about politics, Catholic social action — including political action — is a natural byproduct of the Church’s moral message.
“We can’t call ourselves Catholic and then simply stand by while the immigrants get mistreated, or the poor get robbed or unborn children get killed,” he said.
He had a message for those concerned about some of the more thorny political issues and how Catholics ought to respond.
Well-formed conscience
While acknowledging that each individual must follow his or her conscience, he emphasized that a healthy, properly formed conscience is the voice of God’s truth — which should make people uncomfortable, given that none of us is yet a saint. The crowd responded with scattered laughter.
“If our conscience has a habit of telling us what we want to hear on difficult issues, then it’s probably badly formed,” the archbishop continued. “If we find ourselves disagreeing as Catholics with the Catholic teaching of our Church on a serious matter, it’s probably not the Church that’s wrong. The problem is more likely with us.”
The archbishop offered some advice regarding how to make good political choices in the face of myriad, complex issues. “The first principle of Christian social thought is: ‘Don’t deliberately kill the innocent and don’t collude in allowing somebody else to do it.’”
But it was the nuanced way in which he probed the possibility of whether a Catholic in good conscience could support a pro-choice candidate that stood out among his many points raised.
“My personal answer is, I can’t and I won’t,” he said, but then explained, “I do know some serious Catholics — decent people whom I admire — who will. I think their reasoning is mistaken, but at the very least, they do sincerely struggle with the abortion issue, and it causes them real pain.”
The archbishop said that Catholics can support pro-choice candidates if they support them despite — not because of — their pro-choice views, but that they would need a proportionate reason to justify their support.
Such a proportionate reason, he added, would be “the kind of reason we will be able to explain, with a clean heart, to the victims of abortion when we meet them face to face in the next life — which we most certainly will. If we’re confident that these victims will accept our motives as something more than an alibi, then we can proceed.”
Authentically Catholic
Archbishop Chaput called on members of the legal profession to live lives of Christian service to the poor and afflicted, including the unborn child, but also the immigrant, homeless and elderly.
“The more authentically Catholic we are in our lives, our choices, our actions and our convictions, the more truly we will contribute to the moral and political life of our nation,” he said.
The Honorable Michael D. Ryan, justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, administered the renewal of the attorneys’ oath of admission to the Bar. Following the Mass, he remarked that the event “just rejuvenated everyone and their role in the legal system. It furthers the principles and the models set by St. Thomas More, who was also a lawyer.”
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