An estimated 200 people from about a dozen parishes turned out to hear Bishop Nelson Perez speak on Feb. 19 at St. Basil the Great Parish in Brecksville.
The event was hosted by the parish’s Adult Catholic Education Program and Social Concerns Commission, which focus on helping people to live the Gospel. The bishop focused on Catholic social teaching. His topic was “Act Justly, Love Tenderly and Walk Humbly with Your God.”
Father Walt Jenne, St. Basil’s pastor for the past 19 years, introduced the bishop, who spoke for about an hour.
“What a beautiful topic. You can approach it in many ways,” he said, explaining that social justice and charity are rooted in Christianity. In any diocese there are parishes, churches, schools and Catholic Charities – all of which support the Church’s mission.
“At the heart of the Christian message is to take care of each other,” Bishop Perez said. Using the story of the loaves and fishes as an example, he said that the disciples knew Jesus was tired after a long day of preaching and they wanted to send everyone home. They knew the people were hungry and it would be virtually impossible to feed them all. But Jesus refused, and taking the meager offering of a few fish and some bread from a young boy, he blessed it and provided enough to feed everyone – with some left over.
“Service to the poor and vulnerable is rooted in Christianity. We don’t do it because of them; we do it because it’s what we do as Christians. It can be messy and challenging,” the bishop said.
He recalled his days as a priest in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia when he was assigned to an inner-city parish that had a school and a busy outreach center that operated from the rectory basement. It served 13,000 breakfasts and 17,000 lunches and its medical clinic helped 300 patients each month. But parents of students in the parish school were upset by the type of people it attracted, he said, adding they wanted the center closed for “safety reasons.”
Bishop Perez said he called the police and asked how many times they had received calls to come to the center during the 18 years it had been operating. The answer was once – and it wasn’t about one of the center’s clients, it was regarding someone who snuck into the center and then slipped into the rectory.
“Human dignity is at the center of the Church’s teaching on social justice,” he said, something he reinforced throughout his presentation.
Evangelization and social justice are intertwined, he said, pointing out that evangelization is the deepest identity of the Church, according to Pope Paul VI, who wrote about it in his 1975 encyclical “Evangelii Nuntiandi.”
The bishop also talked about how he gained first-hand knowledge of evangelization after being tasked by the cardinal archbishop of Philadelphia to found the Institute of Evangelization in 1993.
“I didn’t even know what it (evangelization) was,” he said, explaining that the term wasn’t common at that time. “But then I found this encyclical. It talked about how evangelization is the reason the Church exists. And it makes sense. Without evangelization, we wouldn’t be here.”
Bishop Perez also quoted from Pope Francis’ 2013 apostolic exhortation, “Evangelii Gaudium,” which translates to “Joy of the Gospel.”
He said this document shows the connection between the spirit and evangelization and talks about a particular love for the poor and vulnerable. Pope Francis said we must reach out to the poor and vulnerable where they are.
“Jesus had a knack for finding those with needs,” the bishop said, adding that he had a particular love for the poor and vulnerable. He said caring for the poor isn’t something we do on the side, it’s rooted in Jesus and something we all must do. He read the following excerpt from “Joy of the Gospel:”
“Peace in society cannot be understood as pacification or the mere absence of violence resulting from the domination of one part of society over others. Nor does true peace act as a pretext for justifying a social structure which silences or appeases the poor, so that the more affluent can placidly support their lifestyle while others have to make do as they can. Demands involving the distribution of wealth, concern for the poor and human rights cannot be suppressed under the guise of creating a consensus on paper or a transient peace for a contented minority. The dignity of the human person and the common good rank higher than the comfort of those who refuse to renounce their privileges. When these values are threatened, a prophetic voice must be raised. Nor is peace “simply the absence of warfare, based on a precarious balance of power; it is fashioned by efforts directed day after day towards the establishment of the ordered universe willed by God, with a more perfect justice among men.” In the end, a peace which is not the result of integral development will be doomed; it will always spawn new conflicts and various forms of violence.”
The bishop explained that justice means more than just being fair. “We have an obsession with fairness, but that’s not justice. We can‘t have justice if we’re not in the right relationship with God.” He referred to Pope Francis who said that a peaceful society means more than just an absence of violence.
Realities are more important than ideas, Bishop Perez said. “Realities are where ideas are worked out,” he added. He mentioned St. Teresa of Calcutta who he said was “doing the reality of her idea,” caring for the dying on the streets of Calcutta, long before most people knew of her. He also referred to John 3:16, the Bible verse that says God so loved the world that he gave his only son. “He literally did what that says,” the bishop added.
There will always be creative tensions between realities and abstracts, but we must walk justly and tenderly, the bishop said. “Once you land, you get into the messiness of life.”
He took a few questions from the group, one of which inquired about the Church in the City initiative started by Bishop emeritus Anthony Pilla. St. Basil was partnered with St. Catherine’s, an inner-city, East Side Cleveland parish, for a number of years before St. Catherine closed. The questioner asked if this could be revived. The bishop said he is looking at many things to determine what to do in order to take advantage of past successes in order to move forward and make progress.
Regarding a question on the country’s southern border, Bishop Perez said it is a polarizing issue. However, there is an obligation to protect the country’s borders but it must be done in the most humane way possible in order to preserve human dignity. “This is not a political issue for the Church,” he said.
Another questioner asked about the self-interests that dominate the world, which is becoming increasingly hostile, and how we can spread the message that we’re all children of God.
The bishop answered succinctly, in four words: “By living the message.”
After the program, he received a green T-shirt like those worn by members of St. Basil’s Social Concerns Commission. The bishop also spent some time greeting attendees and stopped by a reception in the parish’s gathering space.