Hello and welcome!
My August began with a trip to Mexico for the Capuchin friars’ annual retreat, which took place from August 3rd to the 9th.
We have two Capuchin provinces in Mexico, what we call Custodies. One is connected to the province in California, and the other has been associated with the Capuchins from Spain, and that’s the one I went to.
When I arrived, I first went to the parish in Las Aguilas, a neighborhood in Mexico City.
That first weekend, Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes invited me to celebrate the noon Mass at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I was accompanied by a very close friend of mine, an auxiliary bishop in Mexico named Javier Acero.
The Mass was televised, so I have the YouTube link that I’d like to share with you.
In Mexico City, I was very interested to see these gondolas. It turns out, they are not a tourist attraction, but a form of public transportation. The congestion in Mexico City is so horrendous that it can take you hours to get from one side of the city to the other. So, they have developed these gondolas to bring you over it instead of trying to go through it!
I asked the bishop if they get stuck sometimes, and he said, “Well, they’re getting the bugs out!”
After the weekend, we drove out to the retreat house that the Capuchin friars have in a very rural part of the state of Puebla. Now, I had thought that I was going to be in the city of Puebla, where in 1979, as a young priest, I was sent to the Puebla Conference as the priest-secretary and translator for the president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, Archbishop John Quinn. Archbishop Quinn did not speak Spanish, so I was recruited to go with him. Of course, I was thrilled because it was Pope St. John Paul II’s first trip after his election as pope. Also, my sister was living in Mexico at the time, so that was another reason I was so happy to be able to go.
There’s been great tension between Church and State since the revolution in Mexico, with times of terrible, bloody persecution of the Church. There were many martyrs and many anti-clerical laws passed that resulted in priests and religious not being allowed to vote, own property or wear clerical garb in public, and many things like that. So the Holy Father’s visit there was just an extraordinary event.
When he landed in Mexico City, they rang all of the church bells in the country. And in Puebla, there’s something like 300 churches, so it was just deafening!
The Holy Father asked to have an open car. So, he was standing in a convertible as they drove him from Mexico City to Puebla, which is about a 2-hour trip ordinarily. But the crowd extended the whole way, and people had slept on the road overnight to have a spot. It reminded me of the early Christians putting people by the side of the road so that Peter’s shadow would touch them. And when he arrived in Puebla, he got out of the car, walked across the soccer field, put on his vestments, and celebrated the Mass.
I still remember the beautiful homily that he gave, which was addressed to all the bishops of Latin America, saying that the Church must teach the truth about the human person, the truth about Christ, and the truth about the Church. It was just an extraordinary reflection.
And then the meetings were held in the seminary, which is named for a bishop of Puebla, Juan de Palafox y Mendoza. It was so fascinating to be at this assembly of all of these famous prelates from the Hispanic world. It was the first time that I met Monseñor Oscar Romero, Father Pedro Arrupe and just so many extraordinary churchmen. So, going back to the state of Puebla was exciting, even though I didn’t get to the city itself.
The Capuchins’ Casa de Oracion is built on the slopes of a snow-covered volcano in a very isolated area with very little telephone service and no internet.
The monastery was surrounded by farms and many pear orchards. (I never saw so many pear trees in my life!)
Most of the friars were Mexican, but some of the older men were Basques and had been friends with Father Ignacio Larranaga, a very close friend of mine who was part of that province.
So, it was a wonderful week to be with the friars there and to see their enthusiasm and their prayerfulness.
The only small hiccup was the food. Don’t get me wrong, I love Mexican food, but having chilaquiles and enchiladas for breakfast was a new experience. And one of the treats that the friars offered me was fried grasshoppers. It was very kind of them to offer, but I told them I was waiting for the wild honey!
At the conclusion of the retreat, we returned to Las Aguilas, where Bishop Acero took me to an exhibit held at the Museo Memoria y Tolerencia (the Museum of Memory and Tolerence) in Mexico City. It was an exhibition on human trafficking, especially the trafficking of children.
Of course, the whole exhibit is in Spanish. So, I’m only sharing a small sampling of the different displays, but it was very thorough and they went through different areas where this trafficking and abuse take place.
And one of the things that they’ve done in Mexico is to go around to all of the hotels and airlines to make sure that they have policies about children who are accompanied by adults to make sure they are with their parents or caregivers and not kidnappers. This is a problem, of course, that the Holy Father’s Commission for the Protection of Minors is concerned with, and many of the different offices in the Vatican have tried to address this problem. But this was an extraordinary exhibit, so I was happy to be able to go with Bishop Javier to see it.
After that, I returned home.
Then, from August 10th to the 13th, we had a meeting at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross with the leadership of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors: the new president, Archbishop Thibault Verny; the secretary, Bishop Luis Manuel Ali Herrera; and the adjunct secretary, Teresa Kettelcamp.
They wanted to have sort of a final briefing with me to talk about where the commission has been and what some of the plans for the future are. Since Bishop Ali and Teresa were both visiting the Boston area in August, it made it very convenient to host it at the cathedral.
We had a wonderful meeting, and I feel very good about the fine team that is in charge of the commission. I know that they will serve the Holy Father very well, and I let them know that I am available to help them in any way I can.
The month also brought the sad news of the passing of my cousin, Barbara O’Malley Hinterkopf, who was the first one of our generation of cousins to pass away.
On August 16th, we had a memorial Mass for her. She died at her house in Montana, so they had the burial there. But, since she had lived her whole life in Miami and much of her family was there, they wanted to have the principal Mass in Miami. She’s from a large family — one of nine children — and has also always been very involved in a lot of philanthropy and served on the boards of different non-profits, so there was a huge crowd.
I had the Mass, and my cousin, Deacon Rob O’Malley, who teaches at Belen, the Jesuit High School in Miami, preached. It was a sad occasion, but she was a person of great faith, and we pray for the consolation of her husband and her children.
On August 20th, I had lunch with Pat Dinneen, who has been so involved with the Social Justice Ministry in the archdiocese and with Catholic Relief Services.
She’s been very active on the CRS board, so it was good to catch up with her.
Then, on August 24th, I celebrated a Mass with the nine Sister Disciples of the Divine Master who work with us at the Pastoral Center, Regina Cleri, West Street and at the cathedral.
The Mass was to be an occasion to welcome their new Mother General on her first trip to Boston. Unfortunately, something came up and she wasn’t able to make the trip, but we went ahead with it anyway because, of course, they were going to go to Mass on Sunday anyway, whether the Mother General was here or not.
It reminded me of a time we had a Mass for Mother Teresa at St. Patrick’s in New York, and Cardinal O’Connor, who was such a character, was preaching. He said, “Mother, look at all of your sisters who are here. This is amazing! They never come to Mass unless you’re in town!”
Finally, I must say something about the recent tragic shooting at Annunciation Church and School in Minneapolis. It is with great sadness that we once again see a senseless act of violence and, in this case, one that is particularly heinous for having taken place at a Catholic school and during the celebration of Mass. Indeed, I understand this is the first time a shooting of this kind has taken place in a Catholic school, which makes it all the more shocking.
As I have many times in the past, I urge our nation to work for reasonable and effective policies that prevent access to deadly firearms by the general public. As the Holy Father said in his Angelus address on August 31st: “Let us plead God to stop the pandemic of arms, large and small, which infects our world. May our Mother Mary, the Queen of Peace, help us to fulfil the prophecy of Isaiah: ‘They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks.’”
At the same time, let us continue to pray for the victims, students, teachers, parishioners and all those who were affected, and particularly for the families who have experienced the tremendous loss of a child. We ask the Lord to heal all who were injured and to bring comfort to all who are grieving.
Until next time,
Cardinal Seán