Category: Religion

In this time of COVID-19 and civil unrest in America, happiness often seems increasingly elusive. Yet that may not have to be so, and, in fact, such turmoil can offer opportunities for both personal and professional fulfillment.

That was the theme of an online conversation Saturday night between the Dalai Lama and Professor Arthur C. Brooks of Harvard Business School (HBS) and Harvard Kennedy School (HKS). Speaking from his home in Dharamshala, India, the Dalai Lama, longtime leader of Tibetan Buddhism, spoke with Brooks, HKS professor of the practice of public leadership and HBS professor of management practice, for 90 minutes in a live segment of Brooks’ HBS class called “Leadership and Happiness.” The Dalai Lama answered questions from students about their concerns and their duties in a troubled world.

Connection — even as people are usually now forced to work and study separately — is the key to happiness, he said. “We need a sense of oneness. We are each one of 7 billion human beings.” Occasionally aided by an interpreter, the 85-year-old religious leader stressed that point repeatedly. Especially when faced with global crises such as the pandemic and climate change, he said, people must engage as a global community.

“We can no longer say ‘my nation, my country,’ ” he said. “We should say ‘my planet.’ We have to live on this planet together.”

The potential for happiness is in that connectivity. “Happiness is in the mind,” the Dalai Lama said. As individuals and as leaders, when we reach out to others, lifting them up, we experience that connection, and the resulting fulfillment brings us happiness.

Even during a pandemic, he advised, we can find peace. Science and intellectual analysis, he stressed, are vital. If health professionals advise that it is not safe to gather, we need to respect that. He said he personally has found solitude useful for meditation. But being alone should be a choice: “With technology, the oneness of people becomes more clear,” he added. “We can communicate with each other.”

Isolation, he pointed out, can be largely a state of mind. “Tibet, in ancient times, was lonely but happy.” Even in the sparsely populated, mountainous country, “When one family needed some help, they could ask,” he said, relying on a strong sense of community.

Now, people are clustered in big cities but often without a sense of their interdependency.  “Instead of trust, there is fear and distrust,” he said. Focusing on material wealth or competition rather than on interdependency and the general good “eventually creates anger, so the person will not be happy.”

Countering this outlook is within our power. He described his own travels and how, as a stateless person, he could have felt isolated and alone. Instead, wherever he was, he saw himself as part of a larger community, anywhere in the world.

Pushing further for being in the world, the Dalai Lama promoted what Brooks called “the sanctity of the intellectual life.” He repeatedly returned to the need for academic rigor, even at the expense of religious doctrine. Following discussions with scientists, for example, he has let go of centuries-old Buddhist concepts, “like Mount Meru and the sun and the moon being the same size,” he said, referring to the sacred peak considered the center of the universe. “You must be realistic and analyze,” he said.

“What kind of future depends on the present, the younger generation — you are the key people who can create a happier future,” the Dalai Lama told a Harvard Business School class on Saturday night.

“We’re not like other animals,” he said, simply seeking sustenance or safety. “A lot of our problems are our own mental creations.” The solution, he stressed, comes in improving our educational systems to teach community and equality rather than division and difference. Science, he added, can further our understanding of our emotions and the human mind. “A lot of problems were created by the human mind itself, so the remedy also, you see, lies within the human mind. Investigate.”

He concluded his talk by speaking directly to the student audience. Referring to his own status as a refugee and to the problems that his generation has left the world, he became, once again, philosophical. “Time is always moving,” he said. “We cannot change the past. The future is not yet come. What kind of future depends on the present, the younger generation — you are the key people who can create a happier future. So, please, you should not just copy what has happened. New thinking is very necessary. Please think more.”

(Courtesy: the Harvard Gazette)

Jesuit Fr. Leo O’Donovan, former president of Georgetown University, will deliver the invocation at Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration on Jan. 20.

O’Donovan confirmed to NCR that Biden had personally called him and invited him to offer the prayer at the inauguration, which will mark the election of the nation’s second Catholic president, and that he had accepted.

