Bishop Joseph Fiorenza

July 6, 2000
Press Conference
Los Angeles Convention Center


Welcome to Encuentro 2000: Many Faces in God's House.

This is an exciting moment for the Church in the United States. With this Encuentro 2000 we look at who we are today -- a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, mult-cultural community, a very diverse Church. No other organization in the world, except perhaps Coca Cola and McDonald's, has such a widespread visibility and identification with so many cultural groups. Indeed, participants in this Encuentro claim more than 150 nations of origin.

As we look at our current picture, we see the challenge to make all cultures feel at home in our Church.

Providing newcomers welcome is part of the history of the Church in the United States. In the early 20th century we welcomed tens of thousands of immigrants from Europe. At the end of that century and at the start of the 21st, we greet immigrants and refugees from other nations as well. These newcomers can be found all across our nation, posing a challenge for urban and rural parishes, indeed, for Catholic communities in every area of our country.

Encuentro 2000 has been designed to help different ethnic groups in parishes and dioceses share their cultural diversity while discovering the values and teachings which bind them to the universal Catholic Church.

The Encuentro process here has four key components: Conversion, Community, Solidarity and Mission. We are guided in it by the call of Jesus

• To live for others;
  
• To look beyond the present;
  
• To see that we are not single souls on a lonely road, but a community walking as one.

Last week scientists stunned us when they told us they had assembled a working draft of the entire human genetic code. Knowing how much we did not know before just last week, makes us realize the challenges we face at the launch of the 21st century and Third Millennium. Some fundamental moral principles guide us, however.

1. Jesus is with us. His reminder that we are brothers and sisters means there is no room for violence by one person against another, be it nation against nation, state against citizen, or neighbor against neighbor. We must map out a course that leads all to understand differences of country and culture, temperament and type.
   
   
2. Like Jesus, we must have a preferential love for the poor. We do not strive for a world which celebrates the richest and best armed, lest we become prisoners of the false security of wealth and power. Together we strive for a world family where the strong help the weak, where the needs of the Third and Fourth Worlds -- basic needs -- take precedence over luxuries which seem like needs in a First World of conspicuous consumption and unbridled consumerism.
   
   
3. Jesus calls us to imagine a new world. It must be one in which we are able
   

1. To hear God even amidst deafening noise. How can we draw apart for prayer to hear His voice? How can we listen more closely to one another?
   
   
2. To see and welcome Christ in the stranger by going beyond our perimeters of emotional comfort. What must we do to avoid creating religious communities where Africans, African Americans, Asian and Pacific islanders, Caucasian and Hispanics pray separately?
   
   
3. To empower the Christians to stand for life. It is ironic that last week as scientists applauded the advance in genomics that will enable people to live longer and healthier lives, dozens of people were urging mercy killing, hundreds sat on death row and thousands more persons did not make it out of the womb alive. How should we oppose efforts to take life through euthanasia, abortion and the death penalty? What can we do so all people have access to the basics of food, clothing, housing, education and health care?
   
   
4. To accept where we have failed. Relationships are messy. For a healthy community, we must acknowledge our wounds. We must move beyond these hurts, and we must admit that we have been hurt and have hurt others. Can those who have been hurt offer forgiveness? Can those who have hurt others, intentionally or through ignorance and insensitivity, voice sorrow for the pain they have caused? Only then we can move on.
   

In these next days, the thousands gathered here will look to what the Church can do to carry forward its mission. We will experience unity among different peoples and carry that experience home. This Jubilee 2000 event will be a touchstone for the Church of the 21st Century.





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Encuentro 2000
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
3211 4th Street, N.E., Washington, DC 20017-1194 (202) 541-3413