By BETSY TAYLOR
SAN DIEGO — In a rousing opening to CHA's 2018 Catholic Health Assembly, actor and activist Martin Sheen told the ministry: "We are not asked to do great things. We are asked to do all things with greater care."
Sheen said in a culture pocked by compromised values and much cynicism, there remains a real and mysterious yearning in every human heart compelling people "to reach outside ourselves and serve others for our own sake."
Martin Sheen
Photo by Jerry Naunheim Jr./© CHA
Sheen delivered the Bishop Sullivan Memorial Lecture, an assembly lecture series begun in 2014 in memoriam to the retired auxiliary bishop of Brooklyn, N.Y. Bishop Sullivan advanced care initiatives benefiting the global poor and those living with HIV/AIDS.
Sheen opened his remarks to over 900 Catholic health care leaders with a soaring delivery of "Where the Mind is Without Fear," a poem by the Indian poet-philosopher Rabindranath Tagore. Sheen quoted Robert Kennedy on the cumulative positive impact of individuals speaking out against oppression and injustice.
With a nod to the late Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French philosopher, Sheen said when people find commitments worth fighting for, and when they unite the will of the spirit with the work of the flesh, when people discover they are loved, the world "discovers fire for the second time." He said an individual who knows he or she is loved cannot do harm.
Sheen, who has been arrested more than 60 times for participating in anti-war protests and acts of civil disobedience, told the audience, "Acting is what I do for a living, activism is what I do to stay alive."
He congratulated Catholic health providers for the good they do, including the promotion of health care coverage for all and creating systems that care for the poor and vulnerable.
In a prolific and highly celebrated career as an actor, Sheen has played more than 100 roles on stage, television and film. Sheen portrayed President Jed Bartlet for seven seasons on "The West Wing" television show; the show won 26 Emmys. A Catholic, Sheen said he agreed to take the role on the condition that Bartlet be a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and a practicing Catholic who dealt with every issue from a moral framework.
At the assembly, the 77-year-old Sheen, whose given name is Ramon Estevez, spoke of justice for immigrants and said he often wonders how his immigrant parents would respond to the current anti-immigrant sentiment influencing immigration policy in the U.S.
Sr. Carol Keehan, DC, CHA's president and chief executive officer, engages actor and activist Martin Sheen in a question-and-answer session following his remarks.
Photo by Jerry Naunheim Jr./© CHA
He said he wonders about the fate of children who are being separated from their parents at the southern border when their parents, who are seeking asylum or entry into the U.S., are detained by immigration officials. Having survived a perilous journey, these young children are forced to "begin a more perilous journey," and do so without their mother or father to comfort them.
He said 21st century immigration, a deeply complex issue, needs an informed and compassionate debate, not biased rhetoric. He suggested that the moral compass of that debate could be taken from the prophet Isaiah: "To welcome and protect the alien among us ever mindful that we too were once strangers in a strange land," Sheen said, in a reference to the Old Testament.
Sheen stayed to attend Mass at the assembly, and to visit with and take pictures with CHA members at a welcoming reception at the assembly hotel, the Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina.