Everyone is talking Doctrine: Epistemological Object. Francis, St. John Paul II and the Fathers of Vatican II are talking Attitude: Epistemological Subject: Not "What," but "Self-Gift."
It is interesting to compare what we have seen
for the last two weeks concerning the Synod on the Family (2014), and the
Aparecida Conference of 2007 in Brazil of which Cardinal Bergoglio was the
inspiring protagonist, and as John Allen Jr. suggested, his leadership and
authorship of the document at Aparecida segued into the papacy.
It
should be noted that his call below for a change in structures is to be
dynamized not by a central beaurocracy but by missionary/apostolic spirit which
is an attitude of the believing subject. The "attitade" of self-giving means: sanctity as in Be Christ! And Be Christ means Be Nazareth!
What
was sought at Vatican II was the Attitude of Self-Gift and its
accompanying Consciousness which characterized the Council, rather than
Abstract Doctrine. The same was at work in the Aparecida Conference of 2007
headed by Cardinal Bergoglio which brought him to the papacy by the Spirit and his brother bishops. It seems that in
this first part of the Synod of
2014-2015, the same dynamic is at work: to open the Church to the work of the
Spirit – as chaotic as it may seem, and now for a year the Church must pray and
exercise herself in the self-giving of
sincere dialogue in the atmosphere of the Our Lady and the Spirit to engender
Christ anew in her. The Church must now listen to the Spirit to recover the right attitude toward matrimony.
This was exactly the point made by St. John
Paul II in his “Sources of Renewal” for the implementation of Vatican II:
“If
we study the Conciliar magisterium as a whole, we find that the Pastors of the
Church were not so much concerned to answer questions like ‘What should men
believe?,’ ‘What is the real meaning of this or that truth of faith’ and so
on, but rather to answer the more complex question: ‘What does it mean
to be a believer, a Catholic and a member of the Church?’” [i.e. a subject making the self-gift]
“The
question ‘What does it mean to be a believing member of the Church?’ is indeed
difficult and complex, because it not only presupposes the truth of faith and
pure doctrine, but also calls for that truth to be situated in the human
consciousness and calls for definition of the attitude, or rather the many attitudes,
that go to make the individual a believing member of the Church. This would
seem to be the main respect in which the Conciliar magisterium has a pastoral
character, corresponding to the pastoral purpose for which it was called.”
Consider
the remarks of Cardinal Bergoglio with reference to the Aparecida Conference:
Aparecida 2007
Introduction
I thank the Lord for this opportunity to speak with you, my
brother bishops, the leadership of CELAM for the four-year period from 2011 to
2015. For 57 years CELAM has served the 22 Episcopal Conferences of Latin
America and the Caribbean, working in a spirit of solidarity and
subsidiarity to promote, encourage and improve collegiality among the bishops
and communion between the region’s Churches and their pastors.
Like yourselves, I too witnessed the powerful working of the
Spirit in the Fifth General Conference of the Latin American and Caribbean
Episcopate in Aparecida, in May 2007, which continues to inspire the efforts of
CELAM for the desired renewal of the Particular Churches. In many of them, this
renewal is clearly taking place. I would like to focus this conversation on the
legacy of that fraternal encounter, which all of us have chosen to call a
Continental Mission.
2.
Particular characteristics of Aparecida
There are four hallmarks of the Fifth Conference. They are like
four pillars for the implementation of Aparecida, and they are what make it
distinctive.
1. Starting
without a document
Medellín, Puebla and Santo Domingo began their work with a process of
preparation which culminated in a sort of Instrumentum Laboris which then
served as a basis for discussion, reflection and the approval of the final
document. Aparecida, on the other hand, encouraged the participation of
the Particular Churches as a process of preparation culminating in a document
of synthesis. This document, while serving as a point of reference throughout
the Fifth General Conference, was not taken as a starting point. The initial
work consisted in pooling the concerns expressed by the bishops as they
considered the new period of history we are living and the need to recover the
life of discipleship and mission with which Christ founded the Church.
