Bishop DiNardo extends Christmas greetings

December 18, 2003

Dear Friends in Christ,

By some stroke of God's providence, I recently came across a poem about the Holy Father written by a man from San Francisco whose name is Philip Lamantia. One section is worth quoting:

"Now after so many changes so many revolutions so many end worlds poetry itself pronounced dead in these disunited states while you, head of the quantitatively greatest of world's religions, travel this world as its supreme nonconformist announcing humanity's ultimate terrestrial hope 'the civilization of love' silently gathering a serene somehow possible/impossible miracle to overcome the 'culture of death.'"

The entire poem is written as a stream of thought. There is no "period" or point of punctuation to indicate a complete sentence. The entire poem is open-ended on the Holy Father and his mission. But the poem is quite clear on the remarkable mission of this great pope, whose 25th anniversary of election we have just celebrated in October. Against a world of "pseudo-paradises" and "garbage chemistry" as the poem subsequently states, Pope John Paul II, in love with the world as its supreme non-conformist, keeps proclaiming a "civilization of love." He did not invent this. He proclaims the great event of the world as the coming of Jesus Christ, his birth, his life, his teaching, his death and resurrection, and offers anew Christ to the world as its Savior, its origin, and its goal.

The Holy Father proclaims and lives this truth in remarkable and sometimes startling ways. But the truth is not his as though it were a possession or something "nice" he dreamed. It is the truth revealed and made known through Sacred Scripture, church life and teaching, and the witness of a people for over two-thousand years. The pope's "civilization of love" is a current application, a needed application, of what is always Christ's enduring presence.

The civilization of love dawned on the first Christmas. In the manger, "heaven and earth in little space" was contained; the uncontainable was made flesh in a small baby. Perhaps one of the major points of all revelation, Scripture and church teaching, is that God works wondrous things in ways that are surprising, even ordinary. God's plan of love is very much "on-line" all the time but it does not need the spectacular to do spectacular things. The birth of Jesus Christ is the model here.

The Holy Father, as well as the rest of us, can be serene and be gathered into the miracle of God's grace to save the world because the civilization of love was, first of all, already worked out by God in sending his son. The Holy Father keeps calling us all to holiness and witness because the spectacular has already been accomplished in principle: the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. We are now to dwell with and in him, each one of us. And our ordinary but really spectacular task is to bring one and all, civilization itself, to the manger.

In recent months I have heard from a number of people, both Catholic and non-Catholic, about their respect for the Holy Father and his past good work and leadership. But they then launch into the present and his frailty. Perhaps, they imply, he is past his prime. They look into speculative glass balls and speak of the next pope. They talk of "future-church" and various political models to renew the church. They say that the pope or the church "doesn't get it."

I would like to respond to such thinking. In short, I would like to respond: "No, You don't get it." But I am too timid. But now I shall be blunt. The pope is indeed the world's supreme non-conformist because he loves the world. The general analyses of human life in our culture today do not cut deeply enough. These analyses have dimmed the lights about our origin and goal. Left then with a plot-less story line about who we really are, the human soul cut away, such analyses make do with limited, usually this-world only reflections. Reduced to biology and chemistry, the human person is then read as a system of glandular urges, all needing satisfied or fixed. If that is impossible, then euthanize! And beware if you are in the womb, disabled, poor, elderly or non-productive!

The Holy Father is letting the whole world see that he is frail! He wants to let that be seen. The Word Was Made Flesh for us. Each human person is of inestimable worth. When someone is weak or infirm, we support them.

The babble of the culture of death is about a very limited understanding of efficiency and utility. Efficiency has its merits, but when pushed as a supreme principle, it is murderous. The Holy Father is trying to tell the world this important point very vividly, in his very bodiliness, which is obviously diminished. But the human person is not diminished.

The human person is not reducible to just biology, chemistry and physics. The human person is meant for Christ, the one who is our brother and our Lord. His birthday in the flesh is the source for our rebirth. The spectacular has become ordinary. The civilization of love is already here. Embrace it!

It is my hope that as we celebrate Christmas this year, we will pray not only for family and friends, but also for the whole world, and especially for our Holy Father. Let us celebrate Christmas and the pope's 25th anniversary by doing something "subversive." Let us become supreme non-conformists to the secular culture's dictates about the human person. Let us make our resistance by trampling down anything that diminishes respect for the human person.

In ordinary ways, let us be spectacular by making known our support for the unborn, the poor, the unemployed, the disabled, the elderly, the dying, the just and the unjust, the saint and the sinner.

A Blessed Christmas!

Most Rev. Daniel N. DiNardo
Bishop of Sioux City