Add us to your circlesThe Ring Makes the Difference Video
The panel discussed the belief that marriage between one man and one wife, for life, is the bedrock of intact families and ultimately the bedrock of stable society.
Update October 5, 2011: An article about The Ring Makes the Difference appeared in Catholic New York. Read it here: "Archbishop, Bruderhof Leader Defend Marriage Bond" by Claudia McDonnell.
If you have Flash installed try this link: The Ring Makes the Difference Video. I'm sorry, you'll need a flash player installed to watch the video.
Problems connecting? Try the low-bandwidth version (300kbps).
Responses
A few reflections about the Bardavon event.
1. I thought it was excellent and went very well. All the speakers were good in different ways, and the evening was informative and worthwhile. Thank you and the Bruderhof for organizing the event.
2. The organized and orchestrated reaction from the Gay community was to be expected. I have seen that sort of thing before and so was not surprised. In my opinion they did not come off well and had little, probably no effect on the audience.
On Tuesday morning in the Breviary (the prayer we priests say daily – mostly psalms and Scripture reading), I found the following quote from St. Paul: “Do not be intimidated by your opponents in any situation. Their opposition foreshadows downfall for them but salvation for you.” I immediately thought of it as God’s blessing on Christoph and the Archbishop.
3. In my thoughts I went back to the one hundredth anniversary of St. Stanislaus [in Pleasant Valley, NY, where Charles was once the Pastor]. I invited the Bruderhof because I knew Cardinal Egan would be there. I thought it would be a useful, low-key chance to meet. I never expected that he would speak about you publicly and mention the statement you had been working on with Cardinal O’Connor. That small meeting, I think, contributed a little to making the Bardavon event possible.
4. I was ordained in 1959, very pre-Vatican II. If anyone then had said that one day the Archbishop of New York would be on a stage and sharing a presentation with Pastor Christoph Arnold, I would have dismissed the idea as fantasy or heresy, probably both. Yet it all happened so naturally.
On one hand, we can talk about how far we have yet to go down the road of ecumenism. On the other, I thank and praise God for how far we have already come. Thank you for a job well done and for a gift to the Catholic Church and Dutchess County.
And I enjoyed the chocolate chip cookie for breakfast.
Charles Quinn
[Msgr. Charles Quinn now lives at Mariapolis Luminosa, of the Focolare Movement, in Hyde Park, NY.]
Thank you so very much for inviting me to this very special event. I was paticularly moved by Pastor Arnold's passion and love for justice and his love for his wife and she for him. I was widowed 15 years ago and, sometimes question why, when there are so many divorces, cohabitations, and a general lack of appreciation and comprehension of the sacredness of sexual intimacy. I have been fortunate to be called to minister to young people and to discuss the beauty of marriage with them. I am grateful for your community's welcome and openness to all even though there were some who chose to use the event as a platform for personal agenda's.
At times I became very uncomfortable with the rhetoric of the respondents, but even with the speakers who would seek to attack the panelists, I only had to look into Pastor's eyes and see the pure love of Christ.
Again, Thank you.
Linda B. Tuttle, Catholic Campus Ministry Vassar College