2. A
setting of prayer with the people of God
It is important to remember the prayerful setting created by the daily sharing
of the Eucharist and other liturgical moments, in which we were always
accompanied by the People of God. On the other hand, since the deliberations
took place in the undercroft of the Shrine, the music which accompanied them
were the songs and the prayers of the faithful.
3. A
document which continues in commitment, with the Continental Mission
This context of prayer and the life of faith gave rise to a desire for a new
Pentecost for the Church and the commitment to undertake a Continental Mission.
Aparecida did not end with a document; it continues in the
Continental Mission
4. The
presence of Our Lady, Mother of America
It was the first conference of the bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean
to be held in a Marian shrine.
3.
Dimensions of the Continental Mission
The Continental Mission is planned along two lines: the
programmatic and the paradigmatic. The programmatic mission, as its name
indicates, consists in a series of missionary activities. The paradigmatic
mission, on the other hand, involves setting in a missionary key all the
day-to-day activities of the Particular Churches. Clearly this entails a whole
process of reforming ecclesial structures. The “change of structures” (from
obsolete ones to new ones) will not be the result of reviewing an organizational
flow chart, which would lead to a static reorganization; rather it will result
from the very dynamics of mission. What makes obsolete structures pass away,
what leads to a change of heart in Christians, is precisely missionary spirit.
Hence the importance of the paradigmatic mission.
The Continental Mission, both programmatic and paradigmatic,
calls for creating a sense of a Church which is organized to serve all the
baptized, and men and women of goodwill. Christ’s followers are not individuals
caught up in a privatized spirituality, but persons in community, devoting
themselves to others. The Continental Mission thus implies membership in the
Church. An approach like this, which begins with missionary discipleship and
involves understanding Christian identity as membership in the Church, demands
that we clearly articulate the real challenges facing missionary discipleship.
Here I will mention only two: the Church’s inner renewal and dialogue with the
world around us.
The
Church’s inner renewal
Aparecida considered Pastoral Conversion to be a necessity. This
conversion involves believing in the Good News, believing in Jesus Christ as
the bearer of God’s Kingdom as it breaks into the world and in his victorious
presence over evil, believing in the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit,
believing in the Church, the Body of Christ and the prolonging of the dynamism
of the incarnation.
Consequently, we, as pastors, need to ask questions about the
actual state of the Churches which we lead. These questions can serve as a
guide in examining where the dioceses stand in taking up the spirit of
Aparecida; they are questions which we need to keep asking as an examination of
conscience.
1. Do we
see to it that our work, and that of our priests, is more pastoral than administrative?
Who primarily benefits from our efforts, the Church as an organization or the
People of God as a whole?
2. Do we
fight the temptation simply to react to complex problems as they arise? Are we
creating a proactive mindset? Do we promote opportunities and possibilities to
manifest God’s mercy? Are we conscious of our responsibility for refocusing
pastoral approaches and the functioning of Church structures for the benefit of
the faithful and society?
3. In
practice, do we make the lay faithful sharers in the Mission? Do we offer them
the word of God and the sacraments with a clear awareness and conviction that
the Holy Spirit makes himself manifest in them?
4. Is
pastoral discernment a habitual criterion, through the use of Diocesan
Councils? Do such Councils and Parish Councils, whether pastoral or financial,
provide real opportunities for lay people to participate in pastoral
consultation, organization and planning? The good functioning of these Councils
is critical. I believe that on this score, we are far behind.
5. As
pastors, bishops and priests, are we conscious and convinced of the mission of
the lay faithful and do we give them the freedom to continue discerning, in a
way befitting their growth as disciples, the mission which the Lord has
entrusted to them? Do we support them and accompany them, overcoming the
temptation to manipulate them or infantilize them? Are we constantly open to
letting ourselves be challenged in our efforts to advance the good of the
Church and her mission in the world?
6. Do
pastoral agents and the faithful in general feel part of the Church, do they
identify with her and bring her closer to the baptized who are distant and
alienated?
As can be appreciated, what is at stake here are attitudes.
Pastoral Conversion is chiefly concerned with attitudes and reforming our
lives. A change of attitudes is necessarily something ongoing: “it is a
process”, and it can only be kept on track with the help of guidance and discernment.
