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Overview
“I can say in all sincerity that I am at peace. I consider this as God’s special gift to me.”
—Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, Archbishop of Chicago, announcing on August 30, 1996, that his cancer had returned after fifteen months of being in remission. The Cardinal died November 14, 1996.
In the final two months of his life, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin made it his mission to share his personal reflections and insights in this book, The Gift of Peace. Using as a framework the previous three years, which included false accusation of sexual misconduct, diagnosis of cancer, and return of the cancer after fifteen months of being in remission, Cardinal Bernardin tells his story openly and honestly. At the end of his life, the Cardinal was at peace. He accepted his peace as a gift from God, and through this book, he shares that gift with the world. The Gift of Peace is part of the Cardinal’s pastoral legacy; through this book his ministry lives on.
From The Gift of Peace:
“The past three years have taught me a great deal about myself and my relationship to God, the Church, and others. . . . Within these major events lies the story of my life— what I have believed and who I have worked hard to be. And because of the nature of these events, I have spirituality and gained insights that I want to share. By no means are these reflections meant to be a comprehensive autobiography. They are simply reflections from my heart to yours. I hope they will be of help to you in your own life so you too can enjoy the deep inner peace—God’s wonderful gift to me—that I now embrace as I stand on the threshold of eternal life.”
I invite those who read this book to walk with me the final miles of my life’s journey.
Peace and love,
Joseph Cardinal Bernardin
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780829409550 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Loyola Press |
| Publication date: | 01/01/1997 |
| Edition description: | First Edition |
| Pages: | 168 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.69(d) |
| Age Range: | 3 Months to 18 Years |
About the Author
Joseph Cardinal Bernadin was born in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1928. He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Charleston in 1952 and served as an Auxiliary Bishop of Atlanta (1966-68), general secretary of the U.S. bishops' conference in Wash., D.C. (1968-72), Archbishop of Cincinnati (1972-82), President of the bishops' conference (1974-77), and Archbishop of Chicago (1982-96). He became a cardinal in 1983. He chaired the U.S. bishops' committee that drafted a pastoral letter on war and peace and often articulated the need for a consistent ethic of life. Cardinal Bernadin was widely respected for his gentleness, his spirituality, and his ability to reconcile. He received the Medal of Freedom at the White House two months before he died of pancreatic cancer.
Read an Excerpt
November 1, 1996
My dear friends,
It is the Feast of All Saints and I am home because the Pastoral Center of the Archdiocese is closed. The weather is much colder than it was several days ago, but it is still good for walking. Normally, I would be doing just that.
But today I will not do any walking. The reason is that a pervasive fatigue—one that is characteristic of pancreatic cancer—has overtaken me.
Besides, I am still experiencing discomfort in my lower back and legs because of the spinal stenosis that was diagnosed about a year ago.
So, as I sit at my desk, I thought I would do something else. I have decided to write this very personal letter explaining why I have written this little book, The Gift of Peace. It is not an autobiography but simply a reflection on my life and ministry during the past three years, years that have been as joyful as they have been difficult. My reflections begin with the allegation of sexual misconduct brought against me November 1993 and continue to the present as I prepare for the last stage of my life which began in June 1995 with the diagnosis of an aggressive form of cancer.
To paraphrase Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities, “it has been the best of times, it has been the worst of times.” The worst because of the humiliation, physical pain, anxiety and fear. The best because of the reconciliation, love, pastoral sensitivity and peace that have resulted from God’s grace and the support and prayers of so many people. While not denying the former, this reflection focuses on the latter, showing how, if we let him, God can write straight with crooked lines. To put it another way, this reflection is intended to help others understand how the good and the bad are always present in our human condition and, that if we “let go,” if we place ourselves totally in the hands of the Lord, the good will prevail.
On a very personal note, I invite those who read this book to walk with me the final miles of my life’s journey. When we reach the gate, I will have to go in first—that seems to be the rule: one at a time by designation. But know that I will carry each of you in my heart! Ultimately, we will all be together, intimately united with the Lord Jesus whom we love so much.
Peace and love,
Joseph Cardinal Bernardin
Introduction
Letting Go
Throughout my spiritual journey I have struggled to become closer to God. As I prepare now for my passage from this world into the next, I cannot help but reflect on my life and recognize the themes that, like old friends, have been so important to me all these years. One theme that rises to the surface more than any other takes on new meaning for me now—the theme of letting go. By letting go, I mean the ability to release from our grasp those things that inhibit us from developing an intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus.
Letting go is never easy. Indeed, it is a lifelong process. But letting go is possible if we understand the importance of opening our hearts and, above all else, developing a healthy prayer life. It has taken me a lifetime to learn these truths, but I want to share with you some background and one story that always stands out as a pivotal point in my life.
