In his ad limina address to Pope John Paul II at the Vatican in 2004, Cardinal George spoke frankly about the United States and the Church:
…the Church in the United States is in great danger.
…anti-Catholicism has always marked American culture.
The public conversation in the United States speaks easily of individual rights; it cannot give voice to considerations of the common good.
The public conversation, like the political, legal and economic systems, is based on the generation of conflict between individuals and groups. Culturally, the right to sexual freedom is now the basis of personal freedom.
…the Church…is seen as an enemy of personal freedom and a cause of social violence.
The relation between the body of Christ which is the holy Eucharist and the body of Christ which is his Church passes through the sacrament of holy orders. A culture founded on the rejection of the sacrament of holy orders can grasp neither the Eucharist nor apostolic governance.
Americans know that we as a people can be generous, fair-minded and freedom-loving; we are slower to see that we can be arrogant, brutal and eroticized.
Is the mission of the Catholic Church to America one of fulfillment or healing? One of completion or forgiveness? The Eucharist is both, of course, and so must be the mission; but we are still struggling to find an approach to evangelizing which will open our culture and our country to the Holy Spirit and to the path of Christian discipleship. [Zenit.org JUNE 1, 2004]