It is important always to keep in mind that the compass preventing us from
going astray is that of Catholic identity, understood as membership in the
Church.
Dialogue with the world around us
We do well to recall the words of the Second Vatican Council:
“The joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the people of our time,
especially of those who are poor or afflicted, are the joys and hopes, the
grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well” (Gaudium et Spes, 1).
Here we find the basis for our dialogue with the contemporary world.
Responding to the existential issues of people today, especially the young,
listening to the language they speak, can lead to a fruitful change, which
must take place with the help of the Gospel, the magisterium, and the Church’s
social doctrine. The scenarios and the areopagi involved are quite varied. For
example, a single city can contain various collective imaginations which create
“different cities”. If we remain within the parameters of our “traditional
culture”, which was essentially rural, we will end up nullifying the power of
the Holy Spirit. God is everywhere: we have to know how to find him in order to
be able to proclaim him in the language of each and every culture; every
reality, every language, has its own rhythm.
4. Some temptations against missionary discipleship
The decision for missionary discipleship will encounter
temptation. It is important to know where the evil spirit is afoot in order to
aid our discernment. It is not a matter of chasing after demons, but simply one
of clear-sightedness and evangelical astuteness. I will mention only a few
attitudes which are evidence of a Church which is “tempted”. It has to do with
recognizing certain contemporary proposals which can parody the process of
missionary discipleship and hold back, even bring to a halt, the process of
Pastoral Conversion.
1. Making the Gospel message an ideology. This
is a temptation which has been present in the Church from the beginning: the
attempt to interpret the Gospel apart from the Gospel itself and apart from the
Church. An example: Aparecida, at one particular moment, felt this
temptation. It employed, and rightly so, the method of “see, judge and act”
(cf. No. 19). The temptation, though, was to opt for a way of “seeing” which
was completely “antiseptic”, detached and unengaged, which is impossible. The
way we “see” is always affected by the way we direct our gaze. There is no such
thing as an “antiseptic” hermeneutics. The question was, rather: How are we
going to look at reality in order to see it? Aparecida replied: With the eyes
of discipleship. This is the way Nos. 20-32 are to be understood. There are
other ways of making the message an ideology, and at present proposals of this
sort are appearing in Latin America and the Caribbean. I mention only a few:
§ a) Sociological
reductionism. This is the most readily available means of making the
message an ideology. At certain times it has proved extremely influential.
It involves an interpretative claim based on a hermeneutics drawn from the
social sciences. It extends to the most varied fields, from market liberalism
to Marxist categorization.
§ b) Psychologizing.
Here we have to do with an elitist hermeneutics which ultimately reduces the
“encounter with Jesus Christ” and its development to a process of growing
self-awareness. It is ordinarily to be found in spirituality courses, spiritual
retreats, etc. It ends up being an immanent, self-centred approach. It has
nothing to do with transcendence and consequently, with missionary spirit.
§ c) The
Gnostic solution. Closely linked to the previous temptation, it is
ordinarily found in elite groups offering a higher spirituality, generally
disembodied, which ends up in a preoccupation with certain pastoral
“quaestiones disputatae”. It was the first deviation in the early community and
it reappears throughout the Church’s history in ever new and revised versions.
Generally its adherents are known as “enlightened Catholics” (since they are in
fact rooted in the culture of the Enlightenment).
§ d) The
Pelagian solution. This basically appears as a form of restorationism. In
dealing with the Church’s problems, a purely disciplinary solution is sought,
through the restoration of outdated manners and forms which, even on the
cultural level, are no longer meaningful. In Latin America it is usually to be
found in small groups, in some new religious congregations, in tendencies to
doctrinal or disciplinary “safety”. Basically it is static, although it is
capable of inversion, in a process of regression. It seeks to “recover” the
lost past.
2. Functionalism. Its effect on the
Church is paralyzing. More than being interested in the road itself, it is
concerned with fixing holes in the road. A functionalist approach has no room
for mystery; it aims at efficiency. It reduces the reality of the Church
to the structure of an NGO. What counts are quantifiable results and
statistics. The Church ends up being run like any other business organization.
