This summer will mark the thirty-fifth anniversary of the installation of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin as the twelfth bishop and seventh archbishop of Chicago.
He served the archdiocese and the church with singular distinction and is perhaps most remembered for his consistent-ethic-of-life approach to critical issues of the day.
He was guided by three convictions: that there was a need to read the signs of the times; that the church’s social teaching had a role not just in deciding issues, but also in shaping and defining them; and that the church was uniquely positioned institutionally to promote the common good in society.
In pressing these convictions he was revolutionary – and so it’s no surprise that, even to this day, he has his critics.
But, nearly four decades after the 1983 address at Fordham University in which he introduced this framework, Bernardin deserves a fresh hearing.
He would want us to build on what he did by reading the signs of our times, which I will propose here, makes it clear that the church’s social teaching on solidarity, consistently applied across a full range of issues that impact our human interactions, is required.
He understood that the urging of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council to read the signs of the times required the church to be fully engaged in the world by being attentive to what was really happening in the lives of real people, the trends and forces influencing policies and public opinion.
Only in this way could the church be viewed as a credible and authentic voice for speaking about human affairs. I suspect he would have liked how Pope Francis has captured that sentiment in his pithy phrase “realities are greater than ideas”.
In reading the signs of his times, Bernardin was concerned about the futility of treating issues like abortion, capital punishment, nuclear proliferation, and the use of military force as discrete topics.
He understood how these issues were divisive in themselves. Continue reading
- Cardinal Blase J. Cupich is the ninth archbishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago.