Cardinal McCarrick and the Sol Kanee Lecture "The Dignity of the Human Person"

Wednesday afternoon, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick gave the Sol Kanee Lecture “The Dignity of the Human Person,” at the University of Manitoba.

Cardinal McCarrick gave several stories. One, describing severe atmospheric pollution in a coal mining area of Poland illustrated his point that people are never inopportune. A second describing the arrival of the boat people in Hong Kong and the government there built an internment camp in which people were forced to live on shelves in boxes. He used this point to emphasize the importance of the dignity of the human person and the fact that people should never been inconvenient. Using a story from Bosnia, the Cardinal made the point that people should never be invisible. And in a fourth story from Rwanda, he made the point that people should never be insignificant.

Cardinal McCarrick spoke of other religions as well as the Christian religion and he emphasized that every human being has dignity and that every human being is our brother or sister. He emphasized that the measure of an institution is whether it enhances or reduces the dignity of the human person. As well he said “Every person we meet is special and we must treat them in a special way.”

And in a strong statement he emphasized that violence never cures violence.