Espada is honored with society’s Woman for All Seasons Award

Archbishop Charles C. Thompson and Judge David Certo of the Marion County Superior Court pose on Oct. 2 with Angela Espada, executive director of the Indiana Catholic Conference during a dinner at the Archbishop Edward T. O’Meara Catholic Center in Indianapolis following the annual Red Mass of the St. Thomas More Society of Central Indiana. Espada was honored with the society’s Woman of All Seasons Award. (Photo by Sean Gallagher)

By Sean Gallagher

Lawyers, judges, other legal professionals and law students from across central Indiana gathered on Oct. 2 at SS. Peter and Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis for the annual Red Mass of the St. Thomas More Society of Central Indiana.

Archbishop Charles C. Thompson was the principal celebrant of the Mass. As the liturgy took place on the memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels, he and the concelebrants and deacon assisting at the liturgy wore white vestments.

Red vestments are ordinarily worn at the Mass for legal professionals in a tradition going back to the Middle Ages in which they call upon the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in their work at the beginning of a new legal term in the fall.

‘Something bigger than ourselves’

In his homily, Archbishop Thompson spoke about the day’s feast to the congregation of legal professionals, marked by two rows of federal, state and local judges in their black gowns in the front of the cathedral.

“We need something bigger than ourselves,” he said. “We need God’s grace to fill up what is lacking in us. We need that grace that is represented by the Guardian Angels, who help us carry out our mission, our calling, our service to others.”

The archbishop noted the difficult work of judges and attorneys and praised their dedication.

“But for the grace of God, we can become overwhelmed with the volume or weight of responsibility placed upon us,” he said. “It is in those moments that we must be humble as children before the faithfulness of our God in prayer.

“That’s why in our Red Mass we pray for our judges, both in thanksgiving and that God’s grace will be with you and all in the legal system, a prayer as simple as calling upon one’s Guardian Angel for guidance, strength, wisdom and perseverance.”

In a dinner at the adjacent Archbishop Edward T. O’Meara Catholic Center that followed the Mass, the St. Thomas More Society’s Woman for All Seasons Award was presented to Angela Espada.

Currently the executive director of the Indiana Catholic Conference (ICC), Espada previously worked as a dean in the Indiana University McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis, as a deputy prosecutor for Marion County and as a staff attorney for the Indiana Supreme Court.

In remarks after being honored, Espada sought to take the spotlight off herself and put it on the ICC’s work of legislative and public policy advocacy at the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis.

“If you have a [business] card, please leave it so that we can send you information about what we do,” Espada said to the attendees. “Then, if you are so motivated to join us in our fight to advocate against bad laws and advocate for good laws, we can send you information and you can decide whether or not to lift up your voice and join us.”

The need for humility

One of those taking part in the Red Mass and dinner was Justice Mark Massa, a member of the Indiana Supreme Court and a member of Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Indianapolis.

“It’s a wonderful tradition,” said Massa. “I think it says something about humility. It reminds judges that they need it. They have a place to turn for strength and guidance. That’s not inconsistent with a secular approach and application of the law. The Catholic Church has a great legal tradition of its own.”

Massa also introduced the speaker at the dinner, Judge Robert Conrad of the U.S. District Court of the Western District of North Carolina. Now retired and serving as a senior judge, Conrad is the author of John Fisher and Thomas More: Keeping Their Souls While Losing Their Heads, which shares lessons of two 16th-century English martyrs who died for the faith after refusing to affirm King Henry VIII’s claim to be supreme head of the Church in England.

In his introduction, Massa noted that Conrad himself had, like Fisher and More, endured the challenge of living the Catholic faith as a public servant. He recalled how the 2007 nomination of Conrad to serve on the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals was scuttled likely by “his faith and candor.”

“He endured this with grace and the spirit of More and Fisher,” Massa said, “following their examples of fidelity to a well-formed conscience and a vision of eternal life with God.”

‘The divine voice within’

In his remarks, Conrad reflected on the importance of conscience, rightly understood, in the life and death of Fisher and More.

The 20th-century playwright Robert Bolt lionized More in his 1960 play about him, A Man for All Seasons, which became an Academy-award winning film in 1966. But Conrad pointed out that Bolt understood More’s defense of conscience as focused on “the subjective fact that More the individual believed. To Bolt, it was that I believe, not that I believe.”

This, Conrad argued, is not faithful to the way Fisher and More understood conscience.

Conscience, Conrad stated, “is not the right of self will, but the duty to obey the divine voice within.

“That divine voice, conscience,” he continued, “speaks to issues of right and wrong, reconciliation, justice, truth, wisdom, sanctity, benevolence and mercy properly formed and sovereign, irreversible, absolute in its authority.

“Fisher and More recognized their respective duty to properly inform their conscience, to ascertain the divine voice within. But, once informed, they understood their duty to act according to it. To do otherwise meant the potential loss of their soul.”

‘A present-moment vision of heaven’

Conrad happily noted that, while Fisher and More faced death squarely in the eye for remaining faithful to their well-formed conscience, these circumstances did not sadden them or fill them with despair.

“Both men exhibited a sense of merriment that sprung from their deeply rooted faith in Jesus Christ and his Church,” Conrad said. “To be merry summarized their individual responses to adversity.”

He recalled the words that More said to the judges who unjustly condemned him to death: “I verily trust and shall right-heartedly pray that, though your lordships have now here on Earth been judges to my condemnation, we may yet hereafter in heaven all merrily meet together to everlasting salvation.”

Conrad told his listeners how More was telling jokes right up to the moment of his execution.

“More asked his executioner for help up the steps of the scaffold, telling him that he could see to his own way down,” Conrad said. “He adjusted his beard to the side, claiming that it had not committed treason against the king. He kissed his executioner and told him, ‘Thou will give me this day a greater benefit than any mortal man could ever give me.’ ”

Conrad closed his remarks by encouraging his listeners to imitate Fisher and More in the circumstances of their own personal and professional lives.”

“More and Fisher possessed a present-moment vision of heaven,” Conrad said. “Eternal life was more real to them than the adversities staring them in the face. That accounts for their bravery, good humor and serene disposition in their last days.” †