Toronto, Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Today I would like to talk about courage. The courage Archbishop Oscar Romero demonstrated when he made the fateful decision to stand with the poor of El Salvador against those who oppressed them.

I also want to talk about hope. Hope was an essential element of Archbishop Romero’s message; it is what he offered the people he served, and it is a message that still resonates today.

And I want to talk about community. Oscar Romero was moved by a powerful sense of duty to his community. He saw injustice and denounced it, and was willing to give his life rather than be silenced.

All of you involved with Romero House here in Toronto also embody these values. It takes great courage to start an organization like this, and to nurture it and sustain it over 15 years.

But it also takes courage to decide to leave your home, leave your friends and family, leave everything that is familiar and travel to a strange land to start a new life.

You need hope if you are an organizer or a leader here at Romero House—hope that donors will provide funding, hope that one of your new residents will do well at a job interview, hope that a refugee hearing goes in favour of the applicant.

Of course, as someone who came to this country as an immigrant, I know that hope is at the very centre of the immigrant experience. We hope that we find work, we hope that we can learn the language of our new country relatively quickly, we hope that we don’t miss our homes too much… we hope that winter isn’t as cold as we’ve heard!

Finally, all of you are the very personification of “community”. The staff of Romero House, the members of the Board, supporters and friends, and the residents come together to form a strong community built on the solid foundation of friendship, respect, hard work, personal initiative, and true, selflessness.

In this fast-paced, individualistic world, you are an inspiration, and an encouraging reminder that there are still many good kind people around, and they are able to accomplish great things.

Think of the thousands of people who started out here at Romero House, and were given the support and encouragement they needed to go out and build strong, independent lives for themselves and their families.

And so, on this very special anniversary, I’d like to thank Mary-Jo Leddy, Mr. Schmidt, and everyone else here for giving me such a warm welcome.

I congratulate you all for what you have built here—a comforting and safe home, a wonderful starting point for so many new Canadians.

Archbishop Romero once said, “aspire not to have more, but to be more.” You have certainly brought those words to life.

Thank you very much.