I entered the seminary when I was only seventeen years old, and ever since then I have been trying to learn how to pray. In those early years, I was under the spiritual care of the Sulpician Fathers, both at St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore and Theological College at Catholic University. They had a special routine that brought us together in the evening to give us points for reflection. In the morning before Mass, we would all gather in what was known as the Prayer Hall to do the reflection. There were times when I wondered whether this was the best form of teaching, but I have to say in retrospect that it certainly introduced me to the importance of prayer and the fact that prayer is not a one-sided practice. Rather, prayer involves speaking and listening on both sides.
After my ordination in 1952, I probably prayed as much as any busy young priest of those days. But in the mid-1970s, I discovered that I was giving a higher priority to good works than to prayer. I was telling others—seminarians, priests, lay people, and religious—about the importance of prayer, emphasizing that they could not really be connected with the Lord unless they prayed. But I felt somewhat hypocritical in my teaching because I was not setting aside adequate time for personal prayer. It was not that I lacked the desire to pray or that I had suddenly decided prayer was not important. Rather, I was very busy, and I fell into the trap of thinking that my good works were more important than prayer.
One evening during this time I spoke to three priests with whom I was having dinner. All three were younger than I, and I had ordained two of them myself since going to Cincinnati in 1972. During the conversation I told them that I was finding it difficult to pray and asked if they could help me. I’m not sure that I was totally honest when I asked for their help because I didn’t know whether I would be willing to do what they suggested. “Are you sincere in what you request? Do you really want to turn this around?” they asked. What could I say? I couldn’t say no after what I had just told them!
In very direct—even blunt terms—they helped me realize that as a priest and a bishop I was urging a spirituality on others that I was not fully practicing myself. That was a turning point in my life. These priests helped me understand that you have to give what they called, and what many spiritual directors today call, “quality time” to prayer. It can’t be done “on the run.” You have to put aside good time, quality time. After all, if we believe that the Lord Jesus is the Son of God, then of all persons to whom we give of ourselves, we should give him the best we have.
I decided to give God the first hour of my day, no matter what, to be with him in prayer and meditation where I would try to open the door even wider to his entrance. This put my life in a new and uplifting perspective; I also found that I was able to share the struggles of my own spiritual journey with others. Knowing that I went through the same things they did gave them great encouragement. This has become a crucial element of my ministry with cancer patients and others who are seriously ill.
Still, letting go is never easy. I have prayed and struggled constantly to be able to let go of things more willingly, to be free of everything that keeps the Lord from finding greater hospitality in my soul or interferes with my surrender to what God asks of me.
It is clear that God wants me to let go now. But there is something in us humans that makes us want to hold onto ourselves and everything and everybody familiar to us. My daily prayer is that I can open wide the doors of my heart to Jesus and his expectations of me.
So I now let go more freely, delivered by the Lord from the frustration I sometimes experienced even when I tried before, as earnestly as I could, to break free from the grip of things. I have reflected on Zacchaeus, the tax collector whose story is told in the Gospel of Luke. When he received Jesus into his house, some people complained that Jesus had gone to the home of a sinner. Zacchaeus “stood his ground and said to the Lord, ‘I give half my belongings, Lord, to the poor. If I have defrauded anyone in the past, I pay him back fourfold.’ And Jesus replied, ‘Today salvation has come to this house for this is what it means to be a son of Abraham. The Son of Man has come to search out and save what was lost’ ” (Cf. Lk 19:1–10).
I have desperately wanted to open the door of my soul as Zacchaeus opened the door of his house. Only in that way can the Lord take over my life completely. Yet many times in the past I have only let him come in part of the way. I talked with him but seemed afraid to let him take over.
Why was I afraid? Why did I open the door only so far and no more? I have searched my soul for answers. At times, I think it was because I wanted to succeed and be acknowledged as a person who has succeeded. At other times I would become upset when I read or heard criticism about my decisions or actions. When these feelings prevailed, I wanted to control things, that is, I wanted to make them come out “right.” When I reacted that way, I tended not to put full confidence in people until they had proven themselves to me.
I found that on occasion I have dealt with the Lord in the same way. Conceptually, I understand that he can and should be trusted. I remind myself that it is his Church, that nothing happens beyond his purview. Still, knowing all that, I often found that I would hold back, unwilling to let go completely.
Have I feared that God’s will may be different from mine and that if his will prevailed I would be criticized? Or was there another reason? Perhaps, psychologically and emotionally, I have simply been unable to let go.
Part of the reason for my reluctance was the fact that every day so many people made demands on me. Their expectations were so numerous, so diverse and personal that I could not seem to free myself as fully as I would have liked from these pressures.
