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Cardinals exhort Knights to foster Christian unity, carry out the new evangelization
By Julie Filby
To kick the event off, dozens of cardinals, archbishops, bishops and dignitaries processed in, carrying colorful state and country flags, led by a Mardi Gras-flavored band. Delegates in formal attire, many accompanied by their wives—along with Knight chaplains—waved flags and cheered as they welcomed the processors into the banquet hall.
The orchestra then played the national anthem of each country represented: Canada, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Philippines, Poland, United States and Vatican City. The evening continued with a sing-a-long featuring a tune for each of the 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam and the provinces of Canada, Mexico and the Philippines.
Speakers for the evening were Archbishop Gérald Cyprien Lacriox, I.S.P.X, archbishop of Québec and primate of Canada; Cardinal Juan Sandoval Íñiguez, archbishop of Guadalajara; and Cardinal Raymond Burke, prefect of the Vatican’s Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Church’s highest court.
Archbishop Lacriox expressed hope that convention participants would be transformed, just as the first disciples had been transformed at the Transfiguration, a feast day observed Aug. 6.
“The Gospel reminds us that ‘Jesus took with him Peter, James and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain … and he was transfigured before them’ (Mt 17:1-2),” Lacroix said. “This year the Lord has led us up a high mountain to the Mile High City, Denver, Colorado, for a very special experience; hopefully a transfigurating experience.”
In his remarks, Cardinal Sandoval encouraged Knights to familiarize themselves with “Ecclesia in America,” the apostolic exhortation by Blessed John Paul II following the 1997 Synod of Bishops for America.
“The letter … is a document that sheds light on the reality of our America,” he said. “It proposes solutions based on the Scriptures and sets lofty and noble goals for our apostolic work.”
Of the ideas discussed in the document, he said the most prominent is unity.
“Blessed John Paul II possessed a deep intuition about the continent’s unity, a unity that serves as both a point of departure and a goal for our pastoral actions,” he said. “Between Catholics and members of other Christian faiths, we make up the majority of the inhabitants of the hemisphere.
“Our common problems, which are many and serious, must be confronted based on our identity and faith in Christ,” he said.
The keynote address was delivered by Cardinal Burke, who has been a “brother Knight” for 36 years. He spoke on the life and witness of Blessed John Paul II and the significance of carrying out the new evangelization promoted by the late pontiff.
“Before the daunting challenge of living the Catholic faith in a totally secularized society, he (Pope John Paul II) called the whole Church to the work of the new evangelization—to the work of teaching, celebrating and living our Catholic faith with the engagement and energy of the first Christians and of the first missionaries to our nations,” he said.
Cardinal Burke explained that teaching the truth of conscience must be one of the Church’s priorities in today’s society.
“In a culture bombarded with the noises and false images of secularization,” he said, “the Church, out of love of all our brothers and sisters, that is for the sake of the common good, must make the voice of conscience ‘audible and intelligible once more for people.’”
He also addressed evangelization through participation in public life.
“In many so-called advanced nations, we witness an increasing tendency to deny to citizens the most fundamental right: the right to observe the dictates of one’s conscience, formed through right reason and the teaching of the Church,” he said. “When reason is not purified by faith in the political realm, the powerful and influential of the time exercise a tyranny which violates the fundamental rights of the very people whom political leaders are called to serve.”
The cardinal urged the members of the Knights to remain steadfast in their witness “even in the face of indifference and hostility.”
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