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Rome, Italy, Oct 21, 2016 / 10:19 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A fellow Jesuit who has known Fr. Arturo Sosa for more than 50 years has said the newly elected head of the order, while not always explicitly vocal, is critical of the current socialist government in Venezuela pioneered by Hugo Chavez.

“(Father) Sosa thinks that in countries where everything depends on the government, true democracy is impossible,” Fr. Francisco Javier Duplá told CNA Oct. 19.

This goes for the current situation of Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government in Venezuela, he said, adding that Fr. Sosa has been “more critical than with Chavez.”

A professor for 30 years at the Andrés Bello Catholic University in Venezuela (UCAB), one of the country's largest universities, Fr. Duplá had Fr. Sosa as a student in Spanish literature when the latter was just 16-years-old.

The two lived together for three years while Fr. Sosa was a philosophy student at UCAB, and Fr. Duplá served under Fr. Sosa during his time as provincial in Venezuela from 1996-2004.

Fr. Duplá said that during Fr. Sosa’s time as provincial, under Chavez’s socialist regime, Fr. Sosa believed the late president’s intention “was sincere.”

“Perhaps it was so,” he said, but noted that it didn’t take Fr. Sosa long to realize that “things in Venezuela weren’t going to change.”

Fr. Sosa “was not openly critical” of Chavez from the beginning, because he expected the dictator “would modify his posture,” Fr. Duplá said. However, “Chavez was captured by strong adoration of himself.”

Though he didn’t necessarily criticize Chavez publicly, Fr. Sosa wrote a number of articles in the Jesuit-run magazine “SIC,” in which “he criticized the course of government’s measures,” Fr. Duplá said, naming the so-called “misiones” of Fidel Castro, which offered food and medicine to the poor but demanded a total acceptance of their political ideas, as an example.

Run by the “Gumilla Center of Investigation and Social Action”, which was founded by Jesuit priest Fr. Manuel Aguirre Elorriaga in 1938 to fight inequality, the SIC magazine features several pieces from Fr. Sosa both during his time as the publication’s director from 1979-1996, as well as his time as provincial.

In the aftermath of Chavez’s stormy reign and the takeover of his successor, Nicolas Maduro, in 2013, Venezuela has been marred by violence and social and economic upheaval. Poor economic policies, including strict price controls, coupled with high inflation rates, have resulted in a severe lack of basic necessities such as toilet paper, milk, flour, diapers and medicines.

Venezuela's socialist government is widely blamed for the crisis. Since 2003, price controls on some 160 products, including cooking oil, soap and flour, have meant that while they are affordable, they fly off store shelves only to be resold on the black market at much higher rates.

The Venezuelan government is known to be among the most corrupt in Latin America, and violent crime in the country has spiked since Maduro took office after former president Chavez died from cancer in 2013.

Demonstrations broke out in the country in January 2014 after Monica Spear, a former Miss Venezuela, was murdered along with her ex-husband on a highway near Caracas when their car broke down.

Protests intensified after the attempted rape of a student shortly after Spear’s death, and since then Maduro’s government has jailed many peaceful protestors and political opponents. The regime is known to have committed gross abuses, including violence, against those who don’t share their political ideologies.

As head of the Society of Jesus, Fr. Sosa “can influence changes in Venezuela in order to go out of this disastrous government,” Fr. Duplá said.

Fr. Sosa, 67, was elected as the 31st Superior General of the Jesuits Oct. 14, marking the first time a Latin American has led the Society; moreover, he takes the helm under the Church’s first Jesuit and Latin American Pope.

In an Oct. 18 news conference with journalists in Rome about election, Fr. Sosa spoke directly about the situation in Venezuela, explaining that the political movement Chavez pioneered and which is now headed by Maduro, is “based on revenues and doesn't sustain itself, politically, economically, or ideologically."

He said that neither does the Venezuelan opposition have a project that allows one to think “of a future that isn't based on revenues, which is the only way to progress long-term and to better the situation of Venezuelans."

To understand what is happening in Venezuela, he said, it's necessary to remember that it's a country which “lives on oil revenue, and that this oil revenue is exclusively administered by the state.”

“(This) makes the formation of a democratic society very difficult,” he said, explaining that “normally a democratic society has its foundation in that the state is subordinate to the citizens. In a democracy, it is the citizens who produce and maintain the state.”

However, in the case of Venezuela, “the fact that oil sales are exclusively directed by the state makes it the state that maintains society. Thus, this democratic creation becomes difficult,” Fr. Sosa said.

Despite Fr. Duplá’s personal experience with Fr. Sosa, some have claimed the new Jesuit father general’s position in politics, both now and in the past, is in fact aligned to the Chavez-Maduro regime, supporting Marxist principals promoted by Venezuela’s socialist government as well as a liberation theology rooted in Marxism.

Liberation theology sprung up in Latin America in the 1950s, and some forms were a Marxist interpretation of the Gospel, focusing on freedom from material poverty and injustice rather than giving primacy to spiritual freedom.

Under Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith twice issued instructions regarding liberation theology: 1984's Libertatis nuntius drew attention to “the deviations, and risks of deviation … brought about by certain forms of liberation theology which use, in an insufficiently critical manner, concepts borrowed from various currents of Marxist thought.” This was followed in 1986 by Libertatis conscientia, which presented Christian doctrine on freedom and liberation, and was meant to be read together with its predecessor.

In an Oct. 16 post on his blog “L’Espresso,” veteran Vatican analyst Sandro Magister said that in a 1978 article for the SIC magazine, Fr. Sosa had called a Marxist interpretation of the Christian faith and liberation theology both “legitimate” and “necessary.”

However, Magister is known not to be the most ardent admirer of some members of the Society of Jesus.

In the same article Magister refers to on his blog, Fr. Sosa explains that a Marxist interpretation of the Christian faith was “legitimate” in the sense that at the time, Christians existed who stuck to their faith, yet “at the same time proclaim themselves Marxist and are committed in the transformation of the capitalist society into a socialist society.”

Later on in the article Fr. Sosa said that “a Marxist meditation of the Christian faith would be the worst instrumentalization that could be done to a religion – in relation with God – which, in putting the Crucified Jesus at its center, breaks with any intent of a human construction of God and affirms him as the one who is always unprecedented in his potential.”

Referring to Fr. Sosa’s own position, Fr. Duplá said he wasn’t necessarily closed to liberation theology, and that when it comes to reconciling the idea with the Church, a careful, nuanced distinction must be made between the intent of liberation theology and its Marxist beginnings.

“There are many Jesuits sympathizing with liberation theology in its intentions, but not in its Marxist foundations,” Fr. Duplá said, explaining that in his perspective, liberation theology seeks “to give a religious basis to a better society.”

“Religious faith and justice must be together,” he said, adding that he believes Fr. Sosa’s own interpretation of liberation theology “follows this way” of thinking.

In his comments to journalists Oct. 18, Fr. Sosa said that although he was “very surprised” by his election as Superior General, he feels serene and grateful, and is ready to accept the task with joy.

He noted how the general congregation didn’t end with his election, but is in fact still rolling forward with the selection of his new “governing team” and the discernment of the path they will take in the future.

Fr. Sosa highlighted faith and spiritual depth as the “two legs” with which the Society walks in carrying out their mission, and which mark out the line he’ll take in moving forward in his role as Superior General.

While the way in which he will govern the Society is “still not clear,” Fr. Sosa stressed that “our mission is not being put into question.”

“The general congregations after the Second Vatican Council have defined our mission clearly: service of the faith and the promotion of justice, keeping in mind dialogue and cultural diversity. This remains undisputable for the Society,” he said.

The greatest challenge the Society faces today, he said, is that of “reconciliation … in all regions of the world they feel split, this deep wound that divides us and it is also felt in the face of serious situations.”

Conflicts such as the ones in Venezuela, Syria, Iraq, as well as “the wars which aren’t spoken of” and forced migration are all examples of the urgent need for reconciliation, he said.

“The Kingdom of God cannot be present, cannot exist among us if we don’t recognize it, if we can’t live in peace, if we can’t reconcile ourselves and if we can’t reconcile with the earth which we risk ruining,” he said, explaining that the call to reconcile is “a great challenge for us.”

