Fr. Martin
Walsh, OP

Looking to the Future
Hope and Healing

Fr. David O'Rourke, O.P.
Vilnius, Lithuania

Four years ago the government of the Republic of Lithuania and the Archdiocese of Vilnius, the capital city, decided to sponsor a symposium, or public discussion, on the future of the family in the country following the collapse of the Soviet Union. They decided to have this meeting in order to look into the chaos that relationships between men and women, between parents and children, and between all relatives had been forced into under the Soviets.

Way back in 1921 Lenin, who founded the Soviet Union, decided that the Bolshevik regime had to destroy all social institutions in Russia. The Russian Orthodox Church, private business and industry, the medical and educational systems, the artistic and cultural life as well as the universities, family-operated farms, and the family as well, social and professional groups … they all had to be shut down and rebuilt fresh from the ground up according to a collectivist model. The Russian Church, like all the others, of course, would simply be destroyed.

So under Lenin’s leadership they went about destroying the social system that had existed. And they were successful. The family as it had been in Russia, and as we know it here, simply ceased to exist. Marriage was a loose and temporary arrangement, entered into and left, with relative ease. And when The Baltic Republics were forced to become part of the Soviet Union in 1939 this destruction was imposed on them from Moscow as well. So when the Soviet system effectively ended in 1991, the captive nations in Eastern Europe had been living under Lenin’s rules for 60 years. Most people had very little experience with Christian life and traditions.

Even people who fought to preserve Catholic life and traditions secretly in their homes had little to remember or hang on to. So this international symposium, drawing on people with different fields of expertise in family life from different countries, was a way for the Church and the State, together, to look into what could be done to rebuild family life and plan for a better future. The symposium was held in the National Parliament. I was asked to be one of the speakers.

Beautifully restored 17th century pulpit in the Dominican Church of the Holy Apostles St. Philip & St. James.  This church was left in ruins by the Soviets, and is being restored by the National Restoration Archives.

I wanted to talk about the need for a humane and person-oriented view of the family, in which everyone, regardless of age, gender, or health was given full human respect; in which human rights and human relationships were taken seriously and given support in law; and in which the family itself was in charge of its own destiny. And I saw this as a very important part of my missionary work in trying to rebuild Catholic life in a country where it had been systematically destroyed. I knew that other speakers would have different views. But what I did not expect were views nearly as anti-family as those of the Soviets.

I should not have been so naïve. I knew that in Western European countries enduring marriages and stable families were viewed, in law, as outside the norm. High school classes in family life and sexual relationships simply taught young folks to assume that relationships would be casual and not lasting. And countries there have adopted policies in support of abortion as a way to limit growth, especially among the poor. Whatever the theoretical backgrounds, these views are not that different from the ones the Soviets imposed on the captive nations. So in rebuilding Catholic life out of the chaos of the Soviet era it became obvious to me that we could not look to the European democracies for much in the way of models. For they are effectively as secular, as self-focused, exploitative, and materialistic as the Soviets.

The main street in Vilnius: Gedimino Prospekt

The small and young staff of the Archdiocesan Family Center where I was working realized this better than I did at first. What they draw on now are Church teachings about the value of all life and every individual; the belief that persons are more important than profits; that compassionate and enduring relationships are at the heart of an authentic spiritual life. Human rights, human equality, human dignity, are all guaranteed in law. This seems so obvious, but it is becoming close to a minority view.

Part of the reason, as I see it, is that many of the ruins left by the Soviets are human ruins. People with broken spirits and wounded souls. In the new world being built by men with big ideas and big plans, healing the left-behind and wounded, of which there are so many, is not a priority. So it becomes the work of the Church. That, and looking to the future through a lens of hope and healing.

You do not expect to find missionary work in a nominally Catholic country with Western banks and supermarkets. But not only is it missionary work, it is tough work because you first have to recognize the real spiritual and human failings in your own system in order to be effective in theirs.