Lex Cordis Caritas - The law of the heart is Love

Sept. 11, 2001 is a day I will always remember. Like other days marked by a significant event, you probably also remember exactly where you were when you first heard the news about the terrorist attacks that day on the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and aboard United Flight 93 over Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh.

A recent Google™ search on the Internet for the name “Matthew Shepard” produced 11,900,000 results. Matthew Shepard was a 21-year-old college student who was savagely beaten to death in 1998 in Wyoming. His murder has been called a hate crime because Shepard was gay.

The title that I am giving to this column is Lex Cordis Caritas — “The Law of the Heart is Love.” This is the motto that I chose when I was named a bishop in 2003 by our late Holy Father, the beloved and great Pope John Paul II. It is customary for a bishop to choose a motto when he is appointed a bishop to serve as a guiding principle for his ministry. I chose Lex Cordis Caritas — “The Law of the Heart is Love” — because it expresses in a succinct but powerful way the theme that has been the main focus of my ministry as a priest and which I wish to continue to make my ongoing point of reference as a bishop.