Callista and I attended the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., three times this past Holy Week.
The Basilica is the largest Catholic Church in America – and one of the 10 largest churches in the world. It seats more than 3,500 people, and on Easter Sunday it was standing room only.
While watching people receive communion, I was struck by the extraordinary diversity of people at the Basilica. On every one of the three days, the variety of dress and ethnicities was a tribute to the fact that the Roman Catholic Church is truly universal.
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As the Basilica points out on its website, with more than 80 chapels and oratories, the diversity of the Catholic faith around the world is well represented:
“Among the nationalities and ethnicities represented throughout the Basilica are African, Austrian, Chinese, Cuban, Czech, Filipino, French, German, Guamanian, Hungarian, Indian, Irish, Italian, Korean, Latin American, Lebanese, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Slovak, Slovenian, and Vietnamese.”
The late Pope Francis’s emphasis on helping and loving everyone dramatically furthered the attractiveness and growth of the Catholic Church. In Africa and South Asia especially, there has been a dramatic increase in those who adopt Catholicism. This was reflected during Easter Week at the Basilica.
When Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio chose Francis as his papal name in 2013, it was a clear signal of commitment to a papacy focused on and dedicated to serving the poor. Just like Saint Francis of Assisi, Pope Francis was determined to rekindle the spirit of Christ’s passion to help the less fortunate, downtrodden, and marginalized. Just last Thursday, deeply ailing and only four days from his death, Pope Francis went to Regina Caeli, Rome’s central prison, to meet with 70 inmates. He washed the feet of 12 of them in the tradition of Christ washing the feet of the Apostles. Pope Francis’s commitment to reach out to everyone was a powerful signal of caring and inclusion that opened the doors of the Church to those in spiritual and physical need across the entire planet.
This openness to everyone was on display at the Basilica last week.
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I have long been haunted by something Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. asserted in his great Aug. 28, 1963, “I have a Dream Speech” at the Lincoln Memorial. He said, “I think it is one of the tragedies –– one of the shameful tragedies –– that 11 o’clock on Sunday morning is one of the most segregated hours, if not the most segregated hour, in Christian America.”
Rev. King gave us a powerful test for moving beyond the baseline of legal desegregation toward a genuinely integrated society for all Americans. I think Rev. King and Pope Francis would have been proud of the unity, sincerity, and friendliness I witnessed at the Basilica last week.
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It may now be that the most united hour in America happens at the Basilica and other great churches. When Callista and I attended Mass at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, we had the same sense of people from every background coming together to worship in a community of faith.
We experienced the same sense of universality for the three and a half years Callista served as U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See. With the second-largest diplomatic representation of any country in the world (next to Washington, D.C.) sitting in the diplomatic corps for Christmas Eve Mass at Saint Peter’s Basilica reminded us how diverse the world is – and how much that diversity is captured in the Catholic Church.
Despite his worsening health challenges, Pope Francis visited countries such as Mongolia and Timor-Leste. He continued the tradition of constant outreach that Saint Pope John Paul II pioneered. It is now routine to take the papacy far beyond the Vatican’s walls.
We must continue to reach out to every person of every background. Together we can seek salvation through faith at the heart of the Christian tradition. This would be a fitting tribute to the memory of Pope Francis.