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Cardinal Dolan, responding to recently being named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine, cited Jesus Christ as the one who has the biggest impact on his life.
“That’s a no-brainer,” Cardinal Dolan said in remarks at the Time 100 Gala April 24 at the Time Warner Center in Manhattan.
When asked who alive has had the most influence on him, the Cardinal said the same answer applied. “Jesus Christ is the most influential person in my life because Jesus Christ, for me, is alive. That’s the significance of the feast that we celebrated just two weeks ago on the Sunday called Easter.”
To reiterate his case, the Cardinal cited Scripture: “‘Why do you look for the living among the dead?’ the angel asked those faithful women, at the empty tomb, down the slope from a hill called Calvary where he had been executed on a cross three days prior on a Friday strangely called Good.”
The Cardinal said he was thankful he was afforded the opportunity to toast Jesus at the gala. “I admit that he is a bewildering person—true God, yet true man; God’s Son, yet born in a stable; architect to the world yet without a home of his own; creator of the world’s resources, yet himself possessing only the seamless garments he wore for which the executioners cast lots; a king whose throne was a cross and whose crown was of thorns coming to bring mercy but himself condemned to death; dead at a mere 33 yet alive forever; a man of peace whose followers have tragically waged violence in his most holy name; a man of love whose heart is still broken by the sin, the hatred and division in the members of the Church he founded—even in its leaders, myself included.
“Yet, he never gives up on us, asking only our love, our faith and our trust.
“So I toast him this evening, in this very distinguished company, as my Lord and Savior. I toast him as well as my best friend, the most influential person in my life.”
The Cardinal concluded his toast by stating he believed Jesus was present there in the midst of those assembled at the Time banquet, “he who invites each of us to enjoy with him a future banquet of eternal life in heaven.”
Although numerous dignitaries and celebrities walked the red carpet prior to the 8:30 p.m. dinner, Cardinal Dolan did not.
But before his toast, he showed his signature color and character in his congenial comments. “This has been a great evening for me,” he said. “At least 20 ladies have come up to me and said I’m the best-dressed person in the room.”
The Cardinal said he was honored to sit at the same table as Jeremy Lin, the New York Knicks point guard who is a Christian and the first American player in NBA history to be of Chinese or Taiwanese descent.
Lin was also named to the list of 100 most influential people in the world.
Adjacent to the Cardinal’s brief biography on TIME’s page 133 — amid the 99 others on the pages of the magazine’s April 30 issue—is a stately picture of the Cardinal standing at the bottom of the stairs inside his residence on Madison Avenue.
The author of the article describes the Cardinal as such:
“With his crimson cassock, wide grin and rotund good cheer, Timothy Dolan, 62, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York, seems a figure out of the age of the old movies ‘Going My Way’ and ‘The Bells of St. Mary’s’—a warm prelate who leads his flock more by charm than fiat.
“Yet in 2012, this priest with a mien dating back half a century did something few other American Roman Catholic leaders have managed in recent times: he put himself and his church back in the center of the national political conversation….”
The article also addresses Cardinal Dolan’s role as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in opposing “a proposed Obama Administration rule,” the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ contraceptive mandate, successfully arguing that such a policy violated the nation’s principles of religious liberty.
The Time article also commends Cardinal Dolan for his “reaching out to Jews and Muslims and urging his own faith to re-evangelize itself before assuming that the rest of the world will open its head and heart to the Catholic message.”
