Torkelson: Lawyers ask Spirit's help at Red Mass

By Jean Torkelson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Monday, October 16, 2006

At first blush, it seems unwise to follow the path of a lawyer/public official who bucked the establishment, derailed his career and got his head lopped off.

Yet with nary a tremor, about 120 Colorado judges and attorneys joined Archbishop Charles Chaput in evoking a 16th century colleague who did just that.

The occasion was the Red Mass, held Sunday at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. It's sponsored each year by the Catholic Lawyers Guild of Colorado and the St. Thomas More Society.

The liturgy's intense name, celebrated with red vestments, supposedly dates back 700 years to Catholic Europe.

Each year, lawmakers called on the fiery Holy Spirit to inspire them to bring faith in public decision-making.

Today, the very idea conjures up issues of political correctness; the separation of church and state and - the kicker question - when weighing one's faith against public policy, what's a Catholic politician to do?

Well, what did Thomas More do? It wasn't abortion or embryonic stem cells that bedeviled More, an urbane Catholic lawyer and top adviser to King Henry VIII.

His public policy headache was refusing to support the king's unsanctioned royal divorce.

As Catholic England collapsed over the issue, More went to the scaffold in 1535 saying, "I die the king's good servant and God's first."

A prayer to More sits on the desk of Municipal Judge Tom Elliott, who received a lifetime achievement award Sunday for exercising his faith in public life.

For his similar commitment, the Thomas More award was presented to Municipal Judge Richard McManus, with a cheery thought added by the archbishop:

"We hope you don't lose your head," Chaput kidded, which got a laugh in the filled cathedral.

Yet there was also a sense that these, too, are unsettling, if not head-lopping, times.

In his homily, Chaput, who in recent years has been both praised and roasted across the land (and in The New York Times) for urging Catholics into the public square, said, "We are all tempted by political correctness to please people to get ahead. What's really important isn't to get ahead, but to be faithful to what we believe; to recommit ourselves to the service of the truth, not to the changing political correctness of our times."

Later, Chaput said he will preside over the Red Mass every year, something that scheduling conflicts prevented until now.

He also said he will launch an annual Blue Mass for Catholics in law enforcement and a White Mass for health care professionals.

Before Sunday's Mass, Lakewood Municipal Judge Philip McNulty noted that the misdemeanor criminal cases he weighs are all based on a moral code - "You can't lie, cheat, steal or assault people. It's all biblically based."

Yet McNulty observed there's a powerful movement today to sever faith-based morality from its traditional role as a contributor to public policy and the law.

What's more, he said, "there's an anti-Catholic movement and it's disturbing."

McNulty added, "It was people of (many) faiths who made this country great. People like me may not be shut up in a tower or beheaded, but we can lose our jobs over our faith - and that's scary. Because if you can't get people with good moral values in public office, who are you going to get?"

torkelsonj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5055