Rome, Italy, Mar 16, 2017 / 02:50 am (CNA/EWTN News).- This week Cardinal George Pell sat down with some 20 students from Harvard visiting Rome, with the goal of challenging them to both set firm ideals and to work hard to achieve them – something the Church can help with by providing a basic framework for moral leadership.
In a March 14 interview with CNA ahead of his speech, Cardinal Pell said the main point he would make to the students is “that they need a cause. They need a set of principles that they accept and follow and that they will be prepared to make sacrifices for.”
He stressed the importance of conveying the message that as future leaders “they need to be courageous and they need to be persevering. And if they can be strategists, take a long-term view, so much the better.”
Cardinal Pell, prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, spoke just before giving his speech on Principled Leadership to a group of 20 people who are among Harvard University’s graduating class of 2017 and who traveled to Rome for a four-day “Harvard Vatican Leadership Summit.”
A student-led initiative, the event was held at the Pontifical Lateran University and hosted students from various backgrounds at Harvard, including the business, law, divinity, medical, and dental schools.
In addition to Cardinal Pell, other key figures participants have met with during the summit include Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin; Vatican Secretary for Relations with the States, Archbishop Paul Gallagher; Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Integral Human Development; and Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi, prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education.
In his comments to CNA, Cardinal Pell outlined the key principles that ought to guide business and economic decisions, saying that no matter what, “you must be aware of the common good.”
“Think of the whole of society, not just the shareholders, not just the workers in the small group,” he said. “Have some real understanding of what justice is. Have a special sensitivity for those who are less fortunate, those who are poor.”
One of the most important things to have a constant awareness of is our responsibility toward future generations, he said, cautioning that one modern danger is that “people know more and more about less and less.”
An advantage of the Catholic Church in this regard, he said, is that it can help provide “a general scheme” into which specific principles, causes, and points of view can fit.
However, he stressed that despite the Church’s role in providing this scheme for various fields, particularly economics and business, it is above all a religious institution, and as such doesn’t embrace any one system in particular.
Reflecting on criticisms Pope Francis has at times voiced in reference to the current global market system, the cardinal stressed that the Pope “is a religious leader, he is not an economist.”
The Church, he said, “does not espouse socialism, much less communism or Nazism or the free market. It announces general principles and says this fits or that doesn’t fit.”
“We should listen very seriously to everything the Pope says on economics,” he said, but emphasized that as Christians, we listen to him because “he is the successor of Peter, he teaches us things religious.”
In this sense the Pope is applying Gospel standards to the economic situation, Cardinal Pell said, adding that if he himself were to speak out on the topic, people wouldn’t necessarily need to take notes on the economic aspect, “but if I preach the Gospel, I hope people listen.”
Since not all of the students participating in the summit are Catholic, the cardinal voiced his hope that they would walk away with at least a better idea of the Church’s social doctrine.
He brought a compendium of the social doctrine of the Church for each of the participants, because it is “a coherent exposition on many, many important topics,” including “right and wrong, natural law, subsidiarity, the common good and different types of justice.”
The Catholic Church is “one of the few organizations that has an over-arching system of thought to make people think,” he said, explaining that “it is logical and coherent, it’s an impressive piece of work.”
Cardinal Pell praised the idea of summit as unique, and “exactly what a Catholic university needs to be doing.”
“I think the Christian perspective brings flourishing, brings life, makes good societies, brings happiness, development,” he said. So to have a group of students from a university such as Harvard is “a wonderful thing. I think it’ll be good for them and it’ll be good for us.”
Okendo Lewis, a student at the John F. Kennedy School of Government who spent part of his childhood in Milan, was the one who initially thought of the summit and made it happen with the help of Mary Ann Glendon, who was a US Ambassador to the Holy See during the George W. Bush administration and who now teaches at Harvard Law School.
In comments to CNA, Lewis said part of why he wanted to offer students a Vatican perspective on leadership is because “there seems to be a crisis in leadership” throughout the world, “and Pope Francis very much speaks to many who are trying to figure out how to lead in these difficult times.”
“I definitely wanted this next generation of leaders, whether they’re in business or in medicine or in law, to learn from the wisdom of the Pope, but also the city and the Church, which has had two thousand years of experience,” he said.
Lewis said he initially had doubts about whether or not people would come, since it was already late when they started to advertise the trip. However, they received over 180 applications, and had to narrow it down to 20 spots.
