James Cardinal Gibbons was in all respects a man of his times, beloved by Protestant and Jewish leaders, as well as Catholic.
He was a friend of President Taft, of President Cleveland, and of President Theodore Roosevelt, all of whom visited him in Baltimore. He was man as much at home with ordinary lay people as with clerical friends, even with the Pope who called him Gibbons.
But Gibbons was also a man very far ahead of his times.
Fifty years before Pope John XXIII called for an aggiornamento, Cardinal Gibbons was practicing the principles of aggiornamento here at home.
In the secular world, Cardinal Gibbons stood for freedom of’ the individual, for civil liberty, for the separation of church and state, for the rights of labor unions (even before there were labor unions), for the U.S. Constitution as an instrument of peaceful change, for the participation of all the people in their government.
More than 80 years ago he gave his first sermon as a Cardinal in Rome. And he shocked some of the Romans by devoting that first sermon to the subject: “The American Catholic Church’s Commitment and Indebtedness to the Civil Liberty we Enjoy in our Enlightened Republic.”
This was a bombshell in Rome where the Pope was still a “Prisoner in the Vatican”, where most of the curia stall thought in terms of monarch’s and emperors, where the democratic rights of common men and civil liberty were still considered revolutionary ideas, -- even suspect ones Cardinal Gibbons in his very first sermon in Rome said: --
“Our nation is strong and her strength lies, under providence, in the majesty and supremacy of the law, on the loyalty of her citizens to that law, and in the affection of our people for their free institutions. There are indeed, grave social problems which are engaging the earnest attention of the citizens of the United States. But I have no doubt that, with God’s blessings, these problems will be solved without violence, or revolution, or injury to individual rights.”
He meant every word. When President Cleveland asked Cardinal Gibbons his advice on what kind of “token of respect”, the President could send to Pope Leo XIII on the golden jubilee of his priesthood, the Cardinal advised the President to send the Pope a copy of the United States Constitution.
And this devotion to the Constitution and its principles remained a recurrent theme in all his thinking. Take for instance these words written in 1909:
“American Catholics rejoice in our separation of church and state.” “And I can conceive of no combination of circumstances likely to arise which should make a union desirable either to church or state... we thank God we live in America, ‘in this happy country of ours,’ to quote Mr. Roosevelt where ‘religion and liberty are natural allies.’”
The Vatican Council has now affirmed many of Cardinal Gibbons’ specific ideas, and all of Cardinal Gibbons’ approach to problems and to people and the extraordinary fact remains that before Pope John XXIII was born, the Cardinal was living in today’s, new Ecumenical World.
And that is a second main theme of his life: An ecumenical search for human unity, for a brotherhood that would respect diversity.
When some German-American Catholics were trying to maintain complete separation from other Americans by using the German language constantly, preserving all their German customs, clothes, and attitudes, Cardinal Gibbons went to Milwaukee preach for integration:
“Woe to him who would breed dissension among the leaders of Israel by, introducing a spirit of nationalism into the camps of the Lord’ Brothers we are, whatever may be our nationality, and brothers we shall remain...” /but/ “We will prove to our countrymen that the ties formed by grace and faith are stronger than flesh and blood.”
Moreover, he practiced what he preached. During World War I, he went back to Milwaukee to defend those same German-Americans from the super patriots who suspected every German-American of being a spy for the Kaiser.
“We must prove that we are the friends of the working classes,” (and in those days the phrase, “the working classes,” was synonymous with the poor.
In many other ways he remained true to his ecumenical position:
-- by endorsing Catholic participation in the world parliament of religions.
-- and later, by supporting United States participation in the League of Nations.
But, even Cardinal Gibbons’ high standard would have been satisfied had he known of a program now going on in San Antonio, Texas. As part of the war against poverty, a Jewish Synagogue has rented a hall to a Lutheran Church group to conduct pre-school classes for kids from Catholic areas.
A third great interest of the Cardinal’s -- well-known to this audience --was education, and especially the Catholic University of America. From the day he laid the cornerstone in 1888 to the end of his life he labored for it, and loved it. He saw it as an institution that would inform and inspire young men to pursue all the higher purposes of life, both secular and religious. This University was the institute that he’ hoped would prepare students to participate effectively as citizens of the United States, and as citizens of the World.
He wanted Catholics qualified to take part in everything social, economic, political. He wanted them out of their ghettos and into the life of the community. He, himself was a participant in everything and he wanted Catholics to participate with him, and with their fellow citizens of all denominations.
And from this central preoccupation with participation came his fourth great concern: A concern for the poor -- for their right to participate in American life, to organize and share both in its blessings and in its obligations.
He fought to keep the Church’s hierarchy from condemning the Knights of Labor, from condemning the books of Henry George, from isolating itself from the poor. These are his words:
“To lose the heart of the people would be a misfortune for which the friendship of the few rich and powerful would be no compensation.” That’s what he wrote in a formal memorial to the Vatican in 1887. And he went on:--
“We must prove that we are the friends of the working classes,” (and in those days the phrase, “the working classes,” was synonymous with the poor.)
“They commit excesses now and then. Let us correct them, but they have also real grievances. Let us help them to redress them.”
Those words could well serve, with only slight amendation as the philosophy of the Peace Corps and of the war vs. poverty. Let me repeat them: --
“To lose the heart of the people would be a misfortune for which the friendship of the few rich and powerful would be no compensation.”
We must prove that we are the friends of the working classes. They commit excesses now and then. Let us correct them, but they have also real grievances. Let us help them to redress them.
