Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Since the onset of the pandemic just a year ago, the Bishops of Ohio have worked together during this unprecedented time with the assistance of government and health professionals to lead and protect all those entrusted to our pastoral care.   By the grace of God and the painstaking efforts by so many to follow Covid- 19 protocols, coupled with the expanding availability of vaccines, we are making progress in our fight against this deadly scourge.  What a blessing it will be for us to be in person in our churches this year to celebrate the Paschal Mystery, culminating in the Resurrection of Jesus on Easter Sunday.

In our shared hope of eradicating this virus and encouraging ongoing return of the faithful to Holy Mass and the Sacraments each week, you are invited to continue to follow all the essential protocols of hand sanitizing, wearing masks and social distancing.  These efforts are working to the point that we are in a much more hopeful place than we were even a few months ago.

At the same time, you are encouraged to receive a vaccine.  To reiterate the teaching of the Church with regard to the vaccine options: if you have the opportunity to choose a vaccine, you should choose Pfizer or Moderna.  While the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is made from cell lines originating from an aborted human fetus, it should be taken only if it is the only option available.

As we move toward herd immunity, notwithstanding a spike in the virus, it is our sincere hope that soon we can return to the regular celebration of Mass with full capacity in our churches, and thus lift the dispensation of the obligation to attend Sunday Mass. We are advised that parish festivals likely can take place this summer, preferably outdoors, following the necessary protocols.  Nevertheless, we all need to remain vigilant.

We look forward with eager longing to when we can all be together around the altar of the Lord without any restrictions.  In the meantime, let us continue to do all that we need to do to overcome the virus, and rely upon the guidance of government and health officials so that we can return to some sense of normal.

Have a blessed Holy Week!

Sincerely in Christ,

 

The Most Rev. Dennis M. Schnurr

Archdiocese of Cincinnati

 

The Most Rev. David J. Bonnar

Diocese of Youngstown

The Most Rev. Robert J. Brennan

Diocese of Columbus

The Most Rev. Daniel E. Thomas

Diocese of Toledo

The Most Rev. Bohdan J. Danylo

Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of

St. Josaphat in Parma

The Most Rev. Edward C. Malesic

Diocese of Cleveland

The Most Rev. Jeffrey M. Monforton

Diocese of Steubenville

The Most Rev. John Michael Botean

St. George Byzantine Catholic Diocese

 

 

Archbishop Dennis M. Schnurr

The comfortable illusion that the turn of a calendar page makes everything new again was shattered for Americans in early January. After a year marked by a global pandemic, civil disruption and millions of lost jobs, 2021 began with an appalling, deadly riot at the seat of our national government.

Our country is wounded and its citizens are hurting. It is only natural at a time like this that we look to our civic leaders to make things right. In his new encyclical, Fratelli tutti (“All Brothers and Sisters”), Pope Francis recognizes the crucial role of politics in democratic societies.

“It is true that religious ministers must not engage in the party politics that are the proper domain of the laity,” he writes, “but neither can they renounce the political dimension of life itself, which involves a constant attention to the common good and a concern for integral human development” (FT 276). He calls for “a better kind of politics, one truly at the service of the common good” and laments that “Sadly, politics today often takes forms that hinder progress towards a different world” (FT 154).

Indeed, a bi-partisan incivility has marred political discussion in the U.S. for many years now and has only escalated. It is easy to say politicians are responsible because so many of them have led by bad example. However, politicians are not known for doing what is unpopular or likely to lose them votes. The hateful rhetoric members of both parties direct at their opponents is as much a symptom of the national mood as it is a cause.

We are a very divided country. And from where does all division ultimately come? Pope Francis reminds us in a reflection on the Lord’s Prayer. He writes: “We all know that the devil is ‘nettlesome,’ the one who always tries to divide persons, families, nations and peoples.” It is Satan who divides, while God unites.

The basis of unity among people who disagree – even over such important issues as religion, morality and the proper role of government – is our common humanity: We are all created in the same divine image. Based on that, the life and dignity of the human person is the foundational principle of Catholic social justice teaching from which all others follow. The toxic political environment in our country is a violation of that principle.

As Catholics, part of our responsibility as faithful citizens of our country is to hold our elected leaders accountable for displaying civility, decency and integrity, in addition to providing for the common good. At the same time, we need to display those traits in our own behavior.

As Catholics, part of our responsibility as faithful citizens of our country is to hold our elected leaders accountable for displaying civility, decency and integrity, in addition to providing for the common good. At the same time, we need to display those traits in our own behavior.

As Catholics, part of our responsibility as faithful citizens of our country is to hold our elected leaders accountable for displaying civility, decency and integrity, in addition to providing for the common good. At the same time, we need to display those traits in our own behavior.

As Catholics, part of our responsibility as faithful citizens of our country is to hold our elected leaders accountable for displaying civility, decency and integrity, in addition to providing for the common good. At the same time, we need to display those traits in our own behavior.

“In order to communicate the message entrusted to her by Christ, the Church needs art,” St. Pope John Paul II writes in his Letter to Artists, issued on Easter Sunday, 1999. As you will read in this issue of The Catholic Telegraph, art and beauty have a unique power to evangelize.

An actor, playwright and poet, St. John Paul II takes a broad view of what he calls “the divine spark which is the artistic vocation.” He remarkably says that “all men and women are entrusted with the task of creating their own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece.”

