Choosing Hope – Letter from Our Executive Director

Dear Members, Partners, and Friends,

In the early winter months of this Jubilee Year, I think it’s safe to say that “hope” is not necessarily the word which most readily comes to mind. 

“There is an air of arrest,” as Dr. Emilce Cuda, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, recently put it. Speaking at the USCCB-sponsored Catholic Social Ministry Gathering, she noted that many of us committed to the social mission of the Church rightly feel we are being “called to supernatural effort.”

Hunger, war, intolerance, environmental degradation… These are just a few of the seemingly endless—and endlessly daunting—challenges we face in our fractured, fragmented, and wounded world. Take, for instance, the continued US freeze on international humanitarian assistance. In practical terms, this is already resulting in millions of unfed children, unhoused families, and unmet medical needs for individuals with debilitating and life-threatening illnesses. Understandably, challenges such as these can readily lead us down paths of apathy and despair. Pope Francis acknowledges this in his Bull of Indiction of the Ordinary Jubilee Year, noting that “uncertainty about the future may at times give rise” to feelings of “apprehensiveness,” “anxiety,” and “doubt.” (Spes non confundit, 1)

How—and why—then, are we to hope? For Dr. Cuda, the why is clear enough: hope is what “turns fear into organizing community.” “Love,” she tells us, “must be translated into social justice to ensure a dignified life.” In hope, faith, and love, we are called to “build bridges of inclusion,” “reconciliation,” and “fraternity.” This echoes the call Pope Francis set forth in the Bull of Indiction: “During the Holy Year,” he writes, “we are called to be tangible signs of hope for those of our brothers and sisters who experience hardships of any kind.” (Spes non confundit, 10)

Hope is not some passive state or gift received: it’s an action. Throughout the Papal Bull, hope is characterized as something do: we “seek” it, “find” it, “discover” it; we cultivate it through prayer; and, ultimately, we demonstrate it through our life and witness. Hope is a choice. Not always or even often easy, but made “tangible” in our concern for prisoners, our compassion for migrants, our acknowledgment of the poor, our care for the sick and elderly, and our solidarity with families, young people, and the unborn as they face daunting economic, political, and environmental horizons.

Throughout this Jubilee Year, USCMA is inviting you on a journey of hope. From our upcoming virtual reflection sessions on the mission messages of Pope Francis, to the July Summit on Mission and Evangelization, to our Jubilee of the Missions Pilgrimage, we invite you to walk with us as hope-filled missionary disciples and travelers towards God’s loving, peaceful, and just reign.

I look forward to choosing hope with you in the year ahead.

In mission and solidarity,


Kevin Foy
Executive Director