Loving, serving the least among us is at heart of our faith

John Carr, executive director of justice, peace and human development for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops addresses participants at the “Spreading Hope in Neighborhoods Everywhere” conference on Oct. 1 in Indianapolis. He challenged archdiocesan Catholics to embrace the social ministry and mission of the Church. (Photo by Mary Ann Wyand)

By Mary Ann Wyand

If you want to love and serve the Lord, John Carr told participants at the “Spreading Hope in Neighborhoods Everywhere” conference on Oct. 1, you must love and serve the least among us.

“You will find Jesus there,” he said. “You will find God there.”

In his keynote address at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, the executive director of justice, peace and human development for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops challenged archdiocesan Catholics to embrace the social ministry and mission of the Church because that is the core of who we are as Christians.

Spreading hope to others in tough times is more important than ever, Carr said, for the Catholic Church in the archdiocese, in the country and in the world.

To spread hope, he explained, “we need to do a better job of connecting our faith and how we live, of standing up for human life and dignity, and of practicing justice and pursuing the common good. … What we do now, how we shine, will shape the world we leave [to] our children.”

Catholics must take the Church’s teachings seriously, Carr said, because our mission, the word of God and the sacraments bring us together in faith.

“You are leaders of the community of faith,” he said, “committed to defending human life and dignity, to practicing charity, to pursuing justice, and to advancing the common good.”

The best mission statement is a Scripture passage from the Book of Isaiah, Carr said, that Jesus preached as he began his public life: “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to liberate the captives, to give new sight for the blind, and to set the downtrodden free” (Is 61:1).

That passage was Christ’s mission on Earth, he said, and it is our mission as Christians today.

There are many biblical mandates to serve the least among us, Carr said, and Pope Benedict XVI put it most simply in his encyclical “Deus Caritas Est” when he reminded us that “God is love.”

“That’s important to remember,” he said. “[Pope] Benedict said that to us today, and it’s what the Apostle John taught the early Christians 2,000 years ago. Who would have thought it would come down to the words of an old Beatles song—‘All You Need Is Love.’ ”

People need to experience a formation of the heart, he said, quoting Pope Benedict, in order to effectively practice Catholic social teachings.

“Proclaiming the Gospel, celebrating the sacraments, and serving and standing with the poor is the work of the Church,” Carr said. “Charity, justice and the common good are our vocations, and [protecting] human life and dignity is where we start.

“The Church cannot neglect the service of charity any more than she can neglect the sacraments and the word,” he said.

“… Justice is inseparable from charity and intrinsic to it.”

Everyone is called to practice charity, Carr emphasized. “We believe that every person is precious, whether you’re an innocent child in your mother’s womb or a convicted criminal on death row … [or] whether you live in a box under a bridge.”

Respect for the sanctity and dignity of life must come first, he said, because “without life nothing else is possible, no other rights have meaning … and without dignity life is not truly human.”

Catholics must also insist on the right to those things which make life truly human, Carr said, which include faith, family, work, education, housing and health care.

“For us, 15 million people without access to health care is not a political sound bite,” he said. “It’s not an economic challenge. It’s a moral challenge, and so we stand up for those without health care and we stand up for health care that respects human life and dignity.”

Catholics have the responsibility to work to secure those basic rights for all of God’s children, he said. “We need to restore respect for every life. As Pope John Paul II said, ‘We are a people of life, for life, all life, every life.’ ”

Loving our neighbors has global dimensions, Carr said, and spreading hope in every neighborhood means spreading hope beyond central and southern Indiana.

Catholic social teaching needs to be anchored in our prayer, he said, and expressed in our worship.

“The best place to understand the strength and direction of our social mission is to gather around the altar,” Carr explained. “We advance the social mission of the Church by how we live our lives every day, how we raise our families, how we treat our parents, how we act at work, who we vote for, what we invest in, how we consume. We need to practice faithful citizenship. We need to take what we believe into public life. … We have an obligation in faith and humanity to care for our brothers and sisters even though they live half a world away. We’re one family in faith and we ought to act like it. … We can divide up the work, but we shouldn’t divide up the Church.’

In his introduction, David Siler, executive director of the archdiocesan Secretariat for Catholic Charities and Family Ministries, noted that Carr has been a national leader in Catholic social ministry for more than three decades.

“Over these many years,” Siler said, “he has helped the [U.S.] bishops draft many statements and teachings that have guided our response to many of the social issues facing our nation and our world.”

David Bethuram, associate executive director of Catholic Charities and Family Ministries in the archdiocese, said the “Spreading Hope in Neighborhoods Everywhere” conference was “an opportunity to learn how Catholic social teaching really does mold and help us understand what our mission is in our neighborhoods, communities and parishes.

“Knowing how many parish people gathered together who are knowledgeable, who are willing to do the work and really do feel the call to serve people in need is not only rewarding,” Bethuram said, “but I think speaks volumes to the state, our cities and neighborhoods of how important it is that the Catholic Church reaches out to those who are vulnerable and poor.” †