It applies a sort of “theology of prosperity” to the organization of pastoral
work.
3. Clericalism is also a
temptation very present in Latin America. Curiously, in the majority of cases,
it has to do with a sinful complicity: the priest clericalizes the lay person
and the lay person kindly asks to be clericalized, because deep down it is
easier. The phenomenon of clericalism explains, in great part, the lack of
maturity and Christian freedom in a good part of the Latin American laity.
Either they simply do not grow (the majority), or else they take refuge in
forms of ideology like those we have just seen, or in partial and limited ways
of belonging. Yet in our countries there does exist a form of freedom of the
laity which finds expression in communal experiences: Catholic as community.
Here one sees a greater autonomy, which on the whole is a healthy thing,
basically expressed through popular piety. The chapter of the Aparecida
document on popular piety describes this dimension in detail. The spread of bible
study groups, of ecclesial basic communities and of Pastoral Councils is in
fact helping to overcome clericalism and to increase lay responsibility. We
could continue by describing other temptations against missionary discipleship,
but I consider these to be the most important and influential at present for
Latin America and the Caribbean.
5. Some ecclesiological guidelines
1. The missionary discipleship which Aparecida proposed to the
Churches of Latin America and the Caribbean is the journey which God desires
for the present “today”. Every utopian (future-oriented) or restorationist
(past-oriented) impulse is spiritually unhealthy. God is real and he shows
himself in the “today”. With regard to the past, his presence is given to us as
“memory” of his saving work, both in his people and in each of us as
individuals; with regard to the future, he gives himself to us as “promise” and
hope. In the past God was present and left his mark: memory helps us to
encounter him; in the future is promise alone… he is not in the thousand and
one “futuribles”. The “today” is closest to eternity; even more: the “today” is
a flash of eternity. In the “today”, eternal life is in play. Missionary
discipleship is a vocation: a call and an invitation. It is given in the
“today”, but also “in tension”. There is no such thing as static missionary
discipleship. A missionary disciple cannot be his own master, his immanence is
in tension towards the transcendence of discipleship and towards the
transcendence of mission. It does not allow for self-absorption: either it
points to Jesus Christ or it points to the people to whom he must be
proclaimed. The missionary disciple is a self-transcending subject, a subject
projected towards encounter: an encounter with the Master (who anoints us
as his disciples) and an encounter with men and women who await the message.
That is why I like saying that the position of missionary
disciples is not in the centre but at the periphery: they live poised towards
the peripheries… including the peripheries of eternity, in the encounter with
Jesus Christ. In the preaching of the Gospel, to speak of “existential
peripheries” decentralizes things; as a rule, we are afraid to leave the
centre. The missionary disciple is someone “off centre”: the centre is Jesus
Christ, who calls us and sends us forth. The disciple is sent to the
existential peripheries.
2. The Church is an institution, but when she makes herself a
“centre”, she becomes merely functional, and slowly but surely turns into a
kind of NGO. The Church then claims to have a light of her own, and she stops
being that “mysterium lunae” of which the Church Fathers spoke. She becomes
increasingly self-referential and loses her need to be missionary. From an
“institution” she becomes a “enterprise”. She stops being a bride and ends up
being an administrator; from being a servant, she becomes an “inspector”.
Aparecida wanted a Church which is bride, mother and servant, a facilitator of
faith and not an inspector of faith.
3. In Aparecida, two pastoral categories stand out; they arise
from the uniqueness of the Gospel, and we can employ them as guidelines for
assessing how we are living missionary discipleship in the Church: nearness and
encounter. Neither of these two categories is new; rather, they are the way God
has revealed himself to us in history. He is the “God who is near” to his
people, a nearness which culminates in the incarnation. He is the God who goes
forth to meet his people. In Latin America and the Caribbean there are pastoral
plans which are “distant”, disciplinary pastoral plans which give priority to
principles, forms of conduct, organizational procedures… and clearly lack
nearness, tenderness, a warm touch. They do not take into account the
“revolution of tenderness” brought by the incarnation of the Word. There are
pastoral plans designed with such a dose of distance that they are incapable of
sparking an encounter: an encounter with Jesus Christ, an encounter with our
brothers and sisters. Such pastoral plans can at best provide a dimension of
proselytism, but they can never inspire people to feel part of or belong to the
Church. Nearness creates communion and belonging; it makes room for encounter.
Nearness takes the form of dialogue and creates a culture of encounter. One
touchstone for measuring whether a pastoral plan embodies nearness and a
capacity for encounter is the homily. What are our homilies like? Do we imitate
the example of our Lord, who spoke “as one with authority”, or are they simply
moralizing, detached, abstract?
4. Those who direct pastoral work, the Continental Mission (both
programmatic and paradigmatic) are the bishops. Bishops must lead, which is not
the same thing as being authoritarian. As well as pointing to the great figures
of the Latin American episcopate, which we all know, I would like to add a
few things about the profile of the bishop, which I already presented to the
Nuncios at our meeting in Rome. Bishops must be pastors, close to people,
fathers and brothers, and gentle, patient and merciful. Men who love poverty,
both interior poverty, as freedom before the Lord, and exterior poverty, as
simplicity and austerity of life. Men who do not think and behave like
“princes”. Men who are not ambitious, who are married to one church without
having their eyes on another. Men capable of watching over the flock entrusted
to them and protecting everything that keeps it together: guarding their people
out of concern for the dangers which could threaten them, but above all
instilling hope: so that light will shine in people’s hearts. Men capable of
supporting with love and patience God’s dealings with his people. The Bishop
has to be among his people in three ways: in front of them, pointing the way;
among them, keeping them together and preventing them from being scattered; and
behind them, ensuring that no one is left behind, but also, and primarily, so
that the flock itself can sniff out new paths.
I do not wish to go into further detail about the person of the
Bishop, but simply to add, including myself in this statement, that we are
lagging somewhat as far as Pastoral Conversion is concerned. We need to help
one another a bit more in taking the steps that the Lord asks of us in the
“today” of Latin America and the Caribbean. And this is a good place to start.
I thank
you for your patience in listening to me. Pardon me if my remarks have been
somewhat disjointed and please, I beg that we take seriously our calling as
servants of the holy and faithful people of God, for this is where
authority is exercised and demonstrated: in the ability to serve.
Dialogue with the world around us
And now
compare these remarks on attitudes and temptations with what Pope Francis said
at the end of the 2014 part of the Synod on Marriage:
Pope
Francis speech at the conclusion of the Synod of 2014
Pope Francis arriving at
the Synod Hall
18/10/2014
SHARE:
(Vatican Radio) At the
conclusion of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family, Pope Francis addressed the
assembled Fathers, thanking them for their efforts and encouraging them to
continue to journey.
Below,
please find Vatican Radio's provisional translation of Pope Francis' address to
the Synod Fathers:
Dear Eminences, Beatitudes,
Excellencies, Brothers and Sisters,
With a heart full of
appreciation and gratitude I want to thank, along with you, the Lord who has
accompanied and guided us in the past days, with the light of the Holy Spirit.
From the heart I thank Cardinal
Lorenzo Baldisseri, Secretary General of the Synod, Bishop Fabio Fabene,
under-secretary, and with them I thank the Relators, Cardinal Peter Erdo, who
has worked so much in these days of family mourning, and the Special Secretary
Bishop Bruno Forte, the three President delegates, the transcribers, the
consultors, the translators and the unknown workers, all those who have worked
with true fidelity and total dedication behind the scenes and without rest.
Thank you so much from the heart.
I thank all of you as well,
dear Synod fathers, Fraternal Delegates, Auditors, and Assessors, for your
active and fruitful participation. I will keep you in prayer asking the Lord to
reward you with the abundance of His gifts of grace!
I can happily say that – with a
spirit of collegiality and of synodality – we have truly lived the experience
of “Synod,” a path of solidarity, a “journey together.”
And it has been “a journey” –
and like every journey there were moments of running fast, as if wanting to
conquer time and reach the goal as soon as possible; other moments of fatigue,
as if wanting to say “enough”; other moments of enthusiasm and ardour. There
were moments of profound consolation listening to the testimony of true
pastors, who wisely carry in their hearts the joys and the tears of their faithful
people. Moments of consolation and grace and comfort hearing the testimonies of
the families who have participated in the Synod and have shared with us the
beauty and the joy of their married life. A journey where the stronger feel
compelled to help the less strong, where the more experienced are led to serve
others, even through confrontations. And since it is a journey of human beings,
with the consolations there were also moments of desolation, of tensions and
temptations, of which a few possibilities could be mentioned:
- One, a temptation to
hostile inflexibility, that is, wanting to close oneself within the written
word, (the letter) and not allowing oneself to be surprised by God, by the God
of surprises, (the spirit); within the law, within the certitude of what we
know and not of what we still need to learn and to achieve. From the time of
Christ, it is the temptation of the zealous, of the scrupulous, of the
solicitous and of the so-called – today – “traditionalists” and also of the
intellectuals.
- The temptation to a
destructive tendency to goodness [it. buonismo], that in the name of a
deceptive mercy binds the wounds without first curing them and treating them;
that treats the symptoms and not the causes and the roots. It is the temptation
of the “do-gooders,” of the fearful, and also of the so-called “progressives
and liberals.”
- The temptation to
transform stones into bread to break the long, heavy, and painful fast (cf. Lk
4:1-4); and also to transform the bread into a stone and cast it against the
sinners, the weak, and the sick (cf Jn 8:7), that is, to transform it into
unbearable burdens (Lk 11:46).
- The temptation to come
down off the Cross, to please the people, and not stay there, in order to
fulfil the will of the Father; to bow down to a worldly spirit instead of
purifying it and bending it to the Spirit of God.
- The temptation to
neglect the “depositum fidei” [the deposit of faith], not thinking of
themselves as guardians but as owners or masters [of it]; or, on the other hand,
the temptation to neglect reality, making use of meticulous language and a
language of smoothing to say so many things and to say nothing! They call them
“byzantinisms,” I think, these things…
Dear brothers and sisters, the
temptations must not frighten or disconcert us, or even discourage us, because
no disciple is greater than his master; so if Jesus Himself was tempted – and
even called Beelzebul (cf. Mt 12:24) – His disciples should not expect better
treatment.
Personally I would be very
worried and saddened if it were not for these temptations and these animated
discussions; this movement of the spirits, as St Ignatius called it (Spiritual
Exercises, 6), if all were in a state of agreement, or silent in a false and
quietist peace. Instead, I have seen and I have heard – with joy and
appreciation – speeches and interventions full of faith, of pastoral and
doctrinal zeal, of wisdom, of frankness and of courage: and of parresia.
And I have felt that what was set before our eyes was the good of the Church,
of families, and the “supreme law,” the “good of souls” (cf. Can. 1752). And
this always – we have said it here, in the Hall – without ever putting into
question the fundamental truths of the Sacrament of marriage: the
indissolubility, the unity, the faithfulness, the fruitfulness, that openness
to life (cf. Cann. 1055, 1056; and Gaudium et spes, 48).
And this is the Church, the
vineyard of the Lord, the fertile Mother and the caring Teacher, who is not
afraid to roll up her sleeves to pour oil and wine on people’s wound; who
doesn’t see humanity as a house of glass to judge or categorize people. This is
the Church, One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and composed of sinners, needful of
God’s mercy. This is the Church, the true bride of Christ, who seeks to be
faithful to her spouse and to her doctrine. It is the Church that is not afraid
to eat and drink with prostitutes and publicans. The Church that has the doors
wide open to receive the needy, the penitent, and not only the just or those
who believe they are perfect! The Church that is not ashamed of the fallen
brother and pretends not to see him, but on the contrary feels involved and
almost obliged to lift him up and to encourage him to take up the journey again
and accompany him toward a definitive encounter with her Spouse, in the
heavenly Jerusalem.
The is the Church, our Mother!
And when the Church, in the variety of her charisms, expresses herself in
communion, she cannot err: it is the beauty and the strength of the sensus
fidei, of that supernatural sense of the faith which is bestowed by the
Holy Spirit so that, together, we can all enter into the heart of the Gospel
and learn to follow Jesus in our life. And this should never be seen as a
source of confusion and discord.
