Address to Cardinals Winning, Keeler and Maida

ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II
TO THE NEW CARDINALS JOSEPH WINNING,
WILLIAM HENRY KEELER, ADAM JOSEPH MAIDA

Monday, 28 November 1994

Your Eminences,
Dear Friends,

I am very pleased to greet Your Eminences and the many pilgrims who have accompanied you to Rome in order to share in the joy of your nomination to the College of Cardinals. The members of the Sacred College are the principal advisers of the Successor of Peter, and as such are called to have a special concern for the whole Church. Drawn from nations throughout the world, they are a sign of the universality of the Church as she carries out her mission to proclaim the Gospel and to invite all nations and peoples to unity in faith and charity.

Cardinal Winning, as priest and Bishop you have always been what is called "a man of the people", with a great personal sensitivity for the welfare of the less fortunate. In this, you show what it means to be a shepherd according to the mind and heart of Christ, who came to serve and not to be served (cf. Mk. 10:45). I know that the good Catholic people of Glasgow will continue to support you and help you to make the Specialis Filia Romanae Ecclesiae an ever clearer witness to God’s faithfulness and love. May Saint Andrew and Saint Margaret, Scotland’s patrons, and Saint Mungo, special patron of Glasgow, intercede for all the Bishops, priests and laity of your beloved land.

Cardinal Keeler, I offer a special greeting to your relatives and many friends from the Diocese of Harrisburg and the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Like your predecessors in the See of Baltimore and in your office as President of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, you have sought to shepherd a flock which strives to be authentically Catholic within a pluralistic society. Your pastoral ministry has likewise included much work for ecumenical and interreligious understanding. Today I ask the Lord to sustain you in serving the Church in America as it faces the challenges of the new evangelization on the eve of the Third Millennium.

Cardinal Maida, I am certain that the presence of your dear Mother, your other family members and your friends is a precious reminder of the many blessings which God has bestowed upon you during your years in Pittsburgh, Green Bay and now in Detroit. Your episcopal coat-of-arms - Facere Omnia Nova, "to make all things new" - recalls the Lord’s promise to create "new heavens and a new earth where... the justice of God will reside" (2 Pt. 3:13). Much of your priestly and episcopal ministry has been devoted precisely to promoting justice in the Church. I pray that through your pastoral service the Church in Detroit will live up to its vocation to be a holy people, constantly "made new" in justice and charity.

Through all of you present here today, I send special greetings to the Catholics of Scotland and the United States. I vividly remember my visits to your countries, to Scotland in 1982 and to the United States in 1979 and 1987, which allowed me to witness and share in the vital and dynamic faith of your local Churches. It is with these memories that I echo the words of Saint Paul: "I give thanks to God always for you because of the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him with all speech and all knowledge" (1 Cor. 1:4-5). Invoking upon you and your families the peace of our Saviour, I cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing.