Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
CARDINAL-DESIGNATE DANIEL DINARDO
Today's announcement by Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI that the Most Reverend Daniel N. DiNardo, Archbishop of Galveston-Houston, and my predecessor as Bishop of Sioux City, is to be elevated to the rank of Cardinal is both exciting and gratifying for us all.
In the short span of ten years Archbishop DiNardo has progressed from the office of parish priest to that of Bishop of Sioux City, Archbishop of Galveston-Houston, and now to the College of Cardinals. As a member of the college, he will serve as one of the Holy Father's principal colleagues and chief advisors. He will also be eligible to serve as an elector of a new pontiff in the next papal conclave.
We here in the Diocese of Sioux City can take justifiable pride in his elevation to this important and sacred office, for it was here that he was ordained a Bishop, and it was here that he honed his skills as pastor, teacher and administrator to such an extent that he was rightly called by the Holy Father to undertake these same roles in a much larger and more diverse Archdiocese. On behalf of all the faithful in the Diocese of Sioux City, I extend to Archbishop DiNardo our warmest congratulations, our continued friendship and support, and our unceasing prayers. May the favor and the confidence placed in him by our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI manifest itself in an even greater commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ and to His Church.
How wonderful it is when someone in our family is recognized and honored for the talents and abilities they have. How exciting for the Diocesan Family of Sioux City to have "one of her own" recognized by our Holy Father to become a Cardinal of the Church. I know all of you join me in giving thanks to God for Cardinal-designate DiNardo. He, as former Bishop of our diocese, demonstrated great talent in shepherding us in his first years of Episcopal ministry. I am blessed to be a successor to such an able bishop. I have known Cardinal-designate DiNardo for many years, since we were students together at the North American College in Rome. He is a good, talented and enthusiastic man of the Church. I know all of you join me in prayerful support and special pride for one so close to all of us in our Diocese. May God bless him abundantly.
WORLD MISSION SUNDAY
Next Sunday, October 21st, will be the 80th annual World Mission Sunday. This day is meant as "the feast of catholicity and universal solidarity" in sharing our faith with our neighbors and with the whole world. It is a special day of prayer and support for the evangelizing mission of the Church. Each year on this day, we are asked to pray and work for the spread of our faith in our own country and in mission lands.
As I reflect on the meaning of this day, I am struck by two things. First, this is the "Year of Saint Paul." Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, is one of the Church's greatest evangelists, and a model for all of us, by his conversion, his zeal and his death. Remember Saint Paul and never be afraid to speak of your faith when the opportunity arises. Learn your faith more deeply, so that you can defend it and explain it to those who don't understand or don't accept it. Be an evangelist: Christ calls you to this in your baptism.
In the same vein, I'm also struck by the relevance of Blessed John XXIII's great social encyclical, Pacem in Terris. "Peace on earth," he wrote 44 years ago, "can never be established, never guaranteed, except by the diligent observance of the divinely established order." The goal of our evangelizing must be to establish that divine order in our hearts, our homes, our Church and our world.
Divine order begins with the Logos, the Word or Mind of God, the second person of the eternal Trinity, "through whom all things were made." Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the son of Mary, is the complete and universal revelation of divine order, the will of God for us. Jesus's miraculous birth, His life and words and deeds recorded for us in the four canonical Gospels, and especially His wonderful Passion, death, and Resurrection, change the ground of every person's relationship with God. Jesus' "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic" Church, which He Himself founded by His own actions, especially at the Last Supper and at Pentecost, is entrusted by Him personally with the mission to "make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." This discipleship of divine life within us frees us from slavery to sin. And since the nature of all sin is idolatry, the worship of self instead of God, freedom from sin really means freedom to love without restraint, just as Jesus loved all of us by His life and death for us.
This is the Good News that makes faith in Christ joyful, not sad or oppressive or dismal. This is the joy to which we invite all people, by how we live in the Church and in the world, by how we speak and the choices we make. Just like Saint Paul, we evangelize because we cannot help but share our joy in Christ with everyone we know.
Of course, we must start interiorly, by submitting our own mind and heart to the order of Jesus Christ. Each of us must fight against the temptation to cover over our infectiously joyous faith with our own worries, weaknesses, and failings. If Christ is not so great a joy for us that we want to give Him away to everyone, then what's wrong in our life? We must constantly examine our own choices and priorities and habits in the light of the joy of true discipleship. We must ask God to give us the courage to change for Him.
As soon as we begin to experience interior conversion, we begin to have the desire for faith on behalf of others as well. We want to share with those we love the joy, peace, and hope that are growing in us. We want to strengthen our faith and its fruits in that sharing. We begin thus to live the mission of Christian discipleship.
CONTINUED EVANGELIZATION This year, as we renew our missionary commitment to our Lord Jesus Christ on World Mission Sunday, I ask for your special prayers for the evangelization of our country and our own corner of Iowa. We are in great need of a "New Evangelization" in our own Diocese. Did you know that almost 40,000 of the 86,000 registered Catholics of our Diocese do not even attend Mass on a given Sunday? Pray that God may rekindle the embers of all our faith!
Moreover, we have a special responsibility as Catholics at this time to uphold the dignity of every human life, and to remind our fellow citizens of the universal civic duty to respect life. Both Saint Paul and Blessed John XXIII understood that peace requires justice; and that justice can only be built on our ability to recognize the face of Christ in the unborn, the ill, the elderly, the immigrant: indeed, in every human face.
Let me stress this again, since this is too important for everyone not to understand. The dignity of each and every human being comes from God in the very act of creating this unique person. It does not come from the person's actions or achievements, or from society's recognition of the person's usefulness or goodness, or from any other source. It comes only from God. It comes before everything else. To recognize and respect this dignity, then, is not an act of faith, but of humanity. Natural justice is meaningless apart from its relationship to this dignity. Civil law has no other purpose than to defend this dignity.
We must all be joyful evangelists. When we evangelize, we seek the "diligent observance of the divinely established order." We place ourselves more firmly under Christ's rule of love, so that others may more clearly see reflections of the Person of Truth, even into the natural and political world. May our Lord Jesus Christ bless all our common efforts for that divine order, especially on this World Mission Sunday. In and through our prayers and our pious works, may He heal us of all sinful thoughts and desires; may He heal all the divisions within His Church; may He heal our homes of every kind of abuse; and may He heal our world of every kind of injustice; "until every enemy shall be placed under His feet, so that He may be all in all."
COLORADO ROCKIES Who are the Denver Broncos? I thank all the loyal Colorado Rockies fans for their support. You know who I will be rooting for in the World Series. My dad was right, about switching sports to support, but I do still have a spot in my heart for the lowly Broncos.
May God give you peace,
Your brother in Christ,
Most Reverend R. Walker Nickless
Bishop of Sioux City