“I think that speaks to the power of the Catholic Church and the interest there is in Pope Francis. So people were actually very enthusiastic to be here,” he said.
Lewis voiced his hope that the summit would become an annual event. This year’s theme of “How to Answer the Call to Serve” fits into what most of the university’s students hope to accomplish, he said, explaining that “they’re trying to figure out how to leverage their education and their studies to help meet the needs of society, how can they be student leaders.”
“So my hope is that this will become an annual tradition so that students across Harvard and hopefully across the United States, can come to Rome and learn from so many of the institutions here where there’s the pontifical universities, there are dicasteries, and certainly the Pope himself.”
Kiernan Schmidt, a student at Harvard Business School, told CNA he wanted to participate not only because of his Irish and Catholic background, but also because the idea of “how morality plays into the decisions we make” as leaders in various fields.
“The idea of examining how morality guides our leadership styles was really the main impetus,” he said, adding that Pope Francis’ challenge for global leaders “to reexamine what we’re doing for each other and how we think of ourselves as leaders” was also a key factor.
What had impacted Schmidt so far in the meetings they had with Vatican officials was “hearing humility from almost every level of leadership that we’ve met with.”
Another point of particular interest was gaining “a profound understanding that traditions and conditions in local Churches can be very different from what you hear in Rome.”
“I think that that adjusting of leadership and tactics in how we approach problems can be very different in the cultural context,” he said, noting that in their meeting with Archbishop Gallagher, the prelate told them that he not only explains Rome to the local Churches of where he goes, but he also “explains the local Churches to Rome.”
This “two-way dialogue” in the Church, Schmidt said, “was something that felt very new, very refreshing and very modern and also very true to the words we hear from Pope Francis, you know, approaching problems with humility and seeking to talk one to one.”
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I expect he is 100% correct.
Affection, security, and love are the start. And prayer, especially meditation. That is what enables the person to start loving themselves and repenting of their sins, loving their abusers and forgiving them, accepting the vast quantities and varied kinds of suffering they have and healing from it, and believing the truth about God’s love for them.
I don’t think the sex, drugs, and such are to make themselves feel loved. That’s to distract just a bit from the pain of believing you aren’t.
Offering LOVE then “repenting of their sins”? That seems to be an indictment when they least need it.
Sin harms no one so much as the person who commits it. It is an act of self-hatred to sin, and an act of self-love to repent.
If you are trying to make someone feel good, calling them to repentance might not achieve that, particularly if you’re bad at communicating how harmful it is to them, how much sin destroys, in the sinner, the joy and peace God means us to have. But anyone who has walked from self-hatred to properly ordered self-love knows that repentance is an essential part of that… so essential that avoidance of repentance will at some point become an obstacle to healing (similarly with forgiveness).
In case it wasn’t clear, this is a process, and one to be done gently, patiently, kindly, and charitably (i.e., loving the person for love of God), and according to God’s timing and not our own.
Failure to face reality is never considered normal, but rather a sign of weakness somewhere. One truth that we can always rely on is that God loves His creation = all of it, and if the human ones screw up, they must always be sorry and make atonement to their Creator – some sort of atonement, to keep things in proper order. Does that make sense?
To the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus noted the fault zones of her life. He offered her living water while pointing out her sin. Jesus admonished the woman caught in adultery to sin no more. Jesus came to call “sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:32) Only after Zaccheus the tax collector determined to amend his cheating mistakes, only then did Jesus proclaim his salvation.
The Gospel is filled with such examples. Jesus did not come to call sinners who believe they are already righteous. He did not come to call sinners who think they are already nice, good, or okay. Jesus advised: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48).
We are all sinners, but a sinner who refuses or resents another recognizing his sins is neither a humble nor a repentant sinner. A non-repentant sinner is not able to recognize or appreciate let alone receive benefit or salvation from Christ’s living water.
Hebrews 10:5 has Jesus commenting on “a body you have prepared for me.” Just as Jesus offered His body, pure and undefiled to God Our Father, every Christian is to work toward doing the same.
Sin works against God. We must not become complacent about sin in our lives or in those we claim to love.
