Appearing alongside the Catholic Archbishop of New York, an elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints this week highlighted instances of cooperation between the LDS church and the Catholic Church in the United States.
Elder Quentin Cook, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Mormon religion, appeared alongside Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York at the inaugural Notre Dame Religious Liberty Summit.
In a presentation at the summit, Cook highlighted over 200 projects that the LDS church has collaborated on with Catholic Relief Services since 1985, along with over 40 projects with Caritas, 99 projects with Catholic Charities, and nearly 300 projects with Catholic Community Services.
Notably, in 2016, the LDS church gave $1.25 million in aid to Catholic refugee relief efforts. In 2021, the LDS church made a $5 million donation split among nine agencies, one of which was the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, also for refugee resettlement efforts.
Cardinal Dolan said the LDS and the Catholic Church have become “allies in so many sacred causes,” such as humanitarian aid projects and the cause of religious liberty.
“When you talk about the essential, essential beliefs, you’re talking about we’re children of the one true God who has made us in his image and likeness, who loves us passionately, who wants us to love him back, and to love one another as brothers and sisters,” Cardinal Dolan said.
“That’s doctrine. That’s God’s revelation. And if we can’t get along, it’s downright sinful and scandalous right? Don’t you think?”
Cardinal Dolan has appeared with Cook before. In 2019, Dolan gave the keynote address to a crowd of 3,000 at Utah Valley University UCCU Center in Orem, Utah.
“We come together as neighbors, we come together as a family, we come together as friends,” Cardinal Dolan said. “See, that gives a counterexample to those who would love to caricature us as these bigoted, hateful, violent people. And we can’t allow that to happen.”
The cardinal added that religious freedom “is important for all of culture and all of society, not just for people of faith.”
The cardinal had previously worked with Mormon leaders on matters of religious freedom, faith, marriage and humanitarian efforts, including a 2017 interreligious meeting in New York City with Mormon and Jewish leaders.
The Mormon Church, a nontrinitarian religion, was founded in the 19th century in New York.
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CNA Staff, Mar 19, 2021 / 02:01 pm (CNA).- Catholics in the US are showing more awareness of the problems of Christian persecution worldwide, the pastoral charity Aid to the Church in Need has said.
At the end of the Mass of consecration on Nov. 1, 2023, María Ruiz Rodríguez shows the ring symbolizing her membership in the Ordo Virginum. That’s the only outward sign of her consecration. / Credit: Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem
Jerusalem, Nov 12, 2023 / 07:00 am (CNA).
On the 25th day of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, the Church in Jerusalem welcomed a new consecrated member into its fold. María Ruiz Rodríguez made her consecration in the Ordo Virginum on Nov. 1, permanently rooting herself in the local ecclesiastical community.
“A thought crossed my mind, a temptation: ‘What purpose does this step serve in the midst of current events? Doesn’t the Church have more urgent matters to attend to than to stop and celebrate the consecration of a humble woman like me?’” Ruiz shared with CNA a few days later. But she said she was immediately aware of something else.
“I told myself: I cannot delay this commitment… In fact, uniting my life with the Church in a time of suffering is even more meaningful,” she said.
Ruiz, now 42, is originally from Spain and arrived in Jerusalem in 2018 for a period of discernment. At that time, she was a member of the “Monastic Family of Bethlehem, the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and St. Bruno,” an institute of consecrated life established in France in 1950.
It was Ruiz’s first time in the Holy Land, even though the desire to visit the sacred places in the Holy Land had long been a dream in her heart.
“For two years, I set aside my savings to make a pilgrimage in 2000, the year of the Great Jubilee. However, in that very year, I entered the convent, so I gave up. I felt that Jesus was saying to me: ‘I am your Holy Land.’ In a way, I had already arrived in Jerusalem,” Ruiz said.
It was in the Holy Land that Ruiz first came into contact with some consecrated women of the Ordo Virginum.
“I was looking for my place and I felt called,” she said.
