I keep in my desk drawer a cherished remembrance of my baptism. It is the thin gold necklace and medallion of the Blessed Mother that was given to me by a former archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Patrick O’Boyle. Years earlier, the same Cardinal O’Boyle who baptized me had married my parents, James and Amanda Norris, in the Lady Chapel of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. 

My parents carefully preserved my precious baptismal gift from Cardinal O’Boyle in its original envelope, including the cardinal’s visiting card and his beautifully inscribed message to the new Norris baby. 

My baptismal gift from Cardinal O’Boyle does far more than remind me of my baptism. It points to the work of the Holy Spirit, many years earlier, in connecting the life of the cardinal who baptized me with that of an American Catholic humanitarian who devoted his life, through the Church, to the poor of the world, particularly the world’s refugees. 

Today that American Catholic man is also remembered as the only layman chosen to participate in the general debates of the Second Vatican Council and for his historic intervention at the Council on the subject of “World Poverty and the Christian Conscience.” That layman was my father, James Norris. 

Cardinal O’Boyle and my father first met in 1936, while the then-Father O’Boyle was a priest of the Archdiocese of New York and administrator of the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin, an orphanage and child-welfare institution on Staten Island otherwise known as Mount Loretto. At the time, Father O’Boyle could scarcely have imagined that the 29-year-old James Norris, whom he had hired to manage the affairs of the orphanage, including the publication of its monthly newsletter, The Homeless Child, would go on to touch the lives of millions of the world’s neediest and most marginalized people through his tireless efforts on their behalf and that the same James Norris would one day be awarded the United Nations’ highest humanitarian honor, the Nansen Refugee Award. 

By the end of 1943, it had become clear to the U.S. bishops that a massive Church-led effort would be required to address the ravages that World War II had wreaked upon the European continent and the dire human needs of the starving and suffering peoples of Europe. The same Father O’Boyle who had earlier hired my father at Mount Loretto had by now become Msgr. O’Boyle, executive director of the U.S. bishops’ newly established War Relief Services (WRS). 

At the end of the war, this new overseas aid agency of the Catholic Church in the U.S. (which would change its name to Catholic Relief Services in 1955) was in need of a European director. For Msgr. O’Boyle, who had worked with my father at Mount Loretto and had witnessed his faith in action and his extraordinary executive skills, the choice was clear: The person most qualified to lead the Church’s relief efforts in war-torn Europe was James Norris. 

In the summer of 1946, my dad sailed to Europe, charged with the responsibility of administering the aid and relief of the Church in the U.S. to millions of surviving victims of the Second World War, including hundreds of thousands of refugees. He brought with him a letter of introduction from Cardinal Samuel Stritch, archbishop of Chicago and chairman of the National Catholic Welfare Conference Administrative Board, to the undersecretary of state of the Holy See, Msgr. Giovanni Battista Montini (the future Pope Paul VI). This marked the start of a working relationship between Msgr. Montini and my father that continued into the pontificate of Pope Paul VI and endured for the next 30 years, until my father’s death in 1976. 

In the 1940s and 1950s, my father was instrumental in helping the Holy See organize universal Catholic efforts on behalf of refugees. This was particularly evident in the joint efforts of Msgr. Montini and my dad, in the late 1940s, to aid the ever-increasing number of refugees fleeing to the West from the Soviet-bloc countries of Eastern Europe. The close collaboration between the two on behalf of these “escapees” as they were called, culminated in the establishment of the International Catholic Migration Commission, a papal agency formally brought into existence by Pope Pius XII in 1951. 

From its inception in 1951 until 1974, my father served as president of the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC), assisting in the resettlement of more than 200,000 refugees. In the words of a former secretary-general of ICMC, Msgr. Robert Vitillo: “While serving at ICMC, I felt constantly inspired by Mr. Norris’ selfless dedication to the basic human needs of all persons in the world and to insure their access to a life worthy of their God-given human dignity.”

On Nov. 5, 1964, during the Third Session of the Second Vatican Council, some 2,000 prelates of the Catholic Church, including Cardinal O’Boyle, were gathered in St. Peter’s Basilica. The time had come for the formal introduction of Chapter 4, Paragraph 24, De Paupertate Mundiali, of the Council’s pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes (The Church in the Modern World). At the direction of Pope Paul VI, the intervention introducing the debate on world poverty  was to be made by James Norris. It was a speech that Norris had written in Latin, the official language of the Catholic Church, under the title: De Paupertate Mundiali in Schemate de Ecclesia in Mundo Huius Temporis (“World Poverty and the Christian Conscience”).

At approximately 11:30 a.m. on Nov. 5, my father mounted the rostrum in the Council aula in St. Peter’s Basilica and, “in flawless Latin,” according to one writer, addressed the assembled bishops of the world.

In his historic speech, Norris issued “a clarion call for action which would involve the creation of a structure that would devise the kind of institutions, contacts, forms of cooperation and policy that the Church can adopt, to secure full Catholic participation in the worldwide attack on poverty.” 