With a suicide rate which I understand approaches 50%, its clear that Trans people have a significant mental illness. Body dysmorphia at the very least. And “transitioning” does not greatly lower that statistic. They can declare themselves dragons if they want to, but forcing other people to call them that will change nothing at all. The govt needs to stop affirming transgenderism as something normal.
Actually, the suicide rate is no different and has remained static over the years according to APA as stated in Dr. Kevin Vost, PSY.D. I agree that the LGBTQ+ community is using flawed rhetoric to push acceptance of the ideological trans dogma in an effort to normalize there prefer abnormal sexual behaviors. That does not give society the excuse to be demeaning but to understand that the LGBTQ+ people are suffering from deep mental defect. In the same, the church needs to continue to also profess that any deviant sexual activity in a sin and continue to try to save the sinner. It is also worth noting that it is not just the LGBTQ+ people that take pare in sinful lust activity that is not in accordance with natural law.
A Danish study quoted by CNN shows an elevated rate as much as 40% higher than the general population. Not remotely the same as the general population.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/28/health/transgender-suicide-risk/index.html
And this study from the National Institute of health showing the rates from various countries as 32 to 50% of the trans population.These are not the only studies showing elevated rates of suicide among Trans. Saying it’s no different from the population at large is untrue propaganda.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5178031/
“The govt needs to stop affirming transgenderism as something normal.”
Well said.
It is not news to me but I am very glad to read the priest’s account of that problem. The available online data shows a disproportionately high percentage of abused (mostly in their families) among those who seek hormonal “therapy” and surgeries. It makes perfect sense to me: a teen whom his family makes feel ugly and shameful, unloved and rejected is unable to understand the real reason for his desperation precisely because it is his family and thus a norm. There is thus something wrong with him, not with his family. Hence, he believes he is “ugly and unacceptable” indeed. I perceive those drastic surgeries to be an attempt TO BECOME another person who will be loved and accepted. The problem is that since a teen has learnt not to love himself, there is practically no chance that he will love himself after he “remade” himself. If he will love himself, it will be only until the novelty wears off.
Being interviewed, many of those teenagers exhibit the symptoms of severe anxiety, depression, bulimia, anorexia and even borderline personality disorder (which is a result of an extreme early trauma) – all that apart from being just normally miserable as most teens are re: their changing bodies. I was astonished to discover that such people are given “a green light” towards mutilation after just one or maximum two appointments with a psychologist. It is a huge crime.
In a nutshell, it is a denial of the reality of a suffering soul, a kind of plastic surgery to remove wrinkles. Superficial and pathetic beyond measure.
That’s what I’ve seen, too. For a long time, I thought that all sin was, underneath everything, a kind of satanic defiance of God, with the talk about human weakness merely being our attempts to excuse our actions. The few people I have really gotten to know who are LGBTQ are, however, deeply broken, and their facade of being “gay” in the old-fashioned sense masks a very profound sadness. They are very badly served by those who claim to represent them.
Sadly, these realities are all almost self-evident, an advanced form of the same lack of self-worth syndrome that drives homosexuality, but there is another factor. I viewed a PBS documentary a few years ago showing a pyschologist evaluating a video study of a boy in front of his parents trying to convince them he was trans and should get a surgery immediately. On what basis? Well the boy seemed to be more attached to the family dog than anyone else in the household “proving” that he had a strong “maternal nurturing” side, which proved, to the psychologist, that he really is “a girl in a boys body”. This was good enough for the well-educated, trendy parents who agreed with the “expert.” There is no limit to the stupidity embraced by those trying to prove their superior intelligence.
Wow.
Sadly, this is beginning to shed light on the parents in places like Canaan and Carthage who willingly gave up their children to be sacrificed to demons.
Yes. Such parents are pagans. They believe the way to salvation, truth, and life lies in the deadly sacrificial offering of their offspring to lifelong psychological and bodily mutilation.
You are being generous to the motives of these pagan parents. The advantages they seek, now as they did then, are usually much less than “salvation, truth, and life”.
How sad, that love for an animal/pet could be used to label someone homosexual or trans. My father grew up on a farm, and when one of the dairy cattle died, his family mourned (all the cows had names and personalities!). My dad loved his cats, and my mother told me once (when they were older) that she found him sobbing and when she asked why, he sobbed, “My cat got run over!” My brother is the same way–loves his cats and mourns when they die. God gave Adam the job of caring for the animals in the Garden of Eden! AND…it is a stereotype to think that all gay men love animals–some do…and some definitely do NOT!–just like straight people have different preferences when it comes to animals.
