Heralds of Hope

Which of Pope Benedict XVI's messages during his 5-day Apostolic Visit impressed you? Unless you are a sympathizer of Colorado's 6th District Congressman and ex-presidential candidate Tom Tancredo, who blasted the Holy Father for his plea of compassion for illegal immigrants, I imagine you would have found that Benedict's messages (which he wrote himself, giving papal speechwriters reprieve) made sense and that Tancredo's opposition to American multiculturalism and his relentless fight to halt all immigration, whether legal or otherwise, do not.

It is a shame that Tancredo is a grandson of Italian immigrants. You would have expected him to be kinder and gentler to immigrants -- honest, hardworking folks, who, like his grandparents, come to America to seek a better life for themselves and for their children. It is a shame too that he was born and raised a Catholic (he is now an Evangelical Presbyterian) and had forgotten that passage in the Old Testament when Abraham welcomed strangers to his abode and asked his wife Sarah to feed them (they turned out to be angels).

I don't know what made Tancredo hate foreigners with a vengeance. Among other things, he founded the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus in 1999 to advance his agenda, relegating the chairmanship in 2007 to San Diego's Brian Bilbray. If you recall, Tancredo is the bright guy who last year advocated bombing Mecca and Medina in response to an Islamic terrorist attack, prompting a media outrage.

Perhaps, spending an evening to watch the movie "Under the Same Moon" (La Misma Luna) might give Tancredo, Bilbray, Hunter and the Washington hardliners on immigration a glimpse of the hidden people they are so worried about. Nine-year-old Carlitos in Tijuana and his mother Rosario in Los Angeles will open our eyes to the plight of the poor and the stranger hidden in our midst.

It was proper that Pope Benedict delivered his plea for "the poor, the homeless, the stranger, the sick and all who suffer" at St. Patrick's Cathedral, in the heart of multicultural New York City, the nation's first capital, America's premier melting pot and immigration gateway. 36% of New York's current 8.2 million residents are foreign-born (10% are Asian).

"Gathered as we are in this historic cathedral", Pope Benedict observed, "how can we not think of the countless men and women who have gone before us, who labored for the growth of the Church in the United States, and left us a lasting legacy of faith and good works?".

"Dear brothers and sisters, in the finest traditions of the Church in this country, may you also be the first friend of the poor, the homeless, the stranger, the sick and all who suffer. Act as beacons of hope, casting the light of Christ upon the world...."

Pope Benedict, the erudite theologian, revealed himself to be a poet at heart. Pointing to the stained glass windows of the gothic cathedral, he remarked: "From the outside, those windows are dark, heavy, even dreary. But once one enters the church, they suddenly come alive; reflecting the light passing through them, they reveal all their splendor. Many writers -- here in America we can think of Nathaniel Hawthorne -- have used the image of stained glass to illustrate the mystery of the Church herself. It is only from the inside, from the experience of faith and ecclesial life, that we see the Church as she truly is: flooded with grace, resplendent in beauty, adorned by the manifold gifts of the Spirit. It follows that we, who live the life of grace within the Church's communion, are called to draw all people into this mystery of light."

"This is no easy task", the Holy Father admitted, "in a world which can tend to look at the Church, like those stained glass windows, "from the outside": a world which deeply senses a need for spirituality, yet finds it difficult to "enter into" the mystery of the Church. Even for those of us within, the light of faith can be dimmed by routine, and the splendor of the Church obscured by the sins and weaknesses of her members. It can be dimmed too, by the obstacles encountered in a society which sometimes seems to have forgotten God and to resent even the most elementary demands of Christian morality....In a word, it is not always easy to see the light of the Spirit all about us, the splendor of the Risen Lord illuminating our lives and instilling renewed hope in his victory over the world."

"As heralds of hope...where God's grace has placed us", let us do our part to make Christ's message of love and compassion overcome the worldly rhetoric of hatred, "self-centeredness, greed, violence and cynicism (which) often seem to choke the fragile growth of grace in people's hearts".