Many commentators, or people
who talk, have imagined that they see a disputatious Church where one part
is against the other, doubting even the Holy Spirit, the true promoter and
guarantor of the unity and harmony of the Church – the Holy Spirit who
throughout history has always guided the barque, through her Ministers, even
when the sea was rough and choppy, and the ministers unfaithful and sinners.
And, as I have dared to tell
you , [as] I told you from the beginning of the Synod, it was necessary to live
through all this with tranquillity, and with interior peace, so that the Synod
would take place cum Petro and sub Petro(with
Peter and under Peter), and the presence of the Pope is the guarantee of it
all.
We will speak a little bit
about the Pope, now, in relation to the Bishops [laughing]. So, the duty of the
Pope is that of guaranteeing the unity of the Church; it is that of reminding
the faithful of their duty to faithfully follow the Gospel of Christ; it
is that of reminding the pastors that their first duty is to nourish the flock
– to nourish the flock – that the Lord has entrusted to them, and to seek to
welcome – with fatherly care and mercy, and without false fears – the lost
sheep. I made a mistake here. I said welcome: [rather] to go out and find them.
His duty is to remind everyone
that authority in the Church is a service, as Pope Benedict XVI clearly
explained, with words I cite verbatim: “The Church is called and commits
herself to exercise this kind of authority which is service and exercises it
not in her own name, but in the name of Jesus Christ… through the Pastors of
the Church, in fact: it is he who guides, protects and corrects them, because
he loves them deeply. But the Lord Jesus, the supreme Shepherd of our souls,
has willed that the Apostolic College, today the Bishops, in communion with the
Successor of Peter… to participate in his mission of taking care of God's
People, of educating them in the faith and of guiding, inspiring and sustaining
the Christian community, or, as the Council puts it, ‘to see to it... that each
member of the faithful shall be led in the Holy Spirit to the full development
of his own vocation in accordance with Gospel preaching, and to sincere and
active charity’ and to exercise that liberty with which Christ has set us free
(cf. Presbyterorum Ordinis, 6)… and it is through us,” Pope Benedict continues,
“that the Lord reaches souls, instructs, guards and guides them. St Augustine,
in his Commentary on the Gospel of St John, says: ‘let it therefore be a
commitment of love to feed the flock of the Lord’ (cf. 123, 5); this is the
supreme rule of conduct for the ministers of God, an unconditional love, like
that of the Good Shepherd, full of joy, given to all, attentive to those close
to us and solicitous for those who are distant (cf. St Augustine, Discourse
340, 1; Discourse 46, 15), gentle towards the weakest, the little ones, the
simple, the sinners, to manifest the infinite mercy of God with the reassuring
words of hope (cf. ibid., Epistle, 95, 1).”
So, the Church is Christ’s –
she is His bride – and all the bishops, in communion with the Successor of
Peter, have the task and the duty of guarding her and serving her, not as
masters but as servants. The Pope, in this context, is not the supreme lord but
rather the supreme servant – the “servant of the servants of God”; the
guarantor of the obedience and the conformity of the Church to the will of God,
to the Gospel of Christ, and to the Tradition of the Church, putting aside
every personal whim, despite being – by the will of Christ Himself – the
“supreme Pastor and Teacher of all the faithful” (Can. 749) and despite
enjoying “supreme, full, immediate, and universal ordinary power in the Church”
(cf. Cann. 331-334).
Dear brothers and sisters, now
we still have one year to mature, with true spiritual discernment, the proposed
ideas and to find concrete solutions to so many difficulties and innumerable
challenges that families must confront; to give answers to the many discouragements
that surround and suffocate families.
One year to work on the
“Synodal Relatio” which is the faithful and clear summary of everything that
has been said and discussed in this hall and in the small groups. It is
presented to the Episcopal Conferences as “lineamenta” [guidelines].
May the Lord accompany us, and
guide us in this journey for the glory of His Name, with the intercession of
the Blessed Virgin Mary and of Saint Joseph. And please, do not forget to pray
for me! Thank you!”
