Sharing the Gospel at Notre Dame

Obama's Christian testimony at Notre Dame was pretty amazing:

Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words. It's a way of life that has
always been the Notre Dame tradition. Father Hesburgh has long spoken of this
institution as both a lighthouse and a crossroads. A lighthouse that stands
apart, shining with the wisdom of the Catholic tradition, while the crossroads
is where "differences of culture and religion and conviction can coexist with
friendship, civility, hospitality, and especially love." And I want to join him
and Father John in saying how inspired I am by the maturity and responsibility
with which this class has approached the debate surrounding today's ceremony.
You are an example of what Notre Dame is about.

This tradition of cooperation and understanding is one that I learned
in my own life many years ago — also with the help of the Catholic Church.
You see, I was not raised in a particularly religious household, but my mother
instilled in me a sense of service and empathy that eventually led me to become
a community organizer after I graduated college. And a group of Catholic
churches in Chicago helped fund an organization known as the Developing
Communities Project, and we worked to lift up South Side neighborhoods that had
been devastated when the local steel plant closed.

And it was quite an eclectic crew — Catholic and Protestant churches,
Jewish and African American organizers, working-class black, white, and Hispanic
residents — all of us with different experiences, all of us with different
beliefs. But all of us learned to work side by side because all of us saw in
these neighborhoods other human beings who needed our help — to find jobs and
improve schools. We were bound together in the service of others.

And something else happened during the time I spent in these
neighborhoods — perhaps because the church folks I worked with were so welcoming
and understanding; perhaps because they invited me to their services and sang
with me from their hymnals; perhaps because I was really broke and they fed me.
Perhaps because I witnessed all of the good works their faith inspired them to
perform, I found myself drawn not just to the work with the church; I was drawn
to be in the church. It was through this service that I was brought to Christ.

And at the time, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin was the Archbishop of
Chicago. For those of you too young to have known him or known of him, he was a
kind and good and wise man. A saintly man. I can still remember him speaking at
one of the first organizing meetings I attended on the South Side. He stood as
both a lighthouse and a crossroads — unafraid to speak his mind on moral issues
ranging from poverty and AIDS and abortion to the death penalty and nuclear war.
And yet, he was congenial and gentle in his persuasion, always trying to bring
people together, always trying to find common ground. Just before he died, a
reporter asked Cardinal Bernardin about this approach to his ministry. And he
said, "You can't really get on with preaching the Gospel until you've touched
hearts and minds."

My heart and mind were touched by him. They were touched by the words
and deeds of the men and women I worked alongside in parishes across Chicago.
And Id like to think that we touched the hearts and minds of the neighborhood
families whose lives we helped change. For this, I believe, is our highest
calling.