I have also asked whether it was simply pride that haunted me, making me unwilling to take the risk of letting go. Or did I sometimes feel almost paralyzed because I was, in a way, whipsawed by groups in the Church that competed for my attention and support, those who saw themselves as progressive who wanted me to carry their banners and those who saw themselves as conserving tradition who expected me to be loyal to them? Each had a genuine claim, yet I felt I had to try in everything to do what is right for the whole Church. Sometimes the resulting tension caused me to be cautious in expressing what I really thought.
To come at this in another way, I wonder if I refused to let the Lord enter all the way into my soul because I feared that he would insist that, in my personal life, I let go of certain things that I was reluctant or unwilling to give up. These were the ordinary things, I knew, and most of them had been gifts from others. Still, I recognized that I could be attached to them.
More than fifteen years ago I gave away all the money I had and said that I would never again have a savings account or stocks. I pledged that I would keep only what was needed to maintain my checking account. I began depositing almost all the monetary gifts in a special account of the Archdiocese that is used for personal charities and special projects of various kinds. Nonetheless, I have received so many gifts in the last few years that I began to save some for myself, using the argument that I might need the funds in retirement or for my aged mother. I have now reexamined all this and ensured that I am free from things so that I am no longer distracted in my relationship with the Lord.
In recent years, as I struggled to let go, I wondered whether God was preparing me for something special—or whether the struggle was only a part of normal spiritual development. It is certainly part of the latter. But now I know that Jesus was preparing me for something special.
The past three years have taught me a great deal about myself and my relationship to God, the Church, and others. Three major events within these years have led me to where I am today. First, the false accusation of sexual misconduct in November 1993 and my eventual reconciliation with my accuser a year later. Second, the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in June 1995 and the surgery that rendered me “cancer free” for fifteen months. And third, the cancer’s return at the end of August 1996, this time in the liver, and my decision to discontinue chemotherapy one month later and live the rest of my life as fully as possible.
Within these major events lies the story of my life—what I have believed and who I have worked hard to be. And because of the nature of these events, I have deepened and developed my own spirituality and gained insights that I want to share. By no means are these reflections meant to be a comprehensive autobiography. They are simply reflections from my heart to yours. I hope they will be of help to you in your own life so you too can enjoy the deep inner peace—God’s wonderful gift to me—that I now embrace as I stand on the threshold of eternal life.
Part One
False Accusation
Meditation
Emptying Oneself
God speaks very gently to us when he invites us to make more room for him in our lives. The tension that arises comes not from him but from me as I struggle to find out how to offer him fuller hospitality and then to do it wholeheartedly. The Lord is clear about what he wants, but it is really difficult to let go of myself and my work and trust him completely. The first step of letting go, of course, is linked with my emptying myself of everything— the plans I consider the largest as well as the distractions I judge the smallest—so that the Lord really can take over.
St. Paul’s description of Jesus’ mission is never far from my thoughts: “Though he was in the form of God, he did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at. Rather, he emptied himself and took the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men. He was known to be of human estate, and it was thus that he humbled himself, obediently accepting death, death on a cross” (Phil 2:6–8). To close the gap between what I am and what God wants of me, I must empty myself and let Jesus come in and take over. I have prayed to understand his agenda for me. Some things stand out. He wants me to focus on the essentials of his message and way of life rather than on the accidentals that needlessly occupy so much of our time and efforts. One can easily distinguish essentials from peripherals in the spiritual life. Essentials ask us to give true witness and to love others more. Nonessentials close us in on ourselves. It is unsettling to pray to be emptied of self; it seems a challenge almost beyond our reach as humans. But if we try, I have learnd, God does most of the work. I must simply let myself go in love and trust of the Lord. When the hand of God’s purpose enters my life, however, it is usually not from the front, as I have always expected, but from the side, in murmurs and whispers that not only surprise but soon empty me beyond anything I could imagine.
Facing False Charges
On Wednesday, November 10, 1993, I was in New York to give the annual Thomas Merton Lecture at Columbia University. Cardinal John O’Connor, with whom I was staying, told me of a disturbing rumor that was circulating: A U.S. Cardinal was to be accused of sex abuse. Its source was uncertain, and its vagueness made it seem unworthy and yet ominous at the same time.
The rumors were growing by the time I returned to my office the next day. I was stunned to learn that some people were speculating that I was the Cardinal to be accused. In phone calls from friends, I discovered that rumors about an impending lawsuit were spreading rapidly across the country and around the world. I would be served papers the next morning charging that, when I was Archbishop of Cincinnati, I sexually abused a seminarian.
The accusation startled and devastated me. I tried to get beyond the unconfirmed rumors and return to my work, but this lurid charge against my deepest ideals and commitments kept consuming my attention. Indeed, I could think of little else as my aides continued to bring me additional details of rumors that were still circulating. I sat quietly for a moment and asked myself a simple question: Was this what the Lord had been preparing me for, to face false accusations about something that I knew never took place? Spurious charges, I realized, were what Jesus himself experienced. But this evolving nightmare seemed completely unreal. It did not seem possible that this was happening to me.
