National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington Hears Ukrainian Archbishop Gudziak and Nuncio Pierre Remembers Pope Francis' Anniversary
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Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts led the Pledge of Allegiance and the Sisters of Life prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet with the guests.
The Christifideles Laici Award, was then presented, it reads: “In Honor and Gratitude for Fidelity to the Church, Exemplary Selfless and Steadfast Service in the Lord’s Vineyard.” The award answers the charge Pope John Paul II gave the laity in his 1988 Post-Synodal Exhortation Christifideles Laici for the lay faithful to answer the Lord’s call for individual missions “on behalf of the Church and the world” and “to stir and promote a deeper awareness among all the faithful of the gift and responsibility they share, both as a group and as individuals, in the communion and mission of the Church.”
The 2023 Recipient of the award was Mary Rice Hasson, J.D. Kate O’Beirne Senior Fellow Ethics and Public Policy Center – Washington, DC. She spoke in defense natural gender and exposes gender ideology.
The annual breakfast was launched in 2004 in response to St. John Paul II’s call for a “new evangelization” and has been held annually with the exception of a online "breakfast" during the pandemic. Metropolitan Archbishop Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia presented Ukrainian priest, Father Mykhailo Dymyd, whose son Artemiy, died in mortar fire near Donetsk, Ukraine, last year.
The second main speaker was, Carter Snead, director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, a professor of law and concurrent professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame. He spoke on building a culture of life in post-Roe era.
Not only are Ukraine’s young people giving their lives, Archbishop Gudziak said, “they’re stopping tyranny.”
“In the 21st century — when everything is seemingly up for grabs, when we’ve deconstructed almost everything, when truth is transactional in media, politics, diplomacy and popular culture, conditioned by a post-truth anti-ethic — Ukrainians have been saying no, not so fast,” Archbishop Gudziak said. “There’s good and there’s evil. There’s truth and there’s lies. And they are doing it at the risk of their own lives, consciously, deliberately, freely looking into the face of the risk.”
“The Russian invasion has affected each of your pockets and the pockets of every single person on earth,” Archbishop Gudziak said. “And Ukrainians are resisting that which is affecting your economy. Our economy.”
During his talk, Snead noted that it was the first National Catholic Prayer Breakfast since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June. Snead explained Catholics now have an important role in promoting the dignity of human life by actively supporting mothers and children. “It is a crisis involving a mother and her child. And any decent society, any decent person, if you hear that there’s a crisis involving a mother and her child, you don’t ask, ‘Who has the right to the body?’ You stop, you say, ‘Let’s go help. Let’s rush to the aid of that mother and that child.'”
“So our imperative is to come to the aid of those in need, before and after the child is born,” he said.
Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens of Crookston, Minnesota, the chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, also spoke promoting the 2024 National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis.
Bishop Cozzens said, “Brothers and sisters, I invite you to be part of this revival and I hope to see you in Indianapolis,” he said.
Joseph Cella, of the NCPB and Catholic Vote, gave an update of the situation in Nicaragua and Hong Kong.
Sources: https://catholicprayerbreakfast.com/christifideles-laici-award/
https://catholicreview.org/at-prayer-breakfast-catholics-challenged-to-assist-ukraine-mothers-and-children-post-dobbs/
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