Cardinal Dolan, pastoral personalist

Katie van Schaijik | Nov 13, 2012

Cardinal Dolan yesterday offered a beautiful address to fellow bishops.

I am struck by his emphasis on prayer and interior conversion as the beginning of the New Evangelization.  He quotes St. Bernard: "If you want to be a channel, you must first be a reservoir."  What he says of bishops is true of laymen too:

I would suggest this morning that this reservoir of our lives and ministry, when it comes especially to the New Evangelization, must first be filled with the spirit of interior conversion born of our own renewal. That's the way we become channels of a truly effective transformation of the world, through our own witness of a penitential heart, and our own full embrace of the Sacrament of Penance.

Then, look how personalistic he waxes, as he calls for a return to penance:

​What an irony that despite the call of the Second Vatican Council for a renewal of the Sacrament of Penance, what we got instead was its near disappearance.

​We became very good in the years following the Council in calling for the reform of structures, systems, institutions, and people other than ourselves.That, too, is important; it can transform our society and world. But did we fail along the way to realize that in no way can the New Evangelization be reduced to a program, a process, or a call to structural reform; that it is first and foremost a deeply personal conversion within? "The Kingdom of God is within," as Jesus taught.

The premier answer to the question "What's wrong with the world?" "what's wrong with the church?" is not politics, the economy, secularism, sectarianism, globalization or global warming . . .none of these, as significant as they are. As Chesterton wrote, "The answer to the question 'What's wrong with the world?' is just two words:'I am,'"

The answer is not programs, but personal conversion.