The following is chapter nine in a book manuscript I have written about my nine years launching and leading the Academy of Preachers. I call the book The Great Amen and hope to publish the book when I secure the necessary funding. This chapter describes how the idea for the video to the Vatican developed and how it was actualized.
The Great Amen: Chapter Nine, by Dwight A. Moody
On Sunday afternoon, January 2, 2016, I received an email from Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky. Attached to it was a letter to Kurtz from the Secretary of State of the Vatican. It read:
His Holiness Pope Francis was pleased to learn that you are taking part in the forthcoming Seventh National Festival of Young Preachers, sponsored by the Academy of Preachers. He asks you kindly to convey to those present his cordial greetings and his prayerful good wishes.
From the beginning of his papacy, the Holy Father has expressed his conviction of the importance of ecumenical witness to the person of Jesus Christ our Savior and to the joy of the Gospel. Conscious of the importance of a preaching which sets hearts on fire, he encourages the young men and women assembled in Lexington to allow the Lord’s word to penetrate, possess and guide them in every aspect of their lives. In this way, their testimony to that word will be a source of grace to God’s people, an incentive to their own continuing conversion of mind and heart, and a leaven of the Kingdom within the community of the Church and the whole of society.
In union of prayer, His Holiness invokes upon all present the Lord’s blessings of wisdom, joy and peace.”
It was signed by Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State
I immediately wrote Kurtz back:
“Bring this letter with you tonight and read it when you stand to preach.”
But when we both arrived at Broadway Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky, for the opening plenary session of the 2016 National Festival of Young Preachers, I had other ideas in mind.
“Let’s make a video,” I said, “and send it to Pope Francis. Let’s ask him to host the first international festival of Young Preachers!”
Kurtz was enthusiastic for the idea and agreed to participate. I recruited two young preachers to help Kurtz and me record this video: Aline Silva AoP’16, a native of Brazil and a recent graduate of Central Baptist Theological Seminary of Shawnee, Kansas, and Andrew Wellman AoP’16, a student at the Roman Catholic Seminary of the West at St. Mary’s in Cincinnati (and already one of our Gospel Catalysts). We gathered just moments before the evening service began:
“At the conclusion of the service,” I said, “after Archbishop Kurtz preaches, the four of us will take to the platform, face the camera behind the pulpit with our backs to the congregation, and record this video. Kurtz, you go first. Thank the Pope for his letter and send him our greeting. Aline, you explain what we are doing here. Andrew, you offer our prayers and blessings for Pope Francis. I will formally extend the invitation to him to host this festival. And Kurtz, you close out with an appropriate statement of thanks and blessings.”
It was a wonderful worship service, featuring the American Spiritual Ensemble and a sermon by Kurtz on the preaching of Pope Francis, that illustrates his wonderful sense of humor:
“When Dr. Moody called last year to ask me to preach at this seventh annual National Festival of Young Preachers, I asked, ‘Why did you ask me?’
“Archbishop,’ Moody replied, “you have a reputation as a warm and engaging preacher.”
“I said to myself, ‘That’s a nice compliment.’ But I got out my dictionary and looked up the ‘warm.’ It read: ‘not so hot.’
“I called Dr. Moody back. I wanted him to know I had a dictionary. In the course of the conversation about this preaching assignment, Dr. Moody said, ‘Catholics consider you a model preacher.’
“Again, I was flattered, but again I got out my dictionary. ‘Model: small imitation of the real thing.”
Kurtz preached about Pope Francis and his then-recent pastoral visit to the United States, a tour for which Kurtz was, by virtue of his role as president of the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the lead host. (This sermon can be found in full in the volume of 2016 festival sermons, Heaven and Earth, which I edited and Chalice Press published.)
Then came the video, recorded totally without script or rehearsal ending with a spontaneous round of applause. Afterwards, I led the gathered assembly in a prayer that its message and invitation might be according to the purposes and plans of God.
Here is the transcript of that video:
Archbishop Joseph Kurtz: “Pope Francis, we are gathered here in Broadway Christian Church in Lexington, Kentucky, for the seventh annual Festival of Young Preachers. I begin by thanking you for your willingness to send that beautiful message of encouragement to us, just as you spoke so beautifully when you came on your pastoral visit to the United States in September. We are so happy that together we promote the person of Jesus Christ as our Savior.”
Aline Silva AoP’16: (after addressing the Pope and introducing herself in Spanish) “Here at the Academy of Preachers we inspire young preachers in their following of their call to preach the gospel. We have young folks from ages of 14 ranging to 35 and they are from very diverse backgrounds.”
Andrew Wellman, AoP’16: “Hello, Pope Francis, my name is Andrew Wellman, and I am a seminarian from the Diocese of Toledo. I study at Mt. St. Mary’s Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio. We want to thank you especially for your warm greeting tonight to all of us and to thank you for the example and the inspiration that you are to us with your work and with your actions of faith, hope and love in spreading the message, the joy of the gospel, to the ends of the Earth. We thank you, and we pray for you, and we ask that you pray for us.”
Dwight A. Moody: “Pope Francis, my name is Dwight Moody. I am a Baptist preacher. I’m the president of the Academy of Preachers. For seven years, we have been gathering in the United States for a National Festival of Young Preachers. But our ambition, our hope, is to have an international Festival of Young Preachers. And tonight, we extend to you an opportunity to host the first International Festival of Young Preachers in Rome. We envision that young preachers from every continent and every tradition will come to Rome to greet one another, to preach the gospel, and to pray together for the conversion of the whole world. It would be our desire and our delight for you to help us do this and make a way for us to come to Rome and celebrate in this way. Thank you for your support of gospel preaching around the world, and God bless you.”
Archbishop Joseph Kurtz: “Pope Francis, finally, I would like to lend my support and encouragement to the wonderful suggestion that my good friend Dwight Moody has made. What a wonderful occasion it would be to bring young preachers together and for you to be a part of that wonderful occasion would be a great honor for all of us. Once again, we greet you with thanks and prayers and with gratitude for your leadership and your humility in serving as a true servant of Jesus Christ, and we thank you from Kentucky, the heart of the United States of America.”
The Congregation: “Thank you!” [applause]
All this dramatic action on Sunday January 2, 2016, was in response to letters Kurtz and I had sent to the Vatican in June of 2015, inviting him to make a video greeting for our festival when he made his American tour in September of that year. Kurtz was at the time president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and thus the leading spokesperson of the American Catholic Church. He was also scheduled to travel with Francis for the duration of his trip to the States. During a lunch together in his office in Louisville in June of 2015, we made our plans.
“You write a letter of invitation, address it to Pope Francis, and send it to me,” Kurtz said to me, “and I will add a cover letter, send it to the Papal Nuncio in Washington DC. It will be added to the official papal packet that is carried to the Vatican.”
We did just that but heard nothing. The papal excursion to the States (New York, Philadelphia, and Washington DC) came and went, but still no word. Then in late December, the Vatican letter came, dated December 15, 2015; and on the first Sunday of 2016, Kurtz notified me, the letter was read to the festival assembly, and the video was set in motion (as described above).
Note: The video to Pope Francis did not receive any response, I am sad to report. But the idea of the Vatican sponsoring an International (and Ecumenical) Festival of Young Preachers is a good one, and it could happen some day. Perhaps one of the scores of young Roman Catholic preachers who participated in the AoP festivals will find himself, one day, in a place or position to make it happen.
