Cardinal Cahal Daly preaches in the United States on St Patrick’s Day

17 Mar 2003

PRESS RELEASE

17 MARCH 2003

CARDINAL CAHAL DALY PREACHES IN THE UNITED STATES ON ST PATRICK’S DAY

Cardinal Cahal B Daly, Archbishop Emeritus of Armagh, preached on “The Irish Spiritual
Legacy” at Mass in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Notre Dame University, Indiana today.
Cardinal Daly is an honorary Doctor of the University. The following are extracts from
his homily:

On this date in the year 2003 one cannot but face the fact that this St Patrick’s Day is
overhung by a dark shadow, the shadow of potential war. We pray today that, even at this
eleventh hour, war may be averted and the world may be spared its horrors and the dangers
to world order which war carries with it.

We pray too that, whatever the coming weeks and months may bring, the developed nations
of the earth may come together in a great coalition against poverty: a peaceful campaign
to confront the serious and abiding threat to world peace posed by poverty, underdevelopment,
inequality of opportunity, injustice, alienation, and, in many places, starvation. These
are the factors which foster terrorism; these are the real sources of division between
nations and continents and cultures in today’s world.

The Romans had the despairing slogan “If you want peace, prepare war”. We must change
that to the slogan “If you want peace, prepare a more just world order”. A Roman Emperor
used the tense, grim, frightening phrase “Let them hate us if they will, provided only
that they fear us”
. We must change that slogan into plans for fairer world trade, greater
mutual respect for races, religions and cultures other than our own, economic development
and a more just sharing of the basic but finite and now endangered resources of our planet,
resources which God planned for the benefit of the whole human family.

Forty years ago, the good Pope John pleaded with “the wealthier States” to “repudiate any
policy of domination” and try instead to work towards “the formation of a world community”
(Pacem in Terris, 125). Pope Paul VI, in his encyclical on the Development of Peoples in
1967, said: “Development is the new name for peace…Development demands bold transformations,
innovations that go deep. Urgent reforms should be undertaken without delay” (Populorum
Progressio, 32)
. Pope John Paul II has untiringly repeated the same message.

Ends
17 March 2003

Further information:

Fr Martin Clarke 087 220 8044
Ms Brenda Drumm 087 233 7797