Many people don’t know that the Catholic Church is the most diverse organization in the world, said Bishop Andrew Cozzens of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, which alone is home to more than 800,000 Catholics celebrating Mass regularly in 11 languages. Members of the Church in the archdiocese and around the globe come from almost every culture and, certainly, every continent, he said.
“They’ve come from various countries from around the world, and they have their own deeply beautiful Catholic culture,” Bishop Cozzens said.
At the Mass of Solidarity Sept. 26 at the Cathedral of St. Paul, Bishop Cozzens said the archdiocese celebrates the universality of the Catholic Church “and that God has this house, which involves so many beautiful rooms of the different cultures.”
Archbishop Bernard Hebda will celebrate the Mass of Solidarity 3 p.m. Sept. 26 at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul. A cultural celebration begins at 2:30 p.m. The Mass takes place on the 105th World Day of Migrants and Refugees.
Bishop Cozzens said the beauty is that Catholics can gather around the Eucharist, the gift of Jesus that unites everyone. The Church lives, as one of the Church Fathers said, like the soul within the body of the world, he said. “And so, at the Mass of Solidarity, we celebrate that every culture is made one with Christ,” he said.
Bishop Cozzens recently joined “Practicing Catholic” radio show host Patrick Conley to describe the Mass of Solidarity. He also offered a Catholic context to welcoming refugees.
Asked what the Church believes about welcoming refugees, Bishop Cozzens said it is an important area of teaching — and a difficult area, because with immigration, “we’re always balancing different goods,” he said.
The first good is balancing the good of one’s own country, he said. “We have a country with a culture and a way of being,” Bishop Cozzens said, “and we have a right to be able to allow that culture and way of being to go forward” and for that good to be protected.
“The Church has never been in favor, for example, of not having borders, or that we shouldn’t have a kind of national identity, or that we shouldn’t have immigration policies or that sort of thing,” Bishop Cozzens said. “And that good has to be balanced on the other side with ‘people have a right to migrate,’ and sometimes they even have to do it in order to be able to save their lives.”
He referred to a verse in chapter 25 of the Gospel of Matthew, “Whatever you did to the least, you did to me.”
“Many times, we have to recognize that we might have to sacrifice our own good, something that’s a legitimate good, for the sake of helping the least … that when the least is at our borders or on our doorstep, we have to find concrete ways to help them,” Bishop Cozzens said.
No one chooses where he or she is born, the bishop said, and the United States is a country of immigrants. “Balancing that good of protecting our society and our culture, with welcoming the stranger, which is the Lord’s command to us, is that important balance that government leaders have to always try to figure out,” Bishop Cozzens said.
People have a right to live in safety, have a family and obtain good work, Bishop Cozzens said. “If they can’t find these places where they are living, then they have a right to migrate,” he said. “In order to protect human life, which is always one of the highest goods, we have to do that. And that’s why sometimes we will accept people who are quite different from us and have a very different vision of culture.
“Again, we want to do that in a way that reverences our own culture and doesn’t allow that to be destroyed,” he said. “But we have to be willing to accept people, especially for the sake of their lives.” One recent of example of this, Bishop Cozzens said, is people fleeing from Taliban control of Afghanistan.
To learn more about the Mass of Solidarity, visit archspm.org/events. To hear the full interview with Bishop Cozzens, listen to this episode of the “Practicing Catholic” radio show. It airs at 9 p.m. Sept. 24, 1 p.m. Sept 25 and 2 p.m. Sept. 26 on Relevant Radio 1330 AM.
Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the latest show also includes interviews with Sergio Barrera, a Marine veteran who served in Afghanistan, who shares his faith journey there, and Father Tom Margevicius, director of worship for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, who provides details on this year’s annual rosary procession.
Listen to all of the interviews after they have aired at:
soundcloud.com/PracticingCatholic
tinyurl.com/PracticingCatholic (Spotify)
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