The Ordo Virginum, Ruiz continued, “is the oldest form of consecration in the Church”. Abandoned over the centuries in favor of the religious life, it was rediscovered with the Second Vatican Council as a form of life that, “in a radically transformed historical context” possesses “a surprising force of attraction” and is “capable of responding not only to the desires of many women to dedicate themselves totally to the Lord and to their neighbors, but also to the concurrent rediscovery by the particular Church of its own identity in communion with the one Body of Christ” (cf. Instruction “Ecclesiae Sponsae Imago” on the “Ordo Virginum”).
Consecrated women in the Ordo Virginum choose to live a life of virginity “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” in a lay form of life. They do not wear religious habits, do not live in communities, have no common statutes or rules, or even superiors. Instead, they maintain a personal reference to the local bishop — in this case, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa — who acts as guarantor of their journey of discernment and presides over their consecration.
The sole commitment these consecrated women make is the “resolution of chastity,” which they express during the Rite of Consecration. The only symbol they wear is a ring, emphasizing the spousal character of this vocation, which reflects the mystery of the Church as “Bride of Christ.” Engraved in Ruiz’s ring is an inscription in Hebrew meaning “O my life,” referring to Christ, and the date of her consecration.
Women who consecrate themselves in the Ordo Virginum support themselves through their jobs. Ruiz is an iconographer and has been working for the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem for about four years. She was drawn into a project aimed at renewing liturgical books — the Missal and the Evangeliary — with her artwork.
“I first approached iconographic art when I was a nun. It was first of all a spiritual journey, a path of prayer. More than an artistic expression, an icon is a profession of faith. Before beginning the work, I invoke the Holy Spirit and ask for forgiveness for my own sins and for those who will venerate these images. I was interested in this dimension of relationship,” Ruiz shared. She spent a year researching the style and colors.
“The patriarch asked me to create something that would speak to local Christians, who are Latin by tradition but Eastern by culture. A style that was uniquely mine yet rich in the entire iconographic tradition of the Church of Jerusalem. The art of Armenian manuscripts certainly had a significant influence on me.”
The patriarch takes a personal interest in overseeing Ruiz’s work. “We read the Gospel together and choose which scenes to represent, taking into account the particularity of each evangelist. He particularly enjoys highlighting passages that are less frequently represented in the artistic tradition. This is a project close to his heart,” she told CNA.
Currently, Ruíz is in the process of creating images for the Gospels of Matthew and Mark.
“The process is very laborious and involves multiple stages for each page: the pencil lettering, the crafting of the icons, then the ink lettering and finally the gilding.” The plan is for a volume of about 200 pages with 250 images.
“Making this work in Jerusalem has a special value: I can visit the places where that Gospel was lived” but also “immerse myself in Jewish culture,” she said. “This has opened my eyes to the richness that Judaism brings to Christianity. There is a perfect continuity and at the same time an unprecedented newness in the person of Christ.”
Ruiz learned the local languages — Arabic and Hebrew. The Mass of her consecration brought together within one place all the diverse “souls” of the Jerusalem Church: priests, friars, religious, and laity, Arab Christians and Hebrew-speaking Christians, each hearing the word of God in their own language. There were migrants, foreigners, Jews, and Christians of various denominations.
“I believe my being a foreigner is a blessing for this Church,” Ruiz said. “Why were there such different people in the church that day? Because I am neither Arab nor Jewish, and this allows me to bring both of these peoples into my heart together. In the praise of God we were one people, transcending the divisions that usually separate us. The Church in Jerusalem also needs this, to remember its universal vocation.”
With her consecration, Ruiz embarks on her new journey as a “living stone” of the Jerusalem Church: “I am certain that I am finally in the right place. It is not an act of heroism. I am simply where God wants me to be.”
Washington D.C., Jul 31, 2019 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- When ten candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination debated July 31, they fielded questions for nearly three hours on a range of issues, from immigration to healthcare reform, slavery reparati… […]
1 Comment
I believe it’s accurate to say that the Church does not recognize Mormons as Christian as their baptism is not considered valid. But that does not mean that God does not love them nor that we aren’t obliged to love them as children of God.
I believe it’s accurate to say that the Church does not recognize Mormons as Christian as their baptism is not considered valid. But that does not mean that God does not love them nor that we aren’t obliged to love them as children of God.