Page 15 - ACTL_Win23

And so, we work really, really closely on those issues. In Ukraine, part of the brief we have is the Vatican is its own organization and they have a policy and the Pope also speaks off the cuff, as well. Our belief, what we know, is that Rus- sia invaded Ukraine; they attacked their country. Ukraine is fighting for its life. And that’s the message that when the Vatican talks about that to the world, to all parts of the world, it helps strengthen that message that there’s no equality here. When they get off that message and get a little wobbly, it makes it much tougher. And so part of my responsibilities have been to make sure or to work and meet with them on a regular basis to go over here’s what we’re seeing, here’s what’s happening there, here’s why there’s no two equal sides, here’s why there’s an aggressor.
And just last night on the way back, the Pope made his stron- gest comments on Ukraine to date where he said, “Self-de- fense is not only allowed but is an expression of love for your homeland. Someone who does not defend one’s self, who does not defend something, does not love it.” And so my job, what we worked on, is to make sure that the Pope got to a position where he was comfortable to say those things.
One other remark I’ll share with you, on a little lighter note, is when I met with the Pope. I said to him, I said, “Holy Fa- ther, the people of America love you.” And he looked at me with a smile and he said, “Some of you do.”
We also work on issues like China to help protect religious freedom. We have the Uyghur community in Xinjiang that are in concentration camps. We have the religious freedom in Tibet under attack every day. And we meet with the Vatican to try to encourage them to engage with China to help promote religious freedom there. Our job is to represent the United States to them; to say, look, a clear, crisp voice talking about protection of religious freedom is really, really important.
That’s the United States doing that in tandem with the Vat- ican that has parishes and sisters and people in all of these small communities all over Africa where we do not have that kind of ground coverage. That’s the partnership that we talk about. It’s been a long history of working togeth- er. We have the scourge of trafficking; trafficking of young people, of older people, of women. The Vatican is front and center on trying to help with that, as are we, as are you - the whole goal is try to protect the dignity and the humanity of everyone.
Pope Francis also has a special focus on our planet. He has written an encyclical about the importance of protecting this world of ours and making sure that we hand off to our children a planet in better shape than what was given to us.
So that’s why we have the embassy to the Vatican. You know, in Indiana, we do a lot of manufacturing, a lot of automo- tive. There’s some really great car companies in Italy - Fer- rari, Maserati - I asked the U.S. Embassy to Italy, “Do you need me to go give a speech to Ferrari?” They said, “You have your business, we have our business, sorry about this one.” But it’s a great partnership; we work together with our U.S. Embassy. We work together with our U.S. Em- bassy to the World Food Programme where Cindy McCain, Senator John McCain’s widow, is our ambassador there and doing an amazing, amazing job trying to help with food distribution around the world.
We’re in this beautiful country, an incredible place, with extraordinarily kind people. But there isn’t a day that I don’t think about my home in Indiana, my home in the Unit- ed States. I’m the grandson of Irish immigrants. My wife comes from immigrant families, as well, and that’s what the United States is to us. That it gave all of us hope, all of us a chance to live in the most wonderful place in the world.
One of the areas we worked the closest with them on is in Africa. Think of this: You want a reasontohaveamission?Twenty-fivepercentofthehealthcareintheworldisprovidedbythe Catholic church. Approximately fifteen percent in the United States is provided by the Cath- olic church. And it’s not in the best clinics in the wealthiest areas. They are providing care in the toughest neighborhoods in the poorest places and trying to make sure that children and fam- ilies can have clean water, get an education, be able to pass on to their family a better, stronger country, and that’s where we connect with a lot of Vatican organizations. We’re working in one particular mission to provide to 151 communities in Africa water and sanitation programs so that people don’t get cholera; so that people will be able to have clean water to cook [with].
WINTER 2023
JOURNAL 14
Thank you for letting me be here with you and may God bless the United States of America.