PROVIDENCE – Members of the state’s legal community attending the annual Red Mass concelebrated September 27 in the Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul were told to carry out their responsibilities with compassion and to treat everyone with equality.
Bishop Thomas J. Tobin was the main celebrant of the Mass, which was attended by members of the judiciary and both branches of the legislature, as well as lawyers and government officials from throughout Rhode Island. Archbishop George H. Pearce, Bishop Louis E. Gelineau and Bishop Ernest B. Boland were the principal concelebrants.
Dominican Father Brian Shanley, president of Providence College, served as homilist.
The Red Mass is celebrated every fall to invoke the Holy Spirit upon the judicial year. Celebrants wear red vestments symbolizing the tongues of fire representing the Holy Spirit.
Music was provided by the Gregorian Concert Choir under the direction of Father Anthony Mancini. The procession of judges, bishops and priests was led into the Cathedral by the Rhode Island State Police Honor Guard.
Father Shanley selected the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke: 25-37) for the Gospel reading because of its powerful message and relevance to the pursuit of justice.
“Lawyers are not supposed to ask questions to which they do not know the answer,” Father Shanley said, referring to the legal scholar in the parable who tested Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“The lawyer knew the answer to the first question, for it was a widespread teaching: The law is summed up in love of God and love of neighbor,” said Father Shanley. “But he did not know the answer to the second question (‘And who is my neighbor?’) — it was a grey area — and Jesus’ parabolic answer is deeply challenging and upsetting. And though we all have to live with the answer, since your profession provoked it, you should only rightly bear some of the brunt of the burden.”
He continued, “We couple ‘good’ and ‘Samaritan’ together so easily that we have lost the shock value of Jesus’ original story: “Jesus’ listeners would not have put the two words in the same sentence.
“They would have regarded Samaritans like Shiites regard Sunnis in Iraq, as deviants from the true religion. They would have seen them as morally inferior. So when they heard the parable, they would not expect a Samaritan to be the hero.... The face of an enemy becomes a parable of God’s mercy. It challenges us to recognize the moral equality or even superiority of someone that we might assume to be inferior. Do not let considerations of race, or class, or prejudice of any kind enter into our ability to see moral goodness in others.
“Moral goodness cuts across class, religion and race,” he continued. “It is just not our own who are good. People who we think we are superior to may be superior to us. The problem of prejudice is one that you especially have to look out for in the legal profession. Assumptions about innocence and guilt, goodness and evil do not always conform to our expectations.”
Father Shanley told the worshippers that the Samaritan in Luke’s Gospel was motivated by compassion, which “overcomes prejudice and the normal reluctance to assist a stranger and leads to heroic service.
“This compassion is the very face of God,” Father Shanley said. “The old interpretation of the parable is that we are the injured man, Christ is the Good Samaritan, and that the inn is the church. The action of the Samaritan reveals the way that God is merciful to us.
“Compassion fatigue is a problem of the legal profession”.... Father Shanley observed. “You come across people in need by the side of the road all the time in your profession. If you do not look with compassion, you will not be their neighbor nor can you even serve them well as their lawyer.
“... We have to put ourselves at risk in the service of others, and lawyers do not like risk,” he said. “But risk is at the heart of our Gospel obligation to those in need....
“In conclusion, because one of your own violated a basic rule of cross examination, we now all have to live with the imperative that ends the parable. Go and do the same.”
Bishop Tobin thanked the members of the St. Thomas More Society for organizing the Red Mass and Father Shanley for his inspiring homily and “great work as President of Providence College.
“All of us need the Holy Spirit in our work,” Bishop Tobin reminded the worshippers. “We thank you for your work.”
Steven Kuada, a native of Ghana and a member of St. Augustine Parish, Providence, was moved by Father Shanley’s thought-provoking message.
“It was an excellent homily,” said Kuada, who teaches legal studies at the Community College of Rhode Island while preparing to take the bar exam next year.
Kuada said that lawyers often forget their duty to act with compassion and equality.
“The homily was showing what the true lawyer should be like,” he added, noting that members of the legal profession should use their gifts and talents to work on behalf of the poor, and should not discriminate on the basis of religion, race or economic standing.
Atty. Martha McGair Ippolito, President of the Rhode Island Bar Association, said that many lawyers are not as aware of the virtue of compassion as Jesus Christ would like them to be as they perform their important work.
“We should use him as our role model in the day-to-day responsibilities and obligations that we undertake as officers of the court,” she emphasized.
Atty. David Lussier, a member of St. Joseph Parish, West Warwick, and a 1962 graduate of Providence College, said one of the reasons he attended the Red Mass was to hear Father Shanley preach.
“It was inspiring to me as an attorney,” Lussier noted, adding that too many people these days are focused on their own lives and “what’s good for me.”
Compassion is a missing element in our society today,” Lussier said.
The tradition of the Red Mass was inaugurated in the United States in 1928 in New York City and is celebrated in many dioceses throughout the country. With the establishment of the St. Thomas More Society of Rhode Island by a number of faith-filled attorneys in 1998, the celebration of the Red Mass was restored in the Diocese of Providence.
The St. Thomas More Society is a non-denominational, non-profit corporation established to advance the spiritual, moral and religious growth of attorneys who practice in Rhode Island.