In 46 different countries, thousands upon thousands of Peace Corps Volunteers are at once living this philosophy and spreading it to individuals, to communities, to nations and to the world.
Their mission: to enable the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America -- to participate fully in the 20th Century.
Here at home the war on poverty is designed to enable all the American people, especially the poor, to participate in the progress of this country.
Like the “working classes” in the 1880’s and 1890’s, the poor today “have real grievances.” “They commit excesses now and then.’ Let us correct them, but they have also real grievances. Let us help them to redress them.”
Thus, the war against poverty can be looked upon as just the latest extension of the basic American tradition that Cardinal Gibbons championed.
The original settlers in the 13 colonies wanted the freedom to participate in determining their own affairs -- their own destiny. That’s what they meant in the 1770’s by the cry: “Taxation without representation is tyranny.”
Today, on every side we see expansion of that slogan! Welfare without representation is tyranny. Education, housing, counseling, “handouts”, without representation, without a chance to be heard -- that is tyranny, too.
To use a slang phrase. ...."everybody wants a piece of the action.”
A world-wide “revolution” is upon us. It is a “participation revolution.” Examples are all around us: At an educational institution as conservative as Yale University, we witness the unprecedented action of the administration which last month decided to give students a vote in faculty tenure appointments.
(When I was a student there; we couldn’t even get them to improve the food in freshman commons.)
In Oregon, the state legislature voted $250,000 for awards to professors for excellence in teaching --but no school can participate unless, and I quote –
“students shall be involved in either the nomination or the selection of grant winners.”
At Cornell, at CCNY, Queens College, Amherst and others -- the same desire for participation is being heard, and heeded.
The war on poverty, too, is starting new kinds of participation.
The basic law establishing our office of economic opportunity requires the maximum feasible involvement of the residents of the areas to be served, and we interpret that requirement to mean the right to participate, and even the right to make mistakes.
As a result, across the nation, the poor themselves, are being asked to participate in planning running, and even evaluating antipoverty programs.
Already, 90 percent of the boards of directors for community action programs have representatives of the poor as members. And of those boards the representatives of the poor comprise 30 percent of the total membership.
But service on boards of directors is not the only way or place where this revolution in participation is occurring.
Last January we gave a grant to Syracuse University to demonstrate that the poor can organize to improve such conditions as unemployment and housing. Eight months later 500 refrigerators, 350 stoves and new linoleum was installed in a public housing project. Adequate police protection was established because the poor had developed the ability and demonstrated the capacity to assess and speak up for their own needs.
This revolution in participation has extended not only to the negro, not only to students, not only to the poor --- but also in the Catholic Church:--
-- where the laity have for the first time been observers and participants at a Vatican Council upon invitation from the Pope himself.
--where the laity now participate in the celebration of the mass by order of all the bishops of the world.
-- where the use of the English in mass is only part of the church’s awareness of the need to communicate.
In our own agency, the OEO, we have a singular example of- how that principle, of participation has taken new forms within the church
Several months ago, I got a call from Senator Symington, he told me about a fabulous woman, Sister Francetta, President of Webster College, 65 years old and ready to retire. When she went to her religious superiors, they asked her:
Well, what are you going to do? We need you --.your vitality, your vision, your experience and wisdom:"
And she said: “I would like to apply for a job, on the outside.” “If I can find someone who will employ me, some work which I can do, no matter how small or insignificant, to better this world -- I am, willing to shed this religious garb -- I’ll give up our habit if I can get a job where I can take my work closer to the needs of the people.”
So she applied for a job. And she was interviewed and interviewed, and interviewed, and interviewed.
Her superiors granted her permission -- she got the job -- and she is working with us today -- in the war against poverty. And, she is still a nun.
It is in the spirit of her act that I wish to extend an invitation to the Catholic University -- an invitation to participate, which I hope Cardinal Gibbons would approve.
In 1920 the Cardinal said mass for the last time at Union Mills and soon after was unable to leave his bed. During those last days he gave his last press interview -- to Bruce Barton. He told how until his illness he used to walk every afternoon from 5 to'6 `o’clock with one or more of the students from St. Mary’s Seminary. “And do you want to know what I say to them?” He asked. “I say, ‘young man, expect great things of God, your fellow man, yourself and America’.”
Those are words which any recipient of the Cardinal Gibbons Award should repeat to the Alumni of Catholic University, and even to the University itself--for this University, this institution, is the true Godson of the Cardinal. Of all american educational institutions, it should be in the forefront participating in the war on poverty at home, and around the world, and in ecumenical work for world development and world unity.
Let me suggest two new specific possibilities:
One I hope Catholic University is ready to incorporate service, as part of your curriculum, -- service overseas in the Peace Corps or in the Papal Volunteers -- service at home in VISTA, the domestic Peace Corps? That would be one way to encourage direct participation by your students in solving the problems of our nation and the world .
You could do this -- by developing a graduate degree program that included Peace Corps or VISTA service, or other similar service such as that of the Papal Volunteers. Or you could take the lead in developing a new degree--a Master’s Degree in public service.
This would say to the world -- we recognize the educational significance of this new form of learning by doing.
Two. You could take an even more unique step that would accord recognition to the value of learning through service.
We would welcome seminarians and novices in tie Peace Corps or VISTA for two years; seminarians, who would put aside their clerical clothes, and discipline, and responsibility, to take a “citizen sabbatical.” In so doing they would affirm their rights and responsibilities as citizens in a pluralistic society and return home as “service veterans,” servants, if you will, better prepared for the service of God. Though they would refrain
