Pope Francis: Advent is a time of joy-filled waiting

CNA Staff, Sep 3, 2020 / 12:45 pm (CNA).- Pope Francis did not approve a proposal to ordain married men in the Amazon region because the idea was discussed, and even argued about, but not prayerfully discerned at a 2019 synod of bishops, according to notes from the pope included in an article published Thursday in the Catholic periodical La Civiltà Cattolica.

“There was a discussion … a rich discussion … a well-founded discussion, but no discernment, which is something different than just arriving at a good and justified consensus or at a relative majority,” Pope Francis said, on the issue of addressing a priest shortage in the Amazon by ordaining so-called viri probati, or older, mature and married men from local communities.

The pope clarified that synods of bishops should be opportunities for prayerful reflection, not parliamentary lobbying.

Pope Francis explained that a synod of bishops is a “spiritual exercise,” a period for discernment of how the Holy Spirit is speaking, and for self-examination regarding the motive beyond positions.

“Walking together means dedicating time to honest listening, capable of making us reveal and unmask (or at least to be sincere) the apparent purity of our positions and to help us discern the wheat that – up to the Parousia – always grows among the weeds.”

“Whoever has not realized this evangelical vision of reality exposes themselves to useless bitterness. Sincere and prayerful listening shows us the ‘hidden agendas’ called to conversion,” the pope added.

The October 2019 Synod of Bishops on the Pan-Amazon Region was a gathering of bishops from the region, and from other parts of the world, who met to discuss pastoral strategies for evangelization, catechesis, and pastoral care in the region, which spans several South American countries, and is beset by social, economic, and environmental challenges.

Some bishops at the synod proposed that Francis should permit the ordination of married men to the priesthood to address a regional shortage of priests. Critics of the idea said it would undermine the Church’s understanding of clerical celibacy as a gift, would become a widespread demand in the Church, and would not effectively resolve the clerical shortage in the Amazon.

In his Feb. 12 exhortation Querida Amazonia, which responded to the synod’s discussion on the region, Pope Francis did not endorse the proposal for the ordination of married men.

Instead, the urgent need for priests in the region “leads me to urge all bishops, especially those in Latin America, not only to promote prayer for priestly vocations, but also to be more generous in encouraging those who display a missionary vocation to opt for the Amazon region,” he wrote. 

In his remarks published this week, the pope emphasized that continued discernment is needed to implement the vision laid out in his exhortation. “I like to think that, in a certain sense, the synod is not over. This time of welcoming the whole process that we have lived  challenges us to continue walking together and to put this experience into practice.”

Pope Francis was criticized in some quarters for his decision not to approve viri probati, despite support for the proposal from the bishops at the synod. Church historian Massimo Faggioli wrote in Commonweal that “what we see with Querida Amazonia might suggest a betrayal of the Amazon Synod at least in terms of what it means for institutional Church reforms.”

But in his recently published note, Francis emphasized that a synod is not a legislative body, looking only for majority approval on proposals.

“We must understand that the synod is more than a parliament; and in this specific case it could not escape that [parliamentary] dynamic. On this issue it was a rich, productive and even necessary parliament; but no more than that. To me, this was decisive in the final discernment, when I thought about how to do the exhortation.” 

“One of the riches and originality of the synodal pedagogy lies precisely in going out of a parliamentary logic to learn to listen, in community, to what the Spirit says to the Church; for this reason I always propose to remain silent after a certain number of interventions,” the pope added.

“What sense would the synodal assembly have if it were not for listening together to what the Spirit says to the Church?” Pope Francis asked.

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Our Lady Queen of Peace Cathedral in Broome, Australia. / null

Vatican City, Aug 28, 2021 / 05:45 am (CNA).
Pope Francis on Saturday accepted the resignation of Australian Bishop Christopher Alan Saunders, who had been on administrative leave fr… […]

Pope Francis’ General Audience in St. Peter’s Square on March 29, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Mar 29, 2023 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Pope Francis on Wednesday spoke against a comfortable Christianity that keeps Jesus at arm’s length, rather than inviting him into the heart to change it.

“If one of us says, ‘Ah, thank you Lord, because I am a good person, I do good things, I do not commit major sins…’ this is not a good path, this is the path of self-sufficiency, it is a path that does not justify you, it makes you turn up your nose,” the pope said during his weekly public audience March 29.

He called this attitude being “an elegant Catholic, but an elegant Catholic is not a holy Catholic, he is elegant.”

“The true Catholic, the true Christian is one who receives Jesus within, which changes your heart,” Pope Francis said in St. Peter’s Square.

“This,” he continued, “is the question I ask you all today: What does Jesus mean for me? Did I let him enter my heart, or do I keep him within reach, but so that he does not really enter within? Have I let myself be changed by him? Or is Jesus just an idea, a theology that goes ahead…”

At his Wednesday general audience, the pope continued his reflections on evangelization and apostolic zeal with a catechesis centered on St. Paul’s transformation from a persecutor of Christians to a great evangelist.

St. Paul “was a man who was zealous about the law of Moses for Judaism, and after his conversion, this zeal continued, but to proclaim, to preach Jesus Christ,” Pope Francis explained. “Paul loved Jesus. Saul — Paul’s first name — was already zealous, but Christ converts his zeal.”

To better explain zeal, the pope referenced St. Thomas Aquinas, who taught that passion, from a moral perspective, is neither good nor bad: it depends on if it is used virtuously or sinfully.

“In Paul’s case, what changed him is not a simple idea or a conviction: it was the encounter, this word, it was the encounter with the risen Lord — do not forget this, it is the encounter with the Lord that changes a life — it was the encounter with the risen Lord that transformed his entire being,” the pope said.

“Paul’s humanity,” he added, “his passion for God and his glory was not annihilated, but transformed, ‘converted’ by the Holy Spirit.”

The pope noted that part of the change that takes place in Paul is his conversion from feeling righteous before God, and thus authorized to persecute, to arrest, and even to kill — to someone who, enlightened by God, recognizes himself to be a “blasphemer and persecutor.”

After recognizing what he had done, Paul becomes truly capable of loving, Francis said.

“If Jesus did not enter your life, it did not change,” he said. “You cannot be Christian only from the outside. No, Jesus must enter and this changes you, and this happened to Paul. It is finding Jesus, and this is why Paul said that Christ’s love drives us, it is what takes you forward.”

“This is zeal, when one finds Jesus and feels the fire, like Paul, and must preach Jesus, must talk about Jesus, must help people, must do good things,” he explained. “When one finds the idea of Jesus, he or she remains an ideologue of Christianity, and this does not justify, only Jesus justifies us. May the Lord help us find Jesus, encounter Jesus, and may this Jesus change our life from within and help us to help others.”

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