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The “New York Encounter” was a four-day public cultural festival organized by the ecclesial movement Communion and Liberation (and its Crossroads Cultural Center) and held in two venues within a block of Madison Square Garden over the Dr. Martin Luther King weekend.
I was only able to attend the afternoon session on Sunday, Jan. 16, at the Manhattan Center on West 34th Street, but that was long enough to see that something special was taking place.
Immediately after entering, I joined a group of about 20 people listening to a volunteer guide who was leading a tour of an exhibit dedicated to the life and work of the American novelist Flannery O’Connor. The guide, a young woman, had a scholar’s grasp of her topic, frequently quoting passages of Ms. O’Connor’s writings without looking up for the words that in many cases appeared on the biographical panels behind her.
Just the way the guide spoke about the themes that emerge in Ms. O’Connor’s work and the way she pursued her writing gave me a clue that she presumed her audience to be familiar with the author’s writings and able to comprehend a scholarly, if brief, explanation about them. It was a nice intellectual challenge offered in conjunction with the appreciation of the profound impact that Ms. O’Connor’s Catholicism had on her writing.
The guide was working against a time limit imposed by the start of the day’s main session, “Reality, Reason, Freedom: At the Root of the Religious Quest,” which featured presentations by Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston and Father Julian Carrón, president of Communion and Liberation, with Michael Waldstein, professor of theology at Ave Maria University, serving as moderator. They were discussing “The Religious Sense,” by Msgr. Luigi Giussani, the late founder of Communion and Liberation.
What I heard in my short visit left me wishing I could have spent more time at New York Encounter. That morning, Mass was celebrated by Auxiliary Bishop Fernando Chomali of Santiago, Chile, with about a dozen priests from across the United States serving as concelebrants. They were joined by the Gospel choir from St. Charles Borromeo parish in Harlem.
The combination was as Catholic as can be in both the religious and universal sense of the word, said Maurizio Maniscalco, who chairs a group of seven Communion and Liberation members that make sure an event involving numerous conferences, presentations, artistic performances, exhibits and more than 1,000 participants each day ran smoothly. Of course, the core group was assisted by more than 100 other volunteers.
Those who have not heard about New York Encounter, held last year at the Marriott Marquis on Broadway, may be more familiar with the annual Way of the Cross procession that Communion and Liberation leads on Good Friday across the Brooklyn Bridge and into lower Manhattan where one of the stations is at Ground Zero.
That willingness to stand up and bring their religious faith into public view stands out. In a way, that’s part of what was accomplished at New York Encounter. Neither the Manhattan Center nor the New Yorker Hotel, where the final day’s session took place, is connected to the Church, but that didn’t stop Communion and Liberation from staging a festival where religion could intersect with the culture. While a great majority of the participants were Catholic, it seemed to me, and a good number were affiliated with Communion and Liberation, Maniscalco said that the movement is comfortable reaching out to others. “We know who we are,” he said. “We are not afraid of welcoming others who are not Catholic.”
One example of such an outreach was a highlight of New York Encounter for Maniscalco. It was a New York night of music performed by an ensemble of street musicians who played as images of New York were projected behind them. Accomplished saxophonist Lou Marini was the master of ceremonies for the nearly two-hour show that left everyone satisfied.
“It was beautiful,” Maniscalco said. “I don’t know if we were happier, or (the musicians) were.”
