Washington D.C., Jan 21, 2019 / 02:35 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston has called civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. an exemplar of the “artisans of peace” called for by the pope.
King “was a messenger and true witness to the power of the gospel lived in action through public life,” read the statement from the president of the USCCB to mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“We are thankful for the path forged by Dr. King and the countless others who worked tirelessly and suffered greatly in the fight for racial equality and justice. As a nation and as a society, we face great challenges as well as tremendous opportunities ahead.”
King is remembered as a Baptist minister and the most visible leader of the civil rights movement, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, and as the founding president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was assassinated in 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
Cardinal DiNardo noted the US bishops’ recent pastoral letter on racism, which aims to “name and call attention to a great affliction and evil that persists in this nation, and to offer a hope-filled Christian response to this perennial sickness. Racism is a national wound from which we continually struggle to heal.”
“Today, remembering how Dr. King contended with policies and institutional barriers of his time, many which persist today, we renew our pledge to fight for the end of racism in the Church and in the United States. We pledge our commitment to build a culture of life, where all people are valued for their intrinsic dignity as daughters and sons of God,” the cardinal wrote.
“We encourage Catholics and all people of good will to study the pastoral letter, and to study and reflect upon Dr. King’s witness against the destructive effects of racism, poverty and continuous war.”
Cardinal DiNardo also called “on everyone to embrace our ongoing need for healing in all areas of our lives where we are wounded, but particularly where our hearts are not truly open to the idea and the truth that we are all made in the image and likeness of God.”
He concluded quoting King’s words that “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
Washington D.C., Apr 4, 2018 / 04:58 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Fifty years after the death of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Catholics can still learn much from his legacy, said a leader in the largest predominantly black Catholic organization in the U.S… […]
Memphis, Tenn., Apr 3, 2018 / 06:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., was fatally shot outside his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
King is remembered as the most visible leader of the civil rights movement, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, and as the founding president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. But he was first a pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, and remained active in pastoral leadership throughout his life.
On the day after King was killed, Pope Paul VI expressed remorse during his Angelus address, saying that the civil rights leader was “a Christian prophet for racial integration.”
Shortly after King’s death, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Council of Churches, the Synagogue Council of America, and the Standing Conference of Orthodox Bishops in the Americas released an interfaith statement, mourning their colleague in ministry.
We “bow together in grief before the shameful murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a unique apostle of the non-violent drive for justice, [and] affirm that no service of remembrance or local memorial is equal to the greatness of his labor or the vastness of our national need.”
The faith leaders also applauded the efforts of Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1968, encouraged Americans to support measures favoring integration, and pled with government officials to fund legislation aimed at fighting poverty.
We “affirm that only through massive contributions by the American people can this nation duly honor the life-offering of Martin Luther King, Jr. and responsibly lift up the burden of the poor and oppressed in our land.”
The statement also promised to implement coordinated efforts among religious communities to fight poverty.
We “declare our intention to take immediate steps to develop a coordinated sacrificial effort on the part of the American religious community to help the disadvantaged,” the statement read.
Faith leaders were not the only ones to pay tribute to King after his assassination.
On the night King was killed, Senator Robert Kennedy, a Catholic, spoke to the people of Indianapolis, urging them to greater compassion and a deterrence from violence. Kennedy spoke during a stop on his 1968 campaign for President, delivering the news to a multiracial crowd that King had been assassinated.
“What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black,” he said on April 4, 1968.
Kennedy referenced the assassination of his own brother, President John F. Kennedy, which had taken place in 1963.
“For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times,” Kennedy said.
The senator urged Americans to take up King’s efforts, pray for King’s family and the nation, and join in solidarity those longing for peace.
“The vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land,” he added.
“I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, that’s true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love–a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke.”
Washington D.C., Jan 14, 2018 / 05:17 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- This Martin Luther King Jr. Day will be the first without Sister Mary Antona Ebo, the only black Catholic nun who marched with civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma, Ala in 1965.
“I’m here because I’m a Negro, a nun, a Catholic, and because I want to bear witness,” Sister Mary Antona Ebo said to fellow demonstrators at a March 10, 1965 protest attended by King. Ebo was, in fact, the only African-American nun at the protest.
The protest took place three days after the “Bloody Sunday” clash, where police attacked several hundred voting rights demonstrators with clubs and tear gas, causing some severe injuries among the non-violent marchers.
She passed away Nov. 11, 2017 in Bridgeton, Missouri at the age of 93, the St. Louis Review reported at the time.
After the “Bloody Sunday” attacks, King had called on church leaders from around the country to go to Selma. Archbishop Joseph E. Ritter of St. Louis had asked his archdiocese’s human rights commission to send representatives, Ebo recounted to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2015.