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New York City, N.Y., Oct 21, 2016 / 01:17 pm (CNA).- While presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton traded verbal jabs at the Al Smith Dinner and showed some icy awkwardness, Cardinal Timothy Dolan thought a moment of prayer was the best part of the evening.

The cardinal had asked both politicians to pray with him, and the result showed “the evening at its best,” he recounted Oct. 21.

“After the little prayer, Mr. Trump turned to Secretary Clinton and said, ‘You are one tough and talented woman’,” Cardinal Dolan told the news site TODAY. “He said, ‘This has been a good experience, this whole campaign, as tough as it’s been’.”

“She said to him, ‘Donald, whatever happens, we need to work together afterward’,” the cardinal reported.

The dinner takes its name from former New York Gov. Al Smith, the first Catholic to be nominated for U.S. president. Smith’s great-grandson, Al Smith IV, co-chaired the event. The cardinal sat between the Democratic and Republican candidates.

Cardinal Dolan said the latest event was like “a family dinner where you’re just hoping things go well.”

It comes near the end of a tense and often unpredictable political campaign.

Clinton is at odds with Catholicism on several major issues. She is a strong supporter of legal abortion, taxpayer funding for abortion, and LGBT activism. Catholics’ religious freedoms are under pressure from her political allies. A leaked February 2012 email from her current campaign manager John Podesta appeared to show him wanting to promote a “Catholic Spring”-type revolution within the Church in response to religious freedom controversy over mandatory contraceptive coverage. His email, posted to Wikileaks, appeared to suggest former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, daughter of slain 1968 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, could play a role in aiding a Catholic political revolt within the Church.

For his part, Trump has antagonized many Hispanics and others over his remarks on immigrants and Muslims. While he has claimed a recent conversion to pro-life beliefs and policy, many commentators have questioned his personality and his character, especially following release of a 2005 tape of his lewd banter that appeared to condone and admit sexual assault. Multiple women have also accused him of assault, harassment and misbehavior.
 
Despite these tensions and controversies, the Al Smith Dinner is traditionally intended to be a lighthearted affair that allows the candidates to roast each other humorously and to mock themselves.

The famously boastful Trump, who spoke first Thursday evening, joked that his modesty is “perhaps my best quality” and even better than his temperament. He joked that his companies’ buildings were built with his own “beautifully formed hands,” while Cardinal Dolan’s buildings were built “with the hands of God, and nobody can compete with God. Is that correct? Nobody. Right?”

He joked that the heads of major media companies were part of Clinton’s campaign staff and he poked fun at the fact that his wife used a speech apparently that appeared to be plagiarized from First Lady Michelle Obama.

Trump’s jokes at Clinton’s expense at times hit hard and drew boos from a crowd that grew unsympathetic.

“I don’t know who they’re angry at Hillary, you or I,” he said in response to an unfavorable response to his joke. “For example, here she is tonight, in public, pretending not to hate Catholics.”

He said the dinner guests could agree on the need to support disadvantaged children.

“We can also agree on the need to stand up to anti-Catholic bias, to defend religious liberty and to create a culture that celebrates life,” he said. “America is in many ways divided like it’s never been before. And the great religious leaders here tonight give us all an example that we can follow.”

Clinton, who went second, joked about her “rigorous nap schedule,” the fees she normally charges for speeches, and the incongruity that a dinner named for the populist Al Smith is held in “this magnificent room, full of plutocrats celebrating his legacy.”

She also joked that Trump would rate the Statue of Liberty based on her looks, that he was following a teleprompter script written by the Russians, that he was not really a billionaire, and that was not getting support from the Republican Party.

“I understand I am not known for my sense of humor,” Clinton said. “That’s why it did take a village to write these jokes.”

“And whoever wins this election, the outcome will be historic. We’ll either have the first female president or the first president who started a Twitter war with Cher,” she said.

Clinton said that opponents of Al Smith’s candidacy targeted him for his Catholic faith and spread rumors he would ban Bible reading and annul Protestant marriages.

“Rhetoric like that makes it harder for us to see each other, to respect each other, to listen to each other. And certainly a lot harder to love our neighbor as ourselves,” she said, adding “you certainly don’t need to be Catholic to be inspired by the humility and heart of the Holy Father, Pope Francis. Or to embrace his message.”

The next day, Cardinal Dolan told TODAY that the two candidates are “kind of awkward together” but said it was not a surprise. He said there was similar “iciness” four years ago when Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and President Obama

“The purpose of the evening is to break some of the ice, and thanks be to God, it works,” the cardinal said.

The dinner is a fundraiser for New York Catholic Charities. This year’s event netted about $6 million.

 

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South Bend, Ind., Oct 21, 2016 / 03:50 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholics should look to Mary to be part of a religion that fights for truth, rather than assimilating to the popular culture, said Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia.  

“If we want to reclaim who we are as a Church, if we want to renew the Catholic imagination, we need to begin, in ourselves and in our local parishes, by unplugging our hearts from the assumptions of a culture that still seems familiar but is no longer really ‘ours,’” Archbishop Chaput said.

“This is why Mary – the young Jewish virgin, the loving mother, and the woman who punches the devil in the nose – was, is, and always will be the great defender of the Church,” he added.

Archbishop Chaput addressed the 2016 Bishops’ Symposium at the University of Notre Dame on Wednesday. He spoke on “Remembering Who We Are and the Story We Belong To.”

He began his talk referencing an illustration, reportedly from the Middle Ages, of the Blessed Virgin Mary punching the devil in the nose. “She doesn’t rebuke him. She doesn’t enter into a dialogue with him. She punches the devil in the nose,” he said.

The illustration is apt, he explained, because, according to the Christian author C.S. Lewis, “Christianity is a ‘fighting religion’ – not in the sense of hatred or violence directed at other persons, but rather in the spiritual struggle against the evil in ourselves and in the world around us, where our weapons are love, justice, courage and self-giving.”

The problem is that many U.S. Catholics have abandoned this “spiritual struggle” and have assimilated too much into the popular culture “that bleaches out strong religious convictions in the name of liberal tolerance and dulls our longings for the supernatural with a river of practical atheism in the form of consumer goods,” he said.

Catholic Politicians have done this by following their own “ambitions and appetites” rather than being loyal to the Church, he noted. Laypersons and members of the clergy have done this through a “silent apostasy” of not standing up for the truth when they need to do so.

“For [Pope] Benedict, laypeople and priests don’t need to publicly renounce their baptism to be apostates.  They simply need to be silent when their Catholic faith demands that they speak out,” he said, “to be cowards when Jesus asks them to have courage; to ‘stand away’ from the truth when they need to work for it and fight for it.”

He also warned against a technocratic worldview that sees all solutions to problems as practical and technical solutions.

A Catholic can easily be swayed to believe that prayer should be set aside for practical solutions to problems, he noted. “Technology gets results. Prayer, not so much – or at least not so immediately and obviously,” he explained. “So our imaginations gradually bend toward the horizontal, and away from the vertical.”

Thus, what develops is a culture where “talking about heaven and hell starts to sound a lot like irrelevant voodoo,” he said.

“The Church of our baptism is salvific. The Church where many Americans really worship, the Church we call our popular culture, is therapeutic,” he said.

Archbishop Chaput exhorted his fellow bishops to challenge the faithful to heroic virtue and not to settle for mediocrity – as Pope Francis so challenged Catholics at the 2015 World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia.

“To reclaim the Church for the Catholic imagination, we should start by renewing in our people a sense that eternity is real, that together we have a mission the world depends on, and that our lives have consequences that transcend time,” he insisted. While engaging the culture, Catholics must keep a healthy distance from it lest they assimilate into it, he added.

Challenging the faithful may drive some away from the Church, he admitted, but leaders must not be afraid to preach the truth in charity, no matter the consequences.

“Obviously we need to do everything we can to bring tepid Catholics back to active life in the Church,” he said. “But we should never be afraid of a smaller, lighter Church if her members are also more faithful, more zealous, more missionary and more committed to holiness.”

