Unity doesn't mean artificial harmony
NOTRE DAME, Ind. (CNS) – Unlike efforts at national unity in the United States, Church unity does not depend on “bringing people’s diversity into something of an artificial harmony that seeks to minimize the uniqueness and distinctiveness of people,” Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Atlanta said May 7 at a national meeting on cultural diversity.
“The Catholic Church on the contrary focuses upon what we all share in common, which is our faith and our oneness in Christ,” the archbishop said in his homily at a Mass for participants in the Catholic Cultural Diversity Network Convocation.
“To be a Catholic, one need not abandon one’s individuality,” he added. “In fact, the Catholic Church is more perfectly herself when all of her children display that rich diversity that God has fashioned into the very heart of humanity. We are most Catholic when we reflect our oneness of faith and worship that is achieved in response to our rich mixture of human variety through the grace of the Holy Spirit.”
Speaking in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on the campus of the University of Notre Dame, Archbishop Gregory said that because both the Church and the United States are made up of “so many people of different races and cultures, each representing various economic conditions, diverse sociological categories and ethnic groups,” some are tempted to “draw too close a parallel of our national political struggle for unity in this great country with the challenges that have always faced our Catholic Church.”
But the Church is “far older and much richer in diversity and variety of people,” he said.
“Because in spite of some obvious similarities there are huge differences between the unity that we struggle to maintain as a nation and the oneness that is the heritage and indeed a mark of the Catholic Church,” Archbishop Gregory said.
He cited “the current conflicts and wrangling around the question of immigration” as an unfortunate example of struggles experienced in the United States on national identity and unity.
But Archbishop Gregory said the stories of the early Christian church contained in the Acts of the Apostles show how “the Holy Spirit inspired those first Christians to see beyond the limits of their own ethnicity and religious backgrounds and religious backgrounds and comfort zones to bring Christ to the entire world.”
The New Testament book “does not conceal the fact that bringing together people from diverse backgrounds was and remains a challenge and sometimes misunderstandings did and continue to occur,” he said. “Yet it was always the presence and grace of the Holy Spirit that led the church to welcome those new members accommodating their uniqueness as they were incorporated into Christ Jesus.”
He called the May 6-8 convocation “the latest chapter in a long history of reminding all of the members of the church that we all belong to Christ and in him we belong to one another through the grace of the Holy Spirit.”
“We need not, indeed we must not neglect our individuality and the uniqueness of our heritages,” Archbishop Gregory said. “Yet these differences must never be barriers that separate us from Christ or one another.”
From May 14, 2010 issue of Catholic San Francisco.