Late in the afternoon, Mary Ann Ahern of the local NBC television affiliate called, saying she had had a copy of the allegations read to her, that the plaintiff’s name was Steven and that he was represented by a New Jersey lawyer who specialized in suing the clergy for sexual abuse. The lawsuit was to be filed in Cincinnati the next morning. “They claim to have pictures of Steven and the Cardinal together,” the reporter read from the information that was surfacing in newsrooms across the country.
We learned a few minutes later that Steven’s last name was Cook. I searched my memory for a face to go with the name Steven Cook. None appeared. “He was a college student at Saint Gregory’s,” a staff member informed me, “and now he’s in his mid-thirties and is very ill with AIDS. That’s all we know.”
Steven Cook. I still could not conjure up a face to go with the name of this person who, according to what was now a full-blown storm of rumor, claimed that he was led to my bedroom in 1975 and forced to submit to a sex act. Who, in God’s name, was this person, and why was he accusing me of something that he must have known, as I did, never took place? I then recalled hearing that this same person had already brought complaints to the Archdiocese of Cincinnati against a priest who was on the faculty of St. Gregory’s Seminary there. I began to surmise that because, in Steven’s judgment, he had not received a satisfactory response from Cincinnati, his lawyer had decided to bring me into the case since I was Archbishop at the time. Later, Steven would tell me how this came about.
I thought of my sincere prayer to learn to let go and empty myself. Was God’s answer hidden in this lawsuit through which faceless accusers threatened to brand me indelibly as a sex abuser, a charge that has been leveled at many priests in recent years? Before most other dioceses, I oversaw the development of the first comprehensive guidelines for processing sexual abuse charges against priests of the Archdiocese of Chicago. The procedures were widely adopted throughout the country. One of my first actions in the face of this accusation would be to refer these charges against me to the review board that was part of this process.
I felt a deep humiliation as inquiring callers made it clear that the accusation had now circled the world, that millions of people would know only one thing about me, that I was charged with abusing the trust and the body of a minor almost twenty years before. My advisers urged me to issue a statement to the media whose trucks, which I could see from my office window, were crowding against each other on Superior Street below.
But how do you say anything about a charge you have not seen from persons you do not know about something you did not do? As never before, I felt the presence of evil. From deep in my soul, however, I heard the Lord’s words that calmed the storm breaking around and within me: “The truth will set you free” (Jn 8:32).
I immediately wrote the following statement: “While I have not seen the suit and I do not know the details of the allegation, there is one thing I do know, and I state categorically: I have never abused anyone in all my life, anywhere, any time, any place.”
The truth, I decided, was the only defense I had. After giving my statement to the waiting reporters, I drove home through streets that seemed familiar and yet changed, as I myself had been, by the events of the day.
The truth will set you free. I believed that, and I trusted the Lord who, for reasons I could not yet fathom, had permitted this trial to enter my life. But I also wondered if the voice of truth could be heard in a culture in which image making and distortion have almost completely replaced it. My faith reassured me that the truth was all that I had, and all that I really needed. It would be my rod and my staff through the dark valley (Ps 23:4) in the months ahead.
Table of Contents
Contents
Personal Letter to the Reader vii
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Letting Go 1
Part One: False Accusation 13
Meditation: Emptying Oneself 15
Facing False Charges 19
Sharing the Truth with the World 24
The Case Unravels 30
Meeting My Accuser:?
Forgiveness and Reconciliation 34
Part Two: Cancer 43
Meditation: Suffering in Communion with the Lord 45
New Life 51
Diagnosis: Cancer 55
An Aside: My Father 61
Sharing the News with My “Family 63
Surgery 66
An Aside: My Mother 68
My Cancer Ministry Begins 71
Part Three: A Priest First, a Patient Second 75
Meditation: “As Those Who Serve” 77
Heeding God’s Call: The Priesthood 85
“Unofficial Chaplain” to Cancer Patients 90
A Special Community 92
Practicing What I Preach 95
An Aside: The Importance of Prayer 96
A Priest First, and a Patient Second 100
Further Challenges 103
“A Sign of Hope”: My Pastoral Letter on Healthcare 105
Letters from Fellow Cancer Patients 111
Part Four: Befriending Death 21
Meditation: “Come to Me All You Who Are Weary and Find Life Burdensome” 123
A Visit from an Old Friend 127
The Cancer Returns 128
Dying Publicly 134
My Ministry Continues 137
Meeting with the Holy Father 139
Letting Go of the Future 140
Praying with the Presbyterate 141
Letting Go of My Ministry 142
The Cross Comes into Clear View 145
Conclusion: The Gift of Peace 149
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