O’Donovan is a longtime friend of the Biden family. In 2015, he presided at the funeral Mass for Biden’s oldest son, Beau, after he died of brain cancer at the age of 46.

Biden is known to be close with a number of Jesuit priests, and while he was vice president, he occasionally attended Mass at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown. In 1992, when Biden’s son Hunter was a senior at Georgetown, O’Donovan invited the then-senator from Delaware to give a lecture at the Jesuit university on his faith and public life. Biden told O’Donovan at the time it was the “toughest assignment he’s ever had.”

More recently, just days after his presidential election, on Nov. 12, Biden appeared at a virtual fundraiser for Jesuit Refugee Service, where O’Donovan now serves as director of mission. On that occasion, Biden announced that he would raise the annual admission target of new refugees into the United States to 125,000, marking a sharp increase to the Trump administration’s cap of 15,000 individuals. 

Previously, in 2018, Biden penned the foreward to O’Donovan’s book Blessed Are the Refugees: Beatitudes of Immigrant Children.

Catholics have a long history of participating in prayers for inaugural events. In 1937, Fr. John Ryan offered the benediction at President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inauguration. Cardinal Richard Cushing of Boston offered the invocation at the inauguration of the nation’s first Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, in 1961. More recently, in 2017, New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan provided a Scripture reading at the inauguration for President Donald Trump.

While other specific details of the inauguration lineup of speakers have yet to be announced, the Biden-Harris transition team announced last month that on the eve of the inauguration, there will be a memorial to honor lives lost to COVID-19, which will include the ringing of church bells throughout Washington, D.C.