And, he added, if preaching the truth is distasteful to Catholics who are not living out their faith, that “may in fact be more honest for those who leave and healthier for those who stay.”

It is this honesty that is required to preach the truth with love, he insisted, saying “there can be no real charity without honesty.” Examples of a lack of honesty today include when words are misinterpreted or abused – like the term “accompaniment,” he said.

Regarding “accompaniment,” Pope Francis “rightly teaches us the need to meet people where they are, to walk with them patiently, and to befriend them on the road of life,” he said. However, he maintained, others interpret this “accompaniment” wrongly.

“Where the road of life leads does make a difference – especially if it involves accompanying someone over a cliff,” he said.

The present times may be difficult for Christians, the archbishop admitted. “It’s a moment for courage and candor,” he said, “but it’s hardly the first moment of its kind.”

 

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Vatican City, Oct 21, 2016 / 03:54 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- When it comes to promoting vocations in the Church, Pope Francis said it all begins with an encounter with God – and that pastoral ministry in the area should focus on listening to youth and being there to answer their questions.
 
Pointing to his own papal motto “Miserando atque eligendo,” meaning “he sees by having mercy and choosing,” the Pope said Oct. 21 that he chose the motto “in memory of my youthful years in which I strongly felt the call of the Lord.”
 
The call, he said, “didn't occur as a result of a conference or a beautiful theory, but by having experienced the merciful gaze of Jesus on me.”
 
Francis confessed that when he hears words used in common Church-speak such as “vocational ministry,” he is always “a little afraid,” because the phrase “could make one think of one of the many sectors of ecclesial action, of a curial office or, rather, of setting up a project.”
 
While these are certainly important, the Pope stressed that “there is much more: vocational ministry is an encounter with the Lord!”
 
“When we welcome Christ, we live a decisive encounter which sheds light on our existence, pulls us out of the anguish of our small world and makes us become disciples enamored with the Master.”
 
Vocational ministry, he said, means learning the style of Jesus, “who passes in the places of everyday life, stopping without haste, and looking at his brothers with mercy, guiding them to an encounter with God the Father.”
 
Pope Francis spoke to participants in an Oct. 19-21 conference on vocational ministry, organized by the Vatican's Congregation for Clergy.
 
On Oct. 6 the Vatican announced “Young People, the Faith and the Discernment of Vocation” as the theme for the next synod of bishops, set to take place in 2018. The Pope's speech to the conference participants, then, likely contains themes that will come up in the discussion.
 
In his address, Francis recalled how when Jesus first called the tax collector Matthew to be his disciple, he first went out to preach, then saw Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth and called him.
 
The Pope pointed to the three verbs of going out, seeing and calling, “which indicate the dynamism of every vocational ministry,” and offered a reflection on each.
 
When it comes to “going out,” he said one thing vocational ministry needs is “a Church in movement, able to expand its borders, measuring them not by the narrowness of human calculations or the fear of making mistakes, but on the large measure of the merciful heart of God.”
 
Vocations, he said, will never flourish as long as we stay closed inside “the comfortable pastoral criteria” of an “it's always been done like this” attitude and if we aren't “audacious and creative” in rethinking the goals, structures, style and methods of how we evangelize.

“We must learn to go out from our rigidity which renders us incapable of communicating the joy of the Gospel, from standardized formulas that are often anachronistic and from preconceived analysis that pigeonhole people's lives in cold schemes. Get out from all this,” he said.
 
Francis then turned specifically to the role of bishops and priests, telling them they are the ones primarily responsible for nourishing “Christian and priestly vocations.” This task, he said, “cannot be delegated to a bureaucratic office.”
 
“It's sad when a priest lives only for himself, closing himself in the safe fortress of the rectory, of the sacristy or a small group of the 'most faithful,'” he said, noting that the Gospel urges us to do otherwise.
 
The Pope pointed to the importance of seeing, noting how during his ministry, Jesus stops and meets the gaze of others “without haste. This is what makes his call fascinating and attractive.”
 
