Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa.
Dear Mr. Candidate,
Because we continue to note reports that you converted to Roman Catholicism – after, apparently being reared as an “evangelical” and spending time as an “atheist” (The Sisters in school always taught us “Cattle are ‘raised,’ children are ‘reared.’”), we thought we would take time to offer some insights.
Our shared traditions – we are both Catholics – began two thousand years ago with men and women who willingly accepted death rather than profess a lie. We honor Stephen the proto-martyr and Paul, who held the cloaks of those who stoned Stephen and, after Christ revealed himself to him, became the “Apostle to the Gentiles” – dying as a martyr in Rome. We honor Peter, apostle and martyr.
In the rituals of our Churches we honor Agatha of Sicily (c. 231 – c. 251), who was tortured and put to death during the Decian persecution (250-253) because she refused the overtures of the Roman prefect Quintianus, who thought he could force her to turn away from her vows of virginity and her religion.
In our Churches, we remember Cecilia, the daughter of an extremely wealthy Roman family, who, on her wedding night, announced to her husband, Valerian, that she had taken a vow of virginity; when an angel appeared to Valerian, he and his brother Tibertius converted to Christianity and dedicated themselves to burying the Christians who were murdered each day by the prefect of the city, Turcius Almachius. Valerian and Tibertius both died as martyrs. When efforts to kill Cecilia by suffocation in the Roman baths failed, the prefect sent an executioner; despite three strikes of an axe, the executioner failed and Cecilia ultimately bled to death over the course of three days.
Both our churches - Anglican/Episcopalian and Roman Catholic - honor these early martyrs.
Mr. Candidate, the Church you’ve chosen to join also honors a number of other men and women.
We celebrate the fact that the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol Building includes a bronze statue of the Father Damien de Veuster (1840-18889), who, while studying for the priesthood with the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, prayed daily before and image of St. Francis Xavier, patron of missioners. When his brother, already ordained, became ill and was unable to travel to Hawaii on mission, Damien volunteered to take his place in 1864. In 1873, Damien began a new ministry – serving people with Hansen’s disease (leprosy), who lived in government-mandated medical quarantine on the Kalaupapa Peninsula of Moloka’I island in the Kingdom of Hawaii. His was to be a brief – three months each year – mission, but he volunteered to remain permanently, caring for the people’s medical, physical and spiritual needs. He also succeeded in getting Mother Marianne Cope and the Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse to join the mission. He was diagnosed with leprosy in 1885 and died on Molokai on April 15, 1889. Because of the “heroics of his virtues,” he was declared a saint by Pope Benedict XVI on October 11, 2009. Saint Damien was an immigrant from Belgium.
Saint Marianne Cope (1838-1918) joined the Sisters of St. Francis of Syracuse, New York and helped found the St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse. In 1883, after more than 50 religious congregations refused his requests, Marianne Cope answered a plea from King Kalkaua of Hawaii to care for islanders with Hansen’s disease (leprosy). One of ten children of Peter and Barbara Koob, her family immigrated to the United States from SE Hessen, West Germany.
Father Damien shortly before his death
Mr. Candidate, perhaps in your two years in the United States Senate, as you’ve walked through Statuary Hall, you paused before the tribute Ester Pariseau (1823 – 1902), known to the peoples of British Columbia and the American Washington Territory as Mother Joseph of the Sacred Heart. In 1856, Mother Joseph and four companions arrived in Washington Territory to begin caring for orphans and the elderly, educating young people, and visiting and tending to the sick. Over the course of 46 years, Mother Joseph established, designed, and built institutions of education, health care and social services. In addition to her fundraising – she founded and developed Providence Health System in Alaska, Western Washington, Oregon and California, and Providence Services in Eastern Washington, Idaho and Montana - and other activities, Mother Joseph found time to shower attention on the orphans at Providence Academy.
Mother Joseph was responsible for the completion of eleven hospitals, seven academies, five schools for Native American children, and two orphanages throughout the territory that now encompasses Washington, northern Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.
Mother Joseph died on January 19, 1902. The chronicles of the Sisters of Providence record her last words:
“My dear sisters, allow me to recommend to you the care of the poor in our houses, as well as those without. Take good care of them; have no fear of them; assist them and receive them. Then, you will have no regrets. Do not say: Ah! this does not concern me, let others see to them. My sisters, whatever concerns the poor is always our affair.”
Senator, Mother Joseph of the Sacred Heart, whose statue you pass in Statuary Hall, was an immigrant, born in Saint-Elzéar, three miles from Saint-Martin, Laval, Quebec, Canada.
Mother Joseph
St. Rose Philippine Duchesne (1769 – 1852) settled in what was then the Missouri Territory and ministered to Native Americans who had been displaced from their ancestral homelands by government “renewal” programs. In Kansas, she opened the first free school for girls west of the Mississippi river, and the first Catholic school for Native Americans. Among members of the Pottawatomie tribe, she was known as Quahkahkanumad – the “woman who prays always.” The French nun, who was declared a saint by Pope John Paul II in 1988, immigrated to the United States in 1818.