In his message for the 54th World Day of Peace, which will be celebrated on Jan. 1, 2021, Pope Francis offers the Church’s social doctrine as a compass to foster a culture of care for peace in the world.
Pope Francis appeals to the international community and every individual to foster a “culture of care” by advancing on the “path of fraternity, justice and peace between individuals, communities, peoples and nations.”
“There can be no peace without a culture of care,” the pope stresses in his message for World Day of Peace, which will be held on Jan. 1, 2021. The message was released by the Vatican on Dec. 17.
The Holy Father calls for “a common, supportive and inclusive commitment to protecting and promoting the dignity and good of all, a willingness to show care and compassion, to work for reconciliation and healing, and to advance mutual respect and acceptance.” In this task, Pope Francis offers the principles of the Church’s social doctrine as a compass on the path to peace.
Established by Pope St. Paul VI in 1967, the first World Day of Peace was observed on Jan. 1, 1968. On New Year’s Day, the Church also celebrates the solemn feast of Mary, Mother of God.
“A Culture of Care as a Path to Peace” is the theme of the Pope Francis’ message, addressed to heads of state and government, leaders of international organizations, spiritual leaders and followers of the different religions, and to men and women of good will.
Lessons from the pandemic
Pope Francis begins his message noting how the “massive COVID-19 health crisis” has aggravated deeply interrelated crises such as those of the climate, food, the economy and migration, causing great sorrow and suffering to many. He makes it an occasion to appeal to political leaders and the private sector to spare no effort to ensure access to Covid-19 vaccines and to the essential technologies needed to care for the sick, the poor and those who are most vulnerable.
Alongside the pandemic, the pope also notes a surge in various forms of nationalism, racism and xenophobia, and wars and conflicts that bring only death and destruction in their wake. These and other events of 2020, he says, have underscored the importance of caring for one another and for creation in our efforts to build a more fraternal society. Hence, “A Culture of Care as a Path to Peace” is a “way to combat the culture of indifference, waste and confrontation so prevalent in our time,” he states.
Evolution of the Church’s ‘Culture of Care’
The Holy Father traces the evolution of the Church’s Culture of Care from the first book of the Bible to Jesus, through the early Church down to our times.
After the creation of the world, God entrusts it to Adam to “till it and keep it”. Cain’s response to God – “Am I my brother’s keeper?” – after killing his brother, Abel, is a reminder that all of us are keepers of one another. God’s protection of Cain, despite his crime, confirms the inviolable dignity of the person created in God’s image and likeness. Later, the institution of the Sabbath aimed to restore the social order and concern for the poor, while the Jubilee year provided a respite for the land, slaves and those in debt. All this, the pope says, shows that “everything is interconnected, and that genuine care for our own lives and our relationship with nature is inseparable from fraternity, justice and faithfulness to others.”
The Father’s love for humanity, the pope says, finds its supreme revelation in Jesus, who asks His disciples to do likewise. The early Christians followed Jesus by sharing what they had and caring for the needy, thus making their community a welcoming home.
Today, the Church has “many institutions for the relief of every human need: hospitals, poor houses, orphanages, foundling homes, shelters for travellers” and more.
Church’s social doctrine – a ‘grammar’ of care
This culture of care of the Church, enriched by the reflection of the Fathers and the charity of luminous witnesses to the faith, Pope Francis continues, became the “beating heart of the Church’s social doctrine.” This, he says, can serve as a “grammar’ of care: commitment to promoting the dignity of each human person, solidarity with the poor and vulnerable, the pursuit of the common good and concern for the protection of creation.”
The Christian concept of the person, the pontiff says, fosters the pursuit of a fully human development. “Person always signifies relationship, not individualism; it affirms inclusion, not exclusion; unique and inviolable dignity, not exploitation. … Each human person is an end in himself or herself, and never simply a means to be valued only for his or her usefulness.”
According to the “compass” of social principles of the Church, every aspect of social, political and economic life achieves its fullest end when placed at the service of the common good, which allows people to reach their fulfilment more fully and easily.
In this regard, the pope says, the pandemic has revealed that all of us, fragile and disoriented, are in the same boat. “All of us are called to row together [since] no one reaches salvation by themselves.”
The Church’s social principles also urge us to concrete solidarity for others because we are all responsible for all. It also stresses the interconnectedness of all creation, as his Encyclical Laudato si’ points out.
This highlights the need to listen to the cry of our brothers and sisters in need, and the cry of the earth, our common home, and care for them.
“A sense of deep communion with the rest of nature cannot be authentic if our hearts lack tenderness, compassion and concern for our fellow human beings,” Pope Francis states, citing his encyclical.
“Peace, justice and care for creation are three inherently connected questions, which cannot be separated.”
Church’s social doctrine – a “compass” 
In the face of our throw-away culture, with its growing inequalities both within and between nations, Pope Francis urges government leaders, and those of international organizations, business leaders, scientists, communicators and educators, to take up the principles of the Church’s social doctrine as a “compass”. It is capable of pointing out a common direction and ensuring “a more humane future” in the process of globalization. He also calls on everyone to take this compass in hand and work to overcome the many existing social inequalities.
Humanitarian law needs to be respected, especially in situations of conflict and war, which cause enormous suffering to children, men and women. Instead of regarding conflicts as something normal, the pope says, we need to convert our hearts and ways of thinking in order to work for true peace in solidarity and fraternity.
Weapons and peace
In this regard, Pope Francis calls for resources spent on arms, especially nuclear weapons, to be used for priorities such as safety of individuals, the promotion of peace and integral human development, the fight against poverty, and the provision of health care.
He says it would be a courageous decision to “establish a ‘Global Fund’ with the money spent on weapons and other military expenditures, in order to permanently eliminate hunger and contribute to the development of the poorest countries!”
Educating to peace
The promotion of a culture of care also calls for a process of education, the pontiff says.
This begins in the family where we learn how to live and relate to others in a spirit of mutual respect. Schools and universities, the communications media, and also religions and religious leaders are called to pass on a system of values based on the recognition of the dignity of each person, each linguistic, ethnic and religious community, and each people.
“At a time like this, when the barque of humanity, tossed by the storm of the current crisis, struggles to advance towards a calmer and more serene horizon,” he says, “the rudder of human dignity and the compass of fundamental social principles can enable us together to steer a sure course.”
Pope Francis concludes his message, urging “We never yield to the temptation to disregard others, especially those in greatest need, and to look the other way … Instead, may we strive daily, in concrete and practical ways, to form a community composed of brothers and sisters who accept and care for one another.”