Unfortunately today's face-paced world doesn’t always leave space for the internal silence “in which the call of the Lord resounds,” he said, cautioning that at times even in Christian communities we run the risk of being “taken in by the rush, excessively concerned about the things to do.”
 
By doing this, we risk falling into “an empty organizational activism, without being able to stop and encounter people,” Pope Francis said, noting that in the Gospel, we see that vocations begin from “a merciful gaze that rests on me.”
 
“This is how I like to think of the style of vocational pastoral,” he said, painting a picture of a pastor who is attentive, not in a rush and is able to stop, read situations “in depth,” and really enter into the lives of other people without ever making them feel threatened or judged.
 
A pastor's gaze, he said, is “capable of inspiring awe for the Gospel, of awakening from the slumber into which the culture of consumerism and superficiality immerses us and arouse the authentic questions of happiness, above all in the youth.”
 
It's also a gaze of a discernment that accompanies people without ever “taking possession of their conscience or pretending to control the grace of God,” Francis said, adding that this gaze must always be attentive and vigilant.
 
When it comes to priestly vocations and entrance into the seminary, the Pope begged bishops to “discern in truth” and to have “a shrewd and cautions gaze, without superficiality or shallowness.”
 
“Vigilance and prudence,” he said, stressing that the Church and the world “need mature and balanced priests, brave and generous pastors capable of closeness, listening and mercy.”
 
Francis then turned to action of calling, noting how it's the typical verb used when referring to Christian vocations.
 
“Jesus doesn't give long speeches, he doesn't deliver a long program to adhere to, and neither does he offer ready-made answers,” he said.
 
What Christ wants is “to put people on the move, moving them from a lethal inactivity, breaking the illusion that it's possible to live happily staying comfortably seated among one's own securities,” he said, adding that the desire to seek is “a treasure” often found in the most young.
 
This gift must be cared for and cultivated in order to bear fruit, the Pope said, explaining that “instead of reducing the faith to a recipe book or a set of rules to be observed,” pastors can help youth ask the right questions that will ultimately help them discover “the joy of the Gospel.”
 
He noted how times pastors and pastoral workers get tired or frustrated by not seeing results, but said that “if we don’t close ourselves in complaints and continue to go out to announce the Gospel, the Lord will remain at our side and give us the courage to cast nets even when we are tired and deluded.”
 
Turning again to priests and bishops, Pope Francis urged them to persevere in making themselves close to others and in going out with a merciful gaze.
 
He told them not to be afraid of encounter or of announcing the Gospel, and not to be shy in offering youth the way of priestly life, “showing, above all with your joyful witness, how beautiful it is to follow the Lord and give him your life forever.”
 
“Vocational ministry is a fundamental task for the Church and calls into question the ministry of pastors and of laity,” he said, adding that “it’s an urgent mission that the Lord asks us to fulfill with generosity.”

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz

By Beth Griffin

NEW YORK (CNS) -- When Donald J. Trump stepped over yet another invisible line of the contentious presidential race Oct. 20, many of the 1,500 people at 71st annual dinner of the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation broke historic precedent to boo him.

Candidates Trump and Hillary Clinton flanked the host, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, on the five-tiered dais of the Grand Ballroom at the heavily secured Waldorf Astoria hotel for the charitable gala.

The event has been a traditional opportunity for speakers to poke good-natured fun at themselves, one another, and prominent guests from the worlds of politics, business and philanthropy without inflicting wounds.

In 1928, Alfred E. Smith, former governor of New York who was raised in poverty, was the first Catholic nominated by a major political party to run for president of the United States.

Despite an introductory warning delivered as a humor-coated reminder of the evening's ground rules by emcee Alfred E. Smith IV, chairman of the dinner, Trump veered from the safety of chuckle-inducing barbs and zings. He said she is "so corrupt" she was kicked off the Watergate commission. The room erupted in a crescendo of boos and shoutouts, as he lobbed one accusation after another that his opponent is deceptive and a Catholic-hater. "She is here tonight ... pretending not to hate Catholics," he said.

Decorum was restored when the Republican nominee recalled past Al Smith dinners as a special occasion to spend time with his father, developer Fred Trump.

Smith, a great-grandson of the foundation's namesake, aimed jokes equally at both candidates and reflected the general discomfort of the electorate with them. He told Trump to watch his language because "even though the man sitting next to you is in a robe, you're not in a locker room." He advised Clinton to remain stoic in the face of insults during the evening by considering it a fourth debate.

Noting the proximity on Fifth Avenue of St. Patrick's Cathedral to Trump Tower, Smith said Trump's appearance was historic, marking the first time the Catholic Church was not the largest tax-exempt landowner at the dinner.

Trump was greeted warmly with applause. He quipped that the huge event was a small intimate dinner with friends for him, but that it counted as his opponent's largest crowd of the season.

Trump gave a shoutout to politicians in the room who formerly loved him, but turned on him when he sought the Republican nomination. He said the dinner gives candidates an opportunity to meet one another's teams and those working hard to get them elected.

As he spoke, he pointed out chairmen of media corporations seated on the dais and among the assembly. As an example that the media is biased against him, Trump said Michelle Obama gave a speech that everyone loved, but when his wife, Melania, delivered the exact same speech, "people got all over her case. I don't get it."

Trump said he knows Clinton is very gracious because, if elected, she wants him to be her ambassador to either Iraq or Afghanistan.

Trump said the presidential debates were the most vicious in the history of politics. In a rare reflective moment, he turned to Clinton and asked, "Are we supposed to be proud of it?"

We need to stand up to anti-Catholic bias, defend religious liberty and create a culture that celebrates life, Trump concluded.

Trump sat down to mixed applause and boos. Retaking the microphone, Smith said, "As Ronald Reagan would say, 'There you go again!'" He noted the dinner raised a record $6 million.

The Democratic nominee was introduced to a standing ovation. Clinton said the fiery populist Al Smith would be proud of the money raised at the event, but if he saw the "room full of plutocrats" gathered to celebrate his legacy, he'd be confused.

Clinton said she was taking a break from her rigorous nap schedule to attend, but the event was also treat for the guests because she usually charges a lot for a speech. She said she was a little amazed at the opportunity to speak, because she didn't think her opponent would be OK with a peaceful transition of power.

Clinton said, "Every year this dinner brings together a collection of sensible, committed mainstream Republicans, or as we now like to call them, Hillary supporters."

She said critics accuse her of saying only what listeners want to hear. "Tonight that is true. This is exactly what you want to hear. This election will be over very, very soon."

Clinton said when Trump wanted her to undergo a pre-debate drug test, "I was so flattered he thought I used some sort of performance-enhancers. Actually I did. It's called preparation."

Trump has questioned her stamina, Clinton said, but over the course of three debates, she has stood next to him for longer than any of his campaign managers. She said Trump is so concerned about her health, he sent a car to bring her to the dinner. "Actually it was a hearse."

Nonetheless, Clinton said if elected, "I will be the healthiest and youngest woman ever to serve."

Clinton said one of the things the candidates have in common is the Republican National Committee "isn't spending a dime to help either one of us."

Turning serious, Clinton said it's easy to forget how far the country has come. When Al Smith ran for office, she said there were rumors that he would forbid Bible-reading in schools, annul Protestant marriages and make the Holland Tunnel into a secret passageway to the Vatican so the pope could rule the country. "Those appeals to fear and division can cause us to treat each other as 'the other.' Rhetoric like that makes it harder for us to respect each other," she said.

"We need to get better at finding ways to disagree on matters of policy while agreeing on questions of decency and civility," she said.

Although the candidates shook hands across Cardinal Dolan at the dinner, he jokingly attributed his nascent cold at the benediction to having spent two hours seated between them, which he said is "the iciest pace on the planet. Where is global warming when you need it?"

He noted the funds raised at the dinner would provide grants for thousands of mothers and children who are most in need and least visible to society.

Dinner guests in formal attire sat elbow-to-elbow at gold-covered tables in the ballroom and its two balconies. The $3,000-a plate meal included a seafood trio appetizer, tournedos of beef and a chocolate dessert duet. Metropolitan Opera soprano Nadine Sierra sang the national anthem from the dais, set against the backdrop of a huge American flag.

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