'No apology' for faith

Led by the stirring chords of a bagpiper, the archbishop reminisced that it was on this altar one year ago almost to the day that he was welcomed by the legal community in his first official Mass in Broward County upon becoming archbishop.  

“As men and women of faith, we invoke the help of the Holy Spirit on our legal profession. We do so with no apologies,” Archbishop Wenski said. “We, Christians, are citizens of both the city of God and the city of man.” 

He delivered a similar talk the next day to lawyers in Miami-Dade County, convened for a similar Red Mass by the Miami Catholic Lawyers Guild. 

Drawing from the documents upon which the U.S. was founded over 200 years ago, Archbishop Wenski reasoned that the principles memorialized then are even more important today as the nation struggles with issues of immigration, abortion, parental rights and choice in education.  

“Our founding fathers got it right,” he said. They did not “pretend they were building heaven on earth.” With their document of checks and balances, they set up a system that would best serve the people, limiting the power of the state in matters of religion. It was meant “to keep the state from dictating to the Church.” 

The archbishop challenged the dozens of judges and political officials in attendance to be engaged and to allow their faith to be their conscience. “The stakes are high,” he said. “The failure to be truly human … has social consequences.”

This year’s Mass was concelebrated with 11 other clergy led by Father Jerry Singleton, pastor of St. Anthony, the oldest Catholic Church in Broward County. 

“It’s an honor to host the event because we have a shared history with the St. Thomas More Society,” he said.

St. Thomas More was a lawyer, philosopher and political leader who reached the position of speaker of the House of Commons in England during the 1500s. But it was his role as advisor to King Henry VIII for which he is most recognized. More refused to sanction the king’s split with the Church and set into motion a path that would lead to his beheading. His last words, “The king’s good servant, but God’s first,” are, even today, an inspiration to Catholics around the world.

Locally, the St. Thomas More Society takes inspiration from their patron saint and sponsors two events over the course of the year — the Red Mass and a legal ethics seminar. 

Society president Mike Styles said he likes the inclusiveness of the events they sponsor. “We do get a significant number of non-Catholics at our events.”  

He said he feels it is important for the legal community to come together because “once or twice a year, it is reinvigorating to exercise your faith.”

Johanna Saxton Shields, a partner in the firm Klauber & Shields, P.A., is both a St. Thomas More Society board member and a parishioner at St. Anthony’s. She said she loves the involvement of the whole family in the annual celebration. A highlight each year for many parents in the Catholic legal community is the inclusion of the children of local lawyers and judges in the liturgical celebration. Shields’ son, a first grader, has a few years to wait before he can become an altar server and participate in the Mass but she said he “can’t wait.”
The Mass is followed by a reception and dinner, where the highlight is the keynote speech followed by the presentation of the Archbishop Edward A. McCarthy Award.

Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler, a St. Thomas More Society board member, introduced the evening’s speaker, University of Miami President Donna Shalala, quoting a Washington Post story saying she was probably “the most successful government manager of all time.”

Shalala spent eight years as a cabinet member in the Clinton administration, running the Health and Human Services division. As a practicing Catholic, she took pride in never missing a Red Mass during her service in Washington. 

In her talk, Shalala focused on the challenges of decision-making in health care and the need to have honest debate. “It shouldn’t be ideology. It should be about what is the most appropriate. Like St. Thomas More, what is the right thing to do?”

Echoing the archbishop in his homily, Shalala said that Catholics have a responsibility to the most vulnerable, to engage in reason-filled debate and to ask the right questions. Before closing to standing-room applause, Shalala looked out at the packed room and said simply, “I hope there are some more St. Thomas Mores.”

For Judge Lurana Snow, the Archbishop Edward A. McCarthy award winner, the day was particularly rewarding and humbling. 

Adopted by working-class parents who believed in the power of education, she recalled that St. Thomas More was not only the patron saint of lawyers, politicians and statesmen, but also the patron saint of adopted children.  

“My parents had no formal education but they raised me to understand that I could be anything I wanted to be,” she said. They saved to send her to the best school money could buy. Chuckling, she added, “Notre Dame didn’t accept women in those days so they sent me to Harvard.” She graduated from Harvard University in 1972, followed by Harvard Law School three years later.

She was both an assistant federal public defender and assistant U.S. attorney before taking the bench as a federal magistrate judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida in 1986. Her judicial responsibility stretches from the federal courts in Fort Lauderdale to the southern Keys. 

Judge Snow was brought up in a Catholic home, learning to recite her catechism and to follow the rules of the Church. But as she grew older, she became more curious about the Bible and wanted to learn more. “I wanted the grown up version,” she said.

Midway through her career, and 20 years past her law school graduation, she entered Barry University, receiving a Master’s in Theology in 1998. 

In introducing her, Father John F. O’Grady, her professor of biblical studies at Barry, said, “She always asked good questions,” while never doubting her faith. “She loved and believed in the word of God.”

Judge Snow is an active parishioner at St. Peter Church in Big Pine Key where she has served as organist since 1999. She is president of the Key West Pops Orchestra and founder of Musical Dreams, Inc., a New York organization dedicated to raising funds for scholarships for children who cannot afford instruction in piano and voice.  

In accepting the award, Judge Snow closed by saying, “Somebody in 1951 realized unselfishly that she couldn’t raise a baby by herself. If I had a wish, it would be that every little child would have those same opportunities I was given.”