Opening remarks by Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York, , followed by an homage to the late Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete, theologian and a founder of New York Encounter.

“The supreme obstacle to our journey as men and women is the "neglect" of the "I." The first point, then, of any human journey is the opposite of this neglect; concern for our own "I," for our own person. It is an interest that might seem obvious but it is not obvious at all: a glance at our daily behavior is enough to show us that it is qualified by immense, wide gaps in our consciousness and loss of memory. Our first interest, then, is our subject. Our first interest is that the human subject be constituted and that I may understand what it is and be aware of it.  Behind the increasingly fragile mask of the word "I" there is great confusion today. Only the shell of the word has a certain consistency. But as soon as it is pronounced, the whole course of that sound, "I," is entirely and only packed with forgetfulness of all that is most alive and worthy in us. The conception of the "I" and our sense of it are tragically confused in our civilization.” 

Luigi Giussani, 1992