By Laurie Hallstrom

Dave Stebbins, Tom Zeller, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and Bishop Blase Cupich share light moment before the Palm Sunday Brunch. In the center background is, Jim Kinyon, Catholic Social Services executive director. (WRC photo by Laurie Hallstrom) Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s visit to Red Cloud Indian School ended with a Lakota honor, he was wrapped in a star quilt. He is shown with Fr. Peter Klink, SJ, school president, and Robert Brave Heart Sr., superintendent. (Courtesy photo)

    An international advocate for social justice, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, retired archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., made his first visit to the Diocese of Rapid City in early April. He was invited by his longtime friend, Bishop Blase Cupich, to be the keynote speaker at the annual Palm Sunday Brunch – a major fund-raising event for Catholic Social Services (CSS).

    Blizzard conditions hampered the cardinal’s travels in the Diocese of Rapid, but he did manage to visit St. Thomas More High School (STM) in Rapid City, Red Cloud Indian School in Pine Ridge, Mt. Rushmore National Memorial, and Crazy Horse Memorial.

    In an address, April 3, to the STM student body, Cardinal McCarrick said, “The need for leaders has never been greater than it is now. Make something of your lives.” The cardinal explained to them, they are not the church of tomorrow, but of today.

    To illustrate the contributions possible from young people, he recounted his journey to Sarajevo during the most recent Balkan War. No longer the welcoming country of the 1984 Winter Olympics, the streets were riddled with sharpshooters.

    He wore a flack jacket and rode in an armored car viewing the horror of a mother shot in the street with a young child crying at her side and elderly people running from a water station with their rations. The military personnel explained they could not stop for the child because snipers were using the child as bait to gun down anyone who tried to pick up the toddler – they would wait to rescue the child.

Student Body President, Nolan Goetzinger, presented Cardinal Theodore McCarrick with a St. Thomas More High School Cavaliers sweatshirt. Accompanying the cardinal is Bishop Blase Cupich. (WRC photo by Laurie Hallstrom) Maggie Sears, stage manager, stands with Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and Bishop Blase Cupich. Behind them are the cast members of the STM production, “The Sound of Music.” (Photo by Richard Raposa)

    He was there to meet with the local archbishop, who was unable to get through the checkpoints to meet him in Sarajevo. A group of college age youths occupied the basement of the archbishop’s residence – the upper floor windows had all been shot out. The young people offered him soup and brandy. Concerned, he asked why they were there and not safely attending college. They told him they had stayed behind to distribute food and medical supplies. One said, “Somebody has to do this. We are doing what we think God wants us to do.” He learned that two members of their group had been killed and another was wounded by shrapnel.

    The cardinal told the STM students that they will discern what God wants in their lives and “hopefully, it will not be life-threatening, but (leadership) is going to require courage and responsibility.”

    At the end of his talk, he announced the winner of the Catholic University of America four-year scholarship, STM senior Brendan Duffy.

    After his address at STM, he went to Pine Ridge Reservation. He was the first cardinal to visit the Jesuit-run school. According to Holy Rosary Mission staff, during his tour, Cardinal McCarrick visited with members of the Red Cloud High School Student Council sharing a meal with the students while discussing concepts important to Lakota youth: poverty, healthcare, law enforcement, and community issues.

    The students also talked to Cardinal McCarrick about their plans after high school. He praised the school’s Lakota language program and told the students, “You all have many gifts to give to society and to the world. Share them, please.”

    Roads were closed in the Rapid City area on April 4. On April 5, plows slowly reopened area routes and the cardinal was able to travel to Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse. At noon, the Palm Sunday Brunch was held as scheduled. Catholic Social Services staff estimated 543 of the 740 ticket holders were able to attend, in spite of drifted and slush-packed roads.

    Cardinal McCarrick opened his address by saying Catholic Social Services is the one of the most important institutions any diocese has, “It is the way we reach out to those who have less than we do.”

