By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — “Your fellow Catholics are counting on you” during “this crisis of civilization,” a Minnesota prelate told the Diocese of Phoenix’s annual Red Mass for attorneys and other legal officials.
Only then can “a culture of death” based on legal relativism be superseded, St. Paul and Minneapolis Archbishop Bernard Hebda, who formerly worked as a lawyer, told the January 24 Mass here at St. Mary’s Basilica.
The Red Mass, which lasted nearly an hour and a half, marks the beginning of the Arizona legislative year. Principal celebrant was Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted.
Earlier in his homily, Hebda said that as Catholics in the law, “we have a unique opportunity for evangelizing. . . . You work in a field where virtue can be contagious.”
Hebda, who was installed as Twin Cities archbishop last May, received his law degree in 1983 and worked in Pittsburgh before entering the seminary.
Acknowledging that some people don’t hold the legal profession in esteem, Hebda joked that he wouldn’t want attorneys to think their only solution is to become priests and leave behind their “billable hours.”
Holiness is found “in the duties of our daily lives,” he said, noting that the Mass’s readings spoke of “the importance of doing God’s will rather than our own. . . . Choosing God’s plan is the path to holiness.”
Expressing delight that the Red Mass was celebrated on the feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists, Hebda said the saint would say “to change the world, we must change ourselves.”
Attorneys have “concrete opportunities to make a difference in people’s lives,” he said, adding that lawyers and judges have a large role in shaping culture.
Catholic legal specialists and judges belong to the St. Thomas More Society, whose Phoenix chapter helped organize this Mass.
Thomas More was lord high chancellor of England but was beheaded in the 16th century as a traitor to King Henry VIII after refusing to recognize the king’s invalid second marriage.
Hebda concluded by expressing the wish that through Saints More and de Sales, “may you find the strength that you need to be true to your noble vocation.”
Participants in the Mass included Bill Montgomery, chief prosecutor of the local Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, one of the largest public-prosecuting agencies in the nation, State Sen. Catherine Miranda, a pro-life Democrat, and Judge Maurice Portley, of the Arizona Court of Appeals.
The Wanderer spoke with a few officials at the reception following the evening Mass.
Attorney Juan Ramirez, secretary of the local More Society, referred to the recent contentious election season and said Hebda’s message “was we should all, regardless of our differences . . . treat others as brothers and sisters. . . .
“If you want to have someone value you as a person, or value your thoughts and opinions, it’s best to be courteous and respectful in sharing your views, to move forward as a united country,” Ramirez said.
“It’s like we’re a wounded country” and need to be “truly, sincerely caring for one another.”
Phoenix Vicar General Fr. Fred Adamson said, “I was impressed with the exhortation that (Hebda) gave to be witnesses and evangelizers. . . . (L)iving the moral life in order to bring others to Christ and the beauty of the Church captivated me the most.”
Superior Court Judge Joseph Mikitish said the homily reminded listeners that the legal profession has so many ways to bring out good both individually and in communities.
The traditions of both the legal and priestly vocations “have that sense of higher purpose, and that we’re ultimately working for good,” he said.
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