Ebo’s supervisor, also a religious sister, asked her whether she would join a 50-member delegation of laymen, Protestant ministers, rabbis, priests and five white nuns.
Just before she left for Alabama, she heard that a white minister who had traveled to Selma, James Reeb, had been severely attacked after he left a restaurant.
At the time, Ebo said, she wondered: “If they would beat a white minister to death on the streets of Selma, what are they going to do when I show up?”
In Selma on March 10, she went to Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, joining local leaders and the demonstrators who had been injured in the clash.
“They had bandages on their heads, teeth were knocked out, crutches, casts on their arms. You could tell that they were freshly injured,” she told the Post-Dispatch. “They had already been through the battle ground, and they were still wanting to go back and go back and finish the job.”
Many of the injured had been treated at Good Samaritan Hospital, run by Edmundite priests and the Sisters of St. Joseph, the only Selma hospital that served blacks. Since their arrival in 1937, the Edmundites had faced intimidation and threats from local officials, other whites, and even the Ku Klux Klan, CNN reported.
The injured demonstrators and their supporters left the Selma church, with Ebo in front. They marched towards the courthouse, then blocked by state troopers in riot gear. She and other demonstrators then knelt to pray the Our Father before they agreed to turn around.
Despite the violent interruption, the 57-mile march would draw 25,000 participants. It concluded on the steps of the state capitol in Montgomery, with King’s famous March 25 speech against racial prejudice.
“How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” King said.
King would be dead within three years. On a fateful April 4, 1968, he was shot by an assassin at his Memphis hotel.
He had asked to be taken to a Catholic hospital should anything happen to him, and he was taken to St. Joseph Hospital in Memphis. At the time, it was a nursing school combined with a 400-bed hospital.
There, too, Catholic religious sisters played a role.
Sister Jane Marie Klein and Sister Anna Marie Hofmeyer recounted their story to The Paper of Montgomery County Online in January 2017.
The Franciscan nuns had been walking around the hospital grounds when they heard the sirens of an ambulance. One of the sisters was paged three times, and they discovered that King had been shot and taken to their hospital.
The National Guard and local police locked down the hospital for security reasons as doctors tried to save King.
“We were obviously not allowed to go in when they were working with him because they were feverishly working with him,” Sister Jane Marie said. “But after they pronounced him dead we did go back into the E.R. There was a gentleman as big as the door guarding the door and he looked at us and said ‘you want in?’ We said yes, we’d like to go pray with him. So he let the three of us in, closed the door behind us and gave us our time.”
Hofmeyer recounted the scene in the hospital room. “He had no chance,” she said.
Klein said authorities delayed the announcement of King’s death to prepare for riots they knew would result.
Three decades later, Klein met with King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, at a meeting of the Catholic Health Association Board in Atlanta where King was a keynote speaker. The Franciscan sister and the widow of the civil rights leader told each other how they had spent that night.
Klein said being present that night in 1968 was “indescribable.”
“You do what you got to do,” she said. What’s the right thing to do? Hindsight? It was a privilege to be able to take care of him that night and to pray with him. Who would have ever thought that we would be that privileged?”
She said King’s life shows “to some extent one person can make a difference.” She wondered “how anybody could listen to Dr. King and not be moved to work toward breaking down these barriers.”
Klein would serve as chairperson of the Franciscan Alliance Board of Trustees, overseeing support for health care. Hofmeyer would work in the alliance’s archives. Last year both were living at the Provinciate at St. Francis Convent in Mishawaka, Indiana.
For her part, after Selma, Ebo would go on to serve as a hospital administrator and a chaplain.
In 1968 she helped found the National Black Sisters’ Conference. The woman who had been rejected from several Catholic nursing schools because of her race would serve in her congregation’s leadership as it reunited with another Franciscan order, and she served as a director of social concerns for the Missouri Catholic Conference.
She frequently spoke on civil rights topics. When controversy over a Ferguson, Mo. police officer’s killing of Michael Brown, a black man, she led a prayer vigil. She thought the Ferguson protests were comparable to those of Selma.
“I mean, after all, if Mike Brown really did swipe the box of cigars, it’s not the policeman’s place to shoot him dead,” she said.
Archbishop Robert J. Carlson of St. Louis presided at her requiem Mass in November, saying in a statement “We will miss her living example of working for justice in the context of our Catholic faith.”
Washington D.C., Oct 2, 2017 / 05:07 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After recent violent protests and the deadliest mass shooting recorded in U.S. history on Sunday, Christian leaders invoked Martin Luther King, Jr. as they condemned racism and violence.
Pope Francis meets with the United States bishops at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 23, 2015. / Credit: L’Osservatore Romano
CNA Staff, Apr 22, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis, who died on April 21 at the age of 88, visited the United States just once, nearly 10 years ago, in September 2015.
Despite the brevity of the visit, he accomplished a lot: Attracting hundreds of thousands of participants, he canonized a new saint (St. Junípero Serra), became the first pope to ever address a joint session of Congress, and galvanized the U.S. Catholic community with his presence and his speeches on the East Coast.
Washington, D.C.
Pope Francis began his tour of North America with several days in Cuba. Landing in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 22, 2015, Pope Francis met with President Barack Obama first thing the next morning. The meeting came amid a time of concerns for many American Catholics regarding politics, including the Obama administration’s contraceptive mandate and the recent legalization of same-sex marriage nationwide, via the June 2015 Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges.
Pope Francis is greeted by President Barack Obama on Sept. 22, 2015. Credit: Somodevilla/Getty Images
During the presidential meeting, Francis praised Obama’s commitment to inclusivity and noted that American Catholics have contributed greatly to building a tolerant and inclusive society while also stressing that religious liberty “remains one of America’s most precious possessions.” He also encouraged commitment to addressing the “urgent” issue of climate change, building on his expansive 2015 encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’.
Pope Francis says Mass for clergy and religious in Philadelphia’s Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul, Sept. 26, 2015. Credit: L’Osservatore Romano.
While in D.C., that same day, the pope addressed bishops and priests at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle and later celebrated Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. At the latter Mass, he celebrated the first canonization on American soil by declaring Junípero Serra, who founded missions along present-day California, a saint.
“He was the embodiment of ‘a Church which goes forth,’ a Church which sets out to bring everywhere the reconciling tenderness of God,” the pope said.
Crowds gather for the Mass canonizing St. Junipero Serra at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 23, 2015. Credit: Alan Holdren/CNA
On the same day, Francis made an unscheduled stop to visit with the Little Sisters of the Poor in Washington, D.C., to support the sisters as they awaited word on whether or not the Supreme Court will hear their case against the federal contraception mandate. (The sisters are still fighting aspects of the mandate, even after more than 14 years in court.)
Pope Francis greets Sister Marie Mathilde, 102 years old, at the Jeanne Jugan Residence in Washington, D.C., Sept. 23, 2015. Credit: Photo courtesy of the Little Sisters of the Poor
Francis addressed a joint session of Congress the next day, Sept. 24, making him the first pope to ever to do so. During his lengthy speech, he condemned the arms trade and the death penalty — statements that reportedly made some lawmakers in the room squirm.
Francis went on to assert that the family was being threatened like never before and praised American figures, including Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr., for their tireless efforts to defend freedom and moral values. He also touched on respect for human life and the environment in the well-received speech.
Pope Francis speaks to the U.S. Congress in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 24, 2015. Credit: L’Osservatore Romano
The pope also visited St. Patrick Parish and met with people experiencing homelessness at Catholic Charities, addressing people who minister to the poor. He offered St. Joseph as their patron and model, because, he said, St. Joseph grappled with injustice and suffering in his care for Mary and Jesus.
“The Son of God came into this world as a homeless person,” the pope said. “The Son of God knew what it was to start life without a roof over his head.”
“We can find no social or moral justification, no justification whatsoever, for lack of housing. There are many unjust situations, but we know that God is suffering with us, experiencing them at our side. He does not abandon us.”
Controversially, while in D.C. Pope Francis met with Kim Davis, a Kentucky county clerk who had become a cultural lightning rod for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses. The pope reportedly told her to “stay strong,” offering rosaries to Davis and her husband. The Vatican later clarified that Francis met with Davis and her husband as part of a large group invited by the nunciature, with the Vatican spokesperson adding that the pope “did not enter into the details” of her situation.
New York City
After flying to New York City the evening of Sept. 24 and praying vespers at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan, Francis addressed the United Nations General Assembly the next day, Sept. 25, the fifth time a pope had addressed the body.
The pontiff issued a call to the countries of the world to reject what he called “ideological colonization” — the “imposition of anomalous models and lifestyles which are alien to people’s identity and, in the end, irresponsible.”
Pope Francis’ historic address to the U.N. in New York City on Sept. 25, 2015. Credit: Alan Holdren/CNA
Like his predecessor, Benedict XVI, Pope Francis made a solemn visit with other religious leaders to Ground Zero, the site of the 9/11 attacks, later on Sept. 25. He met with families of first responders, saying at the site museum that acts of destruction always have “a face, a concrete story, names.” He offered a “prayer of remembrance” for all those killed that day, along with a prayer for the survivors and those who are mourning the loss of their loved ones.
