Reconciliation, forgiveness, hope – and Lent

It was Mardi Gras night, 1995, and I found myself sipping bourbon at 40,000 feet over the Atlantic, en route to Rome where I’d been asked to address an international symposium on the recent Cairo World Conference on Population and Development; there, you may recall, adroit Holy See diplomacy prevented the Clinton Administration from getting abortion-on-demand declared a fundamental human right, equivalent to religious freedom or free speech. On Ash Wednesday morning, I set off in search of an English-language Mass and soon found myself at Santa Susanna, Rome’s American “parish” near the Piazza della Repubblica. The noon Mass was packed with local Anglophones, with whom I queued up after the homily to receive ashes. What followed was one of the shocks of my life. Read more