My father’s address “lasted fourteen minutes, and at the end there was warm applause from the Council fathers.” The applause coming from one Council Father in particular had a distinct value to it. Twenty-eight years earlier, Cardinal O’Boyle had hired my father to run the orphanage at Mount Loretto. Listening to my father’s address to the bishops of the world in his historic intervention at the Second Vatican Council, and knowing all that he had done for the good of the Church and the world, Cardinal O’Boyle had every reason to be proud.

The week after my father’s intervention, Pope Paul VI presided at a solemn Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Nov. 13. At the end of the Mass, the Holy Father symbolically laid his coronation tiara on the main altar of the basilica as a gift for the poor of the world. 

As the Pope did so, Archbishop Pericle Felici, secretary-general of the Council, read a pontifical pronouncement proclaiming that Pope Paul’s symbolic donation was being made “in response to the many grave words spoken in the Ecumenical Council on the misery and hunger in the modern world.” On the same date as the Pope’s donation, Nov. 13, 1964, an article appeared in the New York World-Telegram, under the title: “Pope Paul Gives Crown to Poor.” United Press International reporter Ernest Sackler wrote, “Pope Paul VI today donated the gold-and-diamond studded crown he wore at his coronation to open a world fund drive against poverty. It was believed that an American may have played a large role in the Pope’s decision to start a collection to combat poverty. James J. Norris, a Catholic layman from Rumson, N.J., told the Ecumenical Council that all Christians should unite in such a campaign.” Today, Pope St. Paul VI’s tiara is on permanent display at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. 

The concerns that my father brought forth in his intervention at the Second Vatican Council were incorporated into Paragraph 90 of Gaudium et Spes. 

In the immediate post-conciliar era, my father remained at Rome and led the lobbying and consultative efforts that resulted in the implementation of Paragraph 90. These efforts led to the creation by Pope Paul VI of the Pontifical Commission (later Council) for Justice and Peace in 1967. Four years later, in 1971, the Pope created the Pontifical Council Cor Unum to help coordinate the activities of various national Catholic relief agencies. Pope Paul appointed my father a charter member of both pontifical councils. 

During the final 12 years of my father’s life following his historic intervention at the Council, he continued to serve the cause of the poor and needy of the world with undaunted determination, despite several health challenges. During those years, his humanitarian work often took him to many of the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. His mission in traveling to those countries often included the provision of  urgently needed aid to victims of armed conflicts, as in the case of the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970), and aid to refugees fleeing from South Vietnam before the fall of Saigon in 1975.   

 On Nov. 17, 1976, my father died at St. Michael’s Hospital in Newark, New Jersey. Two days earlier, he had been transported to St. Michael’s by ambulance after suffering an aneurysm while commuting by train from our home in Rumson, New Jersey, to his Catholic Relief Services office in New York. 

When the news of my father’s death reached Pope Paul VI, His Holiness celebrated Mass for the repose of his soul. In a hand-written note to a papal aide that was passed on to my mother, Pope Paul wrote, “Abbiamo conosciuto da molti anni questo buono and fedele Cattolico, e abbiamo offerto la Santa Messa in suffragio della sua anima e per il cristiano conforto dei suoi parenti e dei suoi amici … Paulus P.P. VI.” English translation:

“We have known for many years this good and faithful Catholic and we have offered the Holy Mass for the repose of his soul and the Christian comfort of his relatives and friends. … Paulus P.P. Vl.” 

Following my father’s death, my mother received thousands of letters of condolence and tributes from every continent, including a beautiful two-page condolence letter from Mother Teresa, now St. Teresa of Calcutta. There is one particular tribute that my mother received that often comes to mind when I contemplate my father’s life in Christ and his tireless devotion to the poor. It is the editorial that appeared in the Nov. 28, 1976, edition of the diocesan newspaper of the Diocese of Memphis, Tennessee. The editorial ends with these words:

“If all the people in all the world whose lives were made more bearable because of Jim Norris were placed shoulder to shoulder, the line would stretch for hundreds and hundreds of miles. You made your mark, Jim. There’s hardly an acre of land in the free world that doesn’t have some evidence that you passed through this life.”

Sunday, Nov. 17, the World Day of the Poor, coincides with the 48th anniversary of my father’s death. I know that, on that date, as I reflect upon my father’s life, my thoughts will inevitably move to the present and to the suffering and hardship of our needy brethren around the world. I will join the Holy Father Pope Francis and all Catholics throughout the world in prayer on this day and with much hope that my father’s untiring efforts and his witness to the bishops of the world in 1964 will continue to inspire present-day efforts to overcome poverty and promote integral human development for all members of the human family created in the image and likeness of God our Creator.

 

Stephen Norris spent much of his childhood and youth in Rome and served in the Holy See delegation to the United Nations in New York during the tenure of the Cardinal Renato Martino, the Holy See’s permanent observer to the U.N.