Pope Francis speaks during an interreligious prayer service at Ground Zero, Sept. 25, 2015. Credit: Addie Mena/CNA
Later that day, after visiting Our Lady, Queen of the Angels School in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, Francis celebrated Mass at Madison Square Garden. He encouraged people to remember those in the city who are often forgotten, including “foreigners, the children who go without schooling, those deprived of medical insurance, the homeless, the forgotten elderly.”
Madison Square Garden prepares for the papal Mass, Sept. 25, 2015. Credit: Alan Holdren/CNA
“Knowing that Jesus still walks our streets, that he is part of the lives of his people, that he is involved with us in one vast history of salvation, fills us with hope. A hope which liberates us from the forces pushing us to isolation and lack of concern for the lives of others, for the life of our city,” the pope said.
“A hope which frees us from empty ‘connections,’ from abstract analyses, or sensationalist routines. A hope which is unafraid of involvement, which acts as a leaven wherever we happen to live and work. A hope which makes us see, even in the midst of smog, the presence of God as he continues to walk the streets of our city.”
Philadelphia
Pope Francis’ visit included an appearance at the 2015 World Meeting of Families (WMF) in Philadelphia, an event that focuses on celebrating the gift of the family.
Pope Francis at the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia on Sept. 26, 2015. Credit: L’Osservatore Romano
After flying to the “City of Brotherly Love” the morning of Sept. 26, Pope Francis took part in a Mass for clergy and religious at Philadelphia’s Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul. In his homily address, the pope challenged the clergy and religious to inspire new vocations.
He called for women to take on a greater role in the Church, highlighting the example of St. Katharine Drexel — a Philadelphia native — and he reminded the priests and religious present of their role in ministering to families, couples preparing for marriage, and young people.
He later addressed a crowd of some 50,000 people at Independence Mall, the site of Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, for a religious freedom rally with Hispanic and other immigrants.
Speaking to thousands of families gathered on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia that night, a visibly moved Pope Francis ditched his prepared remarks and instead gave an impromptu reflection on the beauty and dire importance of family life. He voiced his thanks at “the presence of all of you — who are a real witness that it’s worth being a family!” A society “is strong, solid, and edified on beauty, goodness, and truth,” he added.
Pope Francis addresses the Festival of Families in Philadelphia on Sept. 26, 2015. Credit: EWTN
On Sept. 27, the next day, Francis had an unscripted meeting with five abuse survivors — three women and two men — all of whom had been abused in childhood either by members of the clergy, family members, or educators. He promised accountability for perpetrators and expressed sorrow for the victims’ suffering.
In the face of such heinous acts as sexual abuse, “God cries,” he said, adding that “the criminal sins of the abuse of minors can’t be kept in silence any longer … I promise, with the vigilance of the Church, to protect minors and I promise [that] all of those responsible will be held accountable.”
He told a gathering of international bishops afterward that the survivors’ stories of suffering “have aggravated my heart” and said that crimes of abuse must never be kept in silence.
Later that morning, Francis visited a Philadelphia correctional facility, saying at the meeting with a group of 100 inmates and their families that every person is marked and bruised by life, but Jesus washes away our sins and invites us to live a full life.
Pope Francis embraces a man at Curran-Fromhold Correction Facility in Philadelphia on Sept. 27, 2015. Credit: EWTN
Reflecting on the trip, the Holy Father said it was “particularly moving for me to canonize St. Junípero Serra, who reminds us all of our call to be missionary disciples.”
He added that he was touched “to stand with my brothers and sisters of other religions at Ground Zero, that place which speaks so powerfully of the mystery of evil. Yet we know with certainty that evil never has the last word, and that, in God’s merciful plan, love and peace triumph over all.”
Furthermore, he promised his prayers for the U.S. people, saying: “This land has been blessed with tremendous gifts and opportunities. I pray that you may all be good and generous stewards of the human and material resources entrusted to you.”
“I thank the Lord that I was able to witness the faith of God’s people in this country, as manifested in our moments of prayer together and evidenced in so many works of charity.”
Concluding, he asked those present: “Do not let your enthusiasm for Jesus, his Church, our families, and the broader family of society run dry.”
“May our days together bear fruit that will last, generosity and care for others that will endure!” he said. “Just as we have received so much from God — gifts freely given us, and not of our own making — so let us freely give to others in return.”
Daniel J. Mahoney is a professor emeritus at Assumption University, where he taught from 1986 until 2021. He received his B.A. from the College of Holy Cross and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Catholic University […]
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