Honestly, it’s the sort of thing that could only be done by someone with very limited familiarity with real boys and men … or by someone who had no interest in the truth.
My goodness. I have every reason to believe this happened, and that your account is accurate. Can you give some identifying information about the show: Name of the show, when it aired, etc.? I could try to look it up, but as you know, there’s a lot of this sort of detritus on PBS, and it would take a lot of sifting to find the piece you reference.
First, I’m in total agreement with all who expressed sentiments about the appropriateness of men having compassion for the innocent creatures. I do too. My point in my anecdote was to note the elitist vanity of an “expert” doing harm from a ridiculous observation. Human vanity increases as religious practice declines.
Regarding the broadcast, I wish I could help more. It’s based on a memory of a half-watched program on a PBS special, which I did not view to the end once my disgust crossed my blood pressure threshold. I vaguely remember it was about four or five years ago, maybe during what they call “pride month” in June, and it was when trans issues were just gaining momentum. I live in NYC, so the local network is WNET, generally more liberal. I believe they might archive their old broadcast schedules.
Anyone with gender dysphoria has deep psychological wounds, which they sadly often transform into physical wounds by chopping off healthy body parts. You can’t treat a software problem with a hardware solution.
You *really* can’t solve a software problem by taking a sledgehammer to the hardware.
The basic salve for these disorders – whether it’s of the trans variety or the homosexual kind is…Truth. You never help anyone by lying to them. Of course, Truth must be always leavened with Love.
Sexual mutilation of the human body is one of the more diabolic manifestations of evil, largely imposed on the young and vulnerable by monsters with medical and psychiatric degrees. And government under this administration deem it compassionate medical care. Assume the authority to seize children from parents. Proclaim the idolatrous freedom of diversity. A cauldron awaits them at Judgment.
I heard Calvin Robinson describe those who prey on the young in these ways as “Millstone People.”
Indeed mrscracker. In our day the target for the worst sins are children. It’s difficult not to be angered and yet retain focus on praying for conversions. Although it was Christ who referred to the millstone, that’s what he desires of us. I had to look up Calvin Robinson and then remind myself of the Old Catholics in Britain. They’re, or rather perceive themselves as more Catholic than the Pope.
There is more than a little irony that many of the same people who say they “follow the science” and disbelieve religious claims are still willing to claim that a female soul is somehow trapped in a male body (or vice versa).
I have always been concerned with the spiritual, mental and physical health of transgender teens. Can we really “recover” them with our current interventions? Are the parents and doctors vocal? I ask…
Are we lovingly and properly labeling adolescent transgenders? Can they be truly included in the LGBQ ideology? How can they be identified to apply “counciling”? And, what is the success/failure rate afer intervention is completed?
I am still conflated on the drastic efforts to “make them whole”. I ask, how would an otherwise healthy teen subject themselves to major surgery and toxic hormone substances with urgency? Were they born that way?
We must ask for Jesus’ guidance.
Perhaps we could begin helping them by choosing not use Newspeak terminology like “transgender teens.” Verbal engineering precedes every social delusion.
The few people with gender dysphoria I have heard of with a discernible cause involved growing up either with their opposite-sex siblings being showered with affection and attention while they were ignored, or with a very unstable and abusive home, or having a parent (or 2) that really wanted a transgender child for the bragging rights and therefore pressured them into it at an early age. The exceptions to that are where the abuse/brainwashing was done at school instead of at home.
I suspect that some form of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse or neglect will account for all or nearly all with gender dysphoria. Recovering from that requires recognizing the abuse and neglect and lies as such, rejecting the lies and evil, forgiving the perpetrators, recovering and healing, and then repeating that process as the layers get peeled back, as many times as it takes.
Deep wounds.
Who would have expected otherwise?
Mental illness of either biological or sociological origin is treated through psychological therapy and hopefully with pastoral care. That does not include affirmation to any degree of the disorder. It is about correcting the disorder.
The victims of ‘trans’ ‘man-boy-lover’ couples have deep wounds as well. A friend of mine had a brother raped by a ‘trans’ ‘man-boy-lover’ Boy scout leader. Six of the twelve boys molested committed suicide before adulthood. Three boys survived to adulthood but were total emotional disasters and could not function in life to get jobs, married or live away from caretakers. The other three seemed to have normal lives from the outside, but no one knows for sure what kind of emotional burden they carry.
