The Archbishop's Charity Dinner

Ottawa's Catholics packed the cavernous Hampton Park Inn dining hall in the Archbishop's Second Annual Charity Dinner. This year the donations will be shared between the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and the Shepherds of Good Hope.

The 730 spaces were sold out.

Archbishop Terrence Prendergast also gave a timely address that examined elements of Pope Benedict XVI's latest encyclical on the Church's social teaching Caritas in Veritate.

He's posted his remarks on his blog The Journey of a Bishop. Here are a couple of things that stood out to me:

Benoît dit que l’ouverture radicale à la vie que le Pape Paul défend dans Humanae Vitae doit être la source d’inspiration de la doctrine sociale de l’Église, qui a pour but de promouvoir l’épanouissement intégral de la vie commune à tous les plans.

Le Saint-Père clarifie encore davantage ce point lorsqu’il commente que les sociétés qui dés-accentuent la vie, même au point de promouvoir la contraception artificielle et l’avortement, souffrent de difficultés économiques très concrètes.

Pope Paul VI had said that to understand the great concern for the development of peoples, especially those in the Global South, manifested in the late 1960s, one needs to see this process as the world’s response to a call from God.

For God wishes the full human development of every single person on the planet. And this should be the interest and goal of all human efforts towards the eradication of poverty, the alleviation of suffering and concern for the planet.

Every human being includes the unborn child in the womb, in other words. The Archbishop also said this:

Sometimes, we in Canada give the impression we believe all social services ought to be provided by the State and that there ought to be no need for food banks or shelters such at the Shepherds of Good Hope provide. And would that food banks and shelters were not needed! But being engaged and committed to assisting with the work of St. Vincent de Paul, clothing depots and an occasional or ongoing contact with the poor becomes a blessing to us and our fellow volunteers.

In his first encyclical, Deus caritas est (God is love), Pope Benedict pointed out the risk of the state providing everything and soon “absorbing everything into itself” producing “a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person—every person—needs: namely, loving personal concern.

“We do not need a state that regulates and controls everything—he said—but a state that, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need.

"The Church is one of those living forces: She is alive with the love enkindled by the Spirit of Christ. This love does not simply offer people material help, but refreshment and care for their souls, something that often is even more necessary than material support.”

Thank you for being part of this humanizing movement and for allowing yourselves to be touched by the poor in our midst, the friends of our God.

Amen!

I'm not sure who the couple is with the Archbishop, who made a point of greeting as many attendees as he could. But the man shown standing at the table where Archbishop Prendergast is sitting is Canada's beloved Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Luigi Ventura, who is making his last lap of public appearances before taking up a significant posting in France.

We are very blessed to have Archbishop Prendergast in Ottawa! And very blessed to have had Archbishop Ventura serving Canada as a sign of the Holy Father's love over these past eight years.

It's always wonderful to see congruence in the inner lives and outward ministry of our spiritual shepherds. I thank God for them.