It was a homecoming of sorts for the top Roman Catholic archbishop in the U.S. Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, D.D., who gave the keynote speech Wednesday at the University of Scranton's 13th annual disABILITY conference, has had ties to the area since serving as a professor at St. Pius X Seminary in Dalton. The 68-year-old archbishop, now a resident of Louisville, Kentucky, was born in Mahonoy City. The speech touched on his life with his brother, George, who had Down syndrome.
He taught at St. Pius from 1973 to 1976 and earned a master's degree at Marywood University. In 2013, he was elected president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Before his speech, Kurtz sat down with The Times-Tribune, a Times-Shamrock newspaper, for a discussion that covered how disability fits into God's plan, his use of Twitter and Pope Francis' recent remarks on same-sex attraction and evolution. The discussion was edited for clarity and brevity.
Q. Is your brother George the jumping-off point for your speech?
A. I'd have to say that my family is the jumping-off point for pretty much anything I do.
My brother, George, was 5 years old when I was born. I have three older sisters. By the time I got to be 4 or 5 years old, my sisters were already out of the house, so very much it was my mom and dad and my brother, Georgie, and me growing up together.
I didn't know it at the time, but I was very influenced by George. My mom and dad would often say, "Now, don't forget, bring Georgie with you when you go to the game or play ball." We became very much a team.
Q. Was there a certain point when you realized he had Down syndrome?
A. I can remember being in the Poconos, when my dad and brother were in one boat and I was in another fishing at Brady's Lake. I was maybe in fourth grade, and I had never met anyone else who had Down syndrome.
All of a sudden, I looked and I saw Georgie in an alpine hat on the shore. And I thought, "What's Georgie doing there?" And it wasn't George. It was another person with Down syndrome but had all the many features that Georgie had.
In the talk, I'll be talking about Dr. Jerome Lejeune who in 1959 actually discovered the genetic composition of Down syndrome, trisomy 21. This is something rather recent in terms of knowing the complexity and even the gifts of people who are born with Down syndrome.
Q. Disability in general, how could it be part of God's plan?
A. Every blessed one of us - because of aging and because this life on Earth is not permanent - will have disabilities.
As beautiful as this Earth is, it's temporary. I think part of God's plan is to uncover what's going to be lasting.
My sense is that there is a mystery in everyone's life. Maybe in heaven we will discover more clearly why such and such is. But at least I have an inkling of it, that I am a different person than I would have been if it weren't for my brother George.
I believe that when we look at persons with disability in our culture, it's an opportunity for someone to deepen their understanding of what it means to be fully human.
Q. Today, when many people experience a moment of crisis, they turn to the Internet for answers. How have the Internet and social media changed the church?
A: I'm someone who Tweets. I would say that the church at its best has always used media, so I don't see them in opposition. I think the first printing press product was the New Testament.
There's great opportunities with the Internet but there's also a certain mean-spiritedness that comes from anonymity and speed. They make people say things that they would never say to somebody in a civilized way.
Religion has a lot to offer people as they try to navigate what they think is good and what they think is fair. If they start to think about what is good and fair, before you know it they'll be praying.
Q. What is Pope Francis really saying about homosexuality?
A. On that question, the Church's teachings are not clearly understood by people. The most basic church teaching is saying each one of us as a human being is made in the image and likeness of God. There's a tremendous sense of dignity that is in every person.
Secondly, we are all called to what I would call the virtue of chastity, which is very rarely talked about. That is this understanding of why did God make me, and what does it mean to have good, holy and healthy friendships with other people?
The church's teachings run up against some of the societal movements - there's no question about that. But I think sometimes people too quickly look at where the clash is.
We are called to see the person first. The key will be our capacity as the church to enunciate what I call the beauty of that vision and to do it in a way that both listens and welcomes people.
Q. What about evolution and the theories of the origins of the universe?
A. The pope is repeating what has been said for quite a while. A lot of time people incorrectly make faith and reason opposed to one another: You have to either be a person of faith and be stupid or a person of science and have no belief.
Those who would like to make that sharp divide have a lot of work to do. Anybody who's a student of history understands that what is reasonable and what is faithful both need to be answered in a person's life, and they're not opposed to each other.
When we look at who began the first universities in the Middle Ages, it was the Catholic church. That notion of scholarship and science has been something that has been at the very beginning.
The Big Bang theory was first enunciated by a priest. Did you know that? (Belgian Monsignor Georges Lemaitre in the 1920s).