    Drawing on the theme song for the event, “Wind Beneath My Wings,” he said, “you may not know that you are heroes and heroines. The bishops around the world and especially in our country, do not get money from governments to do all things we’d like to do.” He explained the donations given to programs like CSS allow the bishops to reach out to the young and old, to the challenged and to those looking for a second chance in life.

   “I know in your diocese you are building this new pastoral center (using the theme) We Walk by Faith. I think faith is so important, it is the key to everything we do,” he said. “You believe in God’s presence in the world. The secret of all the good things you do is faith — the understanding that God loves you allows you to do the things that you want to do.”

    He shared the details of a trip to Malaysia a few months ago where he gave a retreat to the graduate faculty of the theology department at a university for Islamic studies. “I wanted to speak to them on something we have very much in common. I presented the social teachings of the Catholic Church. I spoke about encyclicals (and programs similar to) Catholic Social Services.

   “All day Saturday, I gave them this heavy stuff and the next day, according to the schedule, they came back to me and reflected how the points that I had made to them were also present in the Quran. The wonderful part of it was so many of these teachings are the same in Islam as they are in Catholic social thought, which means they are also present in some way in all the theologies of our Protestant brothers and sisters and within the whole family of Abraham (through) roots in the Old Testament as well.

   “The most important of these teachings is the dignity of the universe and that is what we are all about. Christ is within this concept (as is) the dignity of the human person. Because of that, we are all brothers and sisters in God, one human family. We have to have respect, love and understanding of people all around the world.”

    Returning his focus to the Rapid City area, the cardinal said, “Catholic Social Services is the way in this diocese that you express your love of other people. (This is how) you express this great teaching which is the basis of so much of our theology. Catholics, as people of good will, recognize that every person we meet has a certain dignity.

   “We are one family, that is why we do not say, ‘My father who art in heaven,’ we say, ‘Our father who art in heaven.’ That is the message Jesus gives us in this wonderful prayer – it is the dignity of the human family that makes us want to help our neighbor.”

    As he continued his Palm Sunday address, Cardinal McCarrick said he was in London the previous week where he saw the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, an old friend. “I reminded him that the first time I met him was at the Vatican when he had been invited by Pope John Paul II to a meeting on debt relief for the poor countries.”   

   He continued, “There are nations that cannot escape from poverty; there are tribes that cannot escape from poverty. The statistics tell us that probably one billion people in our world live on less than $1 a day, another two billion live on less than $2 per day. (That is) almost half of the human family.

   “So I was so proud of Gordon Brown when he spoke at a prayer service at St. Paul’s in London. (Not every national leader is interested in the poor) and I said to him afterwards, ‘you have never changed in your desire to help the poor’ and he smiled and said, ‘no.’”

    The cardinal asked the audience to continue helping the poor, locally and around the world. He said the number of people asking for help is increasing due to current economic conditions and more will turn to CSS for help.

    He added, “I remember, and probably you do too, that the first encyclical of Pope Benedict was on charity, “God is Love,” or God is charity, and in that he has a wonderful statement. It talks about the three-legged stool our Catholic life is based on: one is the liturgy – how we approach the Lord; one is the sacraments – how the Lord approaches us. The other is Catholic social teaching and he makes it clear, as did Pope John Paul II before him, that without any one of these we are not the authentic Catholic Church.

   “Be willing to look at all three and say, ‘I’m a Catholic, I’m a Christian, I’m a believer.’ That’s why your bishops and your priests and religious all say, ‘you might not know it, but you are our heroes.’”

    In his conclusion, he said, “I’m very proud of you from what I hear about the good things that you do – you are the wind beneath the wings of so many who are poor. Be sure that in your charity, you thank God for giving you the grace to reach out to your neighbors. Your willingness to share with others is seen by God as one of the great gifts he has given you so that you might give it back to him through the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, and those who have nothing.

   “That is what CSS is all about, that is what the church is all about.”