Rose Philippines Duchesne
Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini (1850-1917) and seven other women who had taken religious vows with her founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus with the hope of working in China. Instead, at the urging of the pope, they began working in New York in 1889, organizing catechism and education classes for Italian immigrants and caring for orphans. She founded New York’s Columbus Hospital and hospitals in Chicago serving immigrants. Cabrini died in Chicago in 1917, while preparing Christmas candy for children there. The first citizen of the United States to be declared saint, she was an immigrant from Italy.
Saint Francis Xavier Cabrini
Saint Mother Theodore Guerin (1798-1856) founded the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods in Indiana and was responsible for establishing new schools in Illinois and throughout Indiana. She founded today’s Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College, the oldest Catholic college in Indiana. Canonized a saint by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006, she was an immigrant from France.
Saint Mother Theodore Guerin
Saint John Neumann (1811-1860) was named Bishop of Philadelphia and founded the first Catholic school system in the U.S. Generous to a fault, as a bishop he gave away any new vestments he received to newly ordained priests and over two decades he owned and wore only one pair of boots. Declared a saint by Pope Paul VI in 1977, he was born in Bohemia and immigrated to the United States in 1836.
St. John Neuman
Mr. Candidate, you may not be familiar with Pierre Toussaint, declared “Venerable” – that’s Catholic-speak for “on the road to sainthood” – by Pope John Paul II in 1997. He’s referred to as the founder of Catholic Charities in New York, raised funds for the first Catholic orphanage and began the city’s first school for Black Children. He helped establish the Oblate Sisters of Providence, a religious community of Black nuns founded in Baltimore, and was vital to the fundraising for Old Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Lower Manhattan. When the mucky-mucks of NYC – political and/or wealth - fled the city during a Yellow Fever epidemic, he stayed to care for the sick and dying. And he was born a slave and immigrated from Haiti.
Venerable Pierre Toussaint
Mr. Candidate, it is reported that you chose to join the Roman Catholic Church because it is “old.”
Mr. Candidate, we, too, are old. We are so old that we remember lying and calumny are sins. In fact, The Catechism of the Catholic Church under the section “Life in Christ” and the subsection on the Eighth Commandment tells us:
“False witness... When it is made publicly, a statement contrary to the truth takes on a particular gravity… Acts such as these contribute to condemnation of the innocent… They gravely compromise the exercise of justice and fairness…
Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them injury. He becomes guilty:
Of calumny who, by remarks contrary to the truth, harms the reputation of others and gives occasion for false judgments concerning them…
Detraction and calumny destroy the reputation and honor of one’s neighbor. Honor is the social witness given to human dignity, and everyone enjoys a natural right to the honor of his name and reputation. Thus, detraction and calumny offend against the virtues of justice and charity.
Senator, you know – you knew – the allegations you made and repeated over and over again against Haitian immigrants and killing and eating folks’ pets was a lie. You’ve used that lie to “otherize” them and deprive them of the honor of their names and reputation. All in order to nurture hate and gain votes.
Senator, we are significantly older than you; our combined years as priests is more than twice the number of your years of life. We are old enough to remember “The Confiteor”:
Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, beatae Mariae semper Virgini, beato Michaeli Archangelo, beato Joanni Baptistae, sanctis Apostolis Petro et Paulo, omnibus Sanctis, et vobis, fratres, quia peccavi nimis cogitatione, verbo et opere: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
I confess to almighty God, to blessed Mary ever Virgin, blessed Michael the Archangel, blessed John the Baptist, the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, all the Saints, and you my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do;
through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.
We also remember the Act of Contrition:
O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of Heaven and the pains of Hell, but mostly because I have offended you, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve with the help of Thy grace to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen.
Yes, Senator, we’re so old that we remember that the Catechism defines Calumny as “A false statement which harms the reputation of others and gives occasion for false judgments concerning them.”
And we remember the Seven Deadly Sins – the seven behaviors or feelings that inspire further sin: Pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth.
Any harm that comes to the Haitian immigrants because of the lie that they are stealing, killing and eating families’ pets in Springfield, Ohio is, in part, through your fault, through your fault, through your most grievous fault. The governor of the state you represent, the local mayor and sheriff have all repeatedly assured you this was not happening and never happened. Your repetition of this lie is calumny and “gravely compromises the exercise of justice.” It offends “against the virtues of justice and charity.”
Senator, you’re new to our Churches. Our ancient martyrs and our immigrant American Beloveds of God, Venerables and Saints have much to teach you and are there to guide you in these last days before the American people vote for their next president and vice-president.
We pray you will seek the guidance of our immigrant saints and men and women of “heroic virtues.” We pray you will find a way to “make amends” to the Haitian people against whom you have committed calumny.