In the earliest days of the Church, artists evoked Christ with symbolic images of fish, loaves, bread and the lamb. Art became more representational in the catacombs of Rome, often illustrating Jesus the Good Shepherd, as well as scenes from the Old and New Testaments. In the centuries since, St. John Paul II writes, “the biblical text has fired the imagination of painters, poets, musicians, playwrights and film-makers.”

The Bible itself is a literary masterwork, an entire library representing a whole panoply of literary genres – including poetry, songs, history and letters – in one volume. While that library was closed to all but the most educated for many centuries, visual art was not. As St. John Paul II notes, “in times when few could read or write, [artistic] representations of the Bible were a concrete mode of catechesis.”

Catechesis-by-art took place primarily in churches. Not only do stained-glass windows, statues and stations of the cross tell stories of our faith, now as then, so does the magnificent architecture of churches built from the time of Emperor Constantine in the 4th Century onward.  The striking architecture of many of our churches draws worshippers closer to God through its beauty.

Sacred music also draws us closer to God. Hymns have always been a part of Christian worship. “The faith of countless believers has been nourished by melodies flowing from the hearts of other believers,” writes St. John Paul II, “either introduced into the liturgy or used as an aid to dignified worship. In song, faith is experienced as vibrant joy, love and confident expectation of the saving intervention of God.”

Together, music, architecture and representational art (paintings, statues, stained glass) help immerse and evangelize the faithful who are present in a church for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

And thanks to technology, those who are unable to fully participate in Mass in person can watch it from home. Now many of our parishes livestream services, providing the opportunity for spiritual communion. We were blessed to have this option when our parishes were closed because of the pandemic.

However, watching the Eucharistic celebration online or on television is not the same as participating in what Vatican II calls “the source and summit of the whole Christian life” (LG 11). Now that our churches have reopened with strong health safety protocols in place, I urge all Catholics who are not at particular risk for the coronavirus to return to weekly participation in Mass during the upcoming season of Lent – if you have not already done so.

May the 40 days of Lenten penitential waiting remind us that Christ is always with us in our suffering and prepare us for the joy of Easter.

As we prepare for the celebration of the bicentennial of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati later this year, National Catholic Schools Week – Jan. 31 through Feb. 6 – offers an opportunity to reflect with gratitude upon the importance and success of Catholic education in the 19 counties of our local Church over the past two centuries.

Our visionary founding bishop, Most Rev. Edward D. Fenwick, took seriously his responsibility to educate his flock, preparing them for life both in this world and the next, and informing them about current events from the perspective of the Church. He therefore oversaw with apostolic vigor the founding of Cincinnati’s first Catholic school in 1825, a seminary in 1829 and The Catholic Telegraph in 1831.

That first school of 25 female students and two teachers has grown into our archdiocesan network of 107 Catholic schools with nearly 40,000 students from grades pre-K through high school and more than 1,600 teachers. Only a handful of other dioceses in the U.S. have more students in Catholic schools. While we celebrate this achievement, we also laud the more than 20,000 additional Catholic students in the archdiocese who receive instruction in the faith through parish schools of religion.

The Catholic schools in our archdiocese vary in many ways. There are elementary and high schools; co-ed, all girls and all boys schools; urban, suburban and rural schools; schools owned by parishes, the archdiocese, private boards and religious orders. What these excellent institutions have in common is their commitment to the holistic education and spiritual growth of each student so that graduates radiate the light of Christ, leading lives of virtue and helping to build a better and less divisive world.

This formation takes place in a community atmosphere that is welcoming and compassionate, as well as academically demanding. Our teacher-ministers model the faith to their students not just in the classroom, but in the entire Catholic school experience, including what happens in the hallways, in the cafeterias and on the playing fields. For this reason, I am pleased and impressed with the commitment of our school leaders and faculties to in-person learning during the ongoing pandemic, following the guidance of our Catholic Schools Office. Their dedication to their students is an inspiration.

Local and national Catholic schools have overcome many other challenges over the past two centuries. Even in the best of times, operating a school is a complex matter with many human and financial variables. The great legacy of Catholic education that we have in this archdiocese would not have been possible without the commitment and sacrifices of parents, volunteers, teacher-ministers, administrators, staff members, parishioners and religious orders over many generations. As archbishop, I am deeply grateful to all of them.

To radiate Christ means to witness Christ, not just to talk about Christ. Our Catholic school students know that, and they show it in the tens of thousands of volunteer hours that they collectively perform every year. In doing so they defend the life and dignity of the human person, which is the first principle of Catholic social justice. Just one example is the many school pro-life clubs that assist the work of pregnancy centers across the archdiocese.

Another form of witness is undertaken by the busloads of our students who have attended the March for Life in Washington each year to demonstrate their opposition to the unjust abortion regime imposed by the Supreme Court in its notorious Roe v. Wade decision of Jan. 22, 1973.  I am proud of our students who have made this arduous trip.

COVID-19 will change our schools’ participation in the March for Life, as it has changed so much. Our Catholic schools, however, have not changed in what is most important: the mission they have pursued since Bishop Fenwick opened the first Catholic school only three years after the foundation of the Diocese of Cincinnati. Let us all celebrate Catholic Schools Week!