Pope Francis, “Asked about the synod assembly’s discussion of homosexuality, Pope Francis said: “When I say ‘everyone, everyone, everyone,’ [I’m speaking about] people. The Church receives people. Everyone. And it does not ask how you are. Then, inside, everyone grows, but from a Christian belonging.”
“One central critique: that the Pope’s focus was not on same-sex unions, but instead on same-sex-attracted persons who may be in some kind of same-sex relationship.”
https://www.ncregister.com/news/pope-s-directive-on-same-sex-blessings-emphasizes-persons-not-unions-theologians-say?
“German Bishop Must Face Vatican Investigation, Abuse Council Demands
“we still perceive in the actions of Bishop Bode a more perpetrator-oriented than victim-oriented attitude,” the victims’ advisory council said on Monday.”
“Several prominent German prelates have been accused of mishandling cases of sexual abuse. They include Synodal Way initiator Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Synodal Way president Bishop Georg Bätzing — the successor to Marx as president of the bishops’ conference — and Hamburg’s Archbishop Heße. All of them have so far remained in office.”
https://www.ncregister.com/cna/german-bishop-must-face-vatican-investigation-abuse-council-demands?
‘Mankind will not have peace untill it turns WITH TRUST to My mercy ‘ -https://www.thedivinemercy.org/articles/message-mercy-diary-st-faustina –
Words of our Lord to the St., in relation of need to celebrate The Feast of Mercy and related devotion . Providential too that the ministry is by the Marians of The Immaculate Concecption . Hatred / contempt / envy about the body – said to have been at root of the rebellion of the fallen angels , whose work is manifest amidst us, as all the evils against life and sanctity of marriage etc :, which likely add to the wounds in other realms .
Lord as The Mercy of The Father , The Mother as the Mercy of The Lord, thus The Church too as mercy manifest – reason the Holy Father has seen the need for much tenderness and compassion in our times , so that the wounded are helped to overcome the deeply ingrained sense of unworthiness as lack of trust .
The role of The Mother, to help bring that trust, in loving her – thus loving the Holy Trinity and all in Them , by having such an intention in daily life, renewing same often through the day, to thus grow in the exchange of love , to help trust that one is loved by her, thus able to love oneself ( and others ) with her love !
One such publication that can be helpful –
https://benedictinesofdivinewill.org/uploads/3/4/3/2/34324596/mary_in_dw.pdf
Invoking the mystical ‘tears of blood ‘ that manifest the grieving of the Holy Spirit as sins of pride and presumption, its rebellions,slavery under powers of evil – those tears to be invoked often unto all such wounds of oneself and others , to be set free from the bitterness, despair and all .
The threats by secular powers against explicit mention of the nature of these issues could be somewhat of a blessing in disguise – The Church can bring all these areas – exorcism ministry included , to ‘walk together ‘ -to invite all the wounded which any more would be all families , to have the ‘daily bread ‘ – for prevention as well as remedy . FIAT !
Hey, all you backwardist complainers above. It’s not about natural law, or even common sense or evidence; it’s about marketable flim-flam:
In the 1980s and 90s clericalists, tutored by “experts” in psychiatry, believed that so-called pedophiles could be harmonized into a cure by a geographic fix—musical chairs within the diocese (and 85% were homosexuals, the John Jay Report, 2002);
Now, today, medical experts sing their same ol’ tune—this time harmonizing another sexually related distress, with a hormone fix and now physiological mutilation (case studies point instead to persistent and deeper wounds).
But, hey, Cardinal Fernandez is poised to expose gender theory—but why not synod theory? The paradigm shift away from the “real” Council of the Documents to the musical chairs of first the “virtual” council, and then synodal roundtables, then the experts, and now the study groups!
With synod theory, adults in the room have exposed the marketing and word-game fix in the capstone Fiducia Supplicans—all of the (synodal!) Eastern Orthodox Churches and, in the West, Hungary, Poland, Kazakhstan, Peru, all of continental Africa, and parts of Argentina, France, Spain, and so on, including the former Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
And to think that synods did work well in the past, and might again. Why is that? But, hey, no “backwardist” glances; ever forward!