Pope Francis speaks during his weekly general audience on Ash Wednesday Feb. 22, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA. See CNA article for full slideshow.
Vatican City, Feb 22, 2023 / 03:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis said Wednesday that the traditions of the Church should not be based on opinion or ideological leanings, but on whether they favor the proclamation of the Gospel.
“Everything in the Church must be conformed to the requirements of the proclamation of the Gospel; not to the opinions of the conservatives or the progressives, but to the fact that Jesus reaches people’s lives,” he said Feb. 22.
Francis asked: When there are ideological divisions in the Church, such as an identification as conservative or progressive, “where is the Holy Spirit?”
“Be careful,” he warned. “The Gospel is not an idea; the Gospel is not an ideology. The Gospel is a proclamation that touches the heart and makes the heart change. You are making the Gospel a political party, an ideology, a club…”
Pope Francis arrives at the Paul VI Hall for his weekly general audience on Ash Wednesday Feb. 22, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
The pope’s weekly general audience took place in a full Paul VI Hall on Ash Wednesday, the first day of the penitential Lenten season.
Speaking to pilgrims from around the world, he said, “Every choice, every use, every structure, and tradition [of the Church] is be evaluated on the basis of whether they favor the proclamation of Christ.”
“In this way the Spirit sheds light on the path of the Church, always. In fact, he is not only the light of hearts; he is the light that orients the Church: he brings clarity, helps to distinguish, helps to discern,” he said. “This is why it is necessary to invoke him often; let us also do so today, at the beginning of Lent.”
To illustrate his point, Pope Francis recalled “a pivotal moment” from the early Church, recounted in the Acts of the Apostles.
The apostles were worried about what to do with pagans who became Christian, but were not part of the Jewish people: “Were they or were they not bound to observe the prescriptions of the Mosaic Law?”
Pope Francis listens to a scripture reading during his weekly general audience on Ash Wednesday Feb. 22, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
To resolve this problem, the apostles gathered in what was called the Council of Jerusalem, the first Church council in history, he explained.
The apostles “might have sought a good compromise between tradition and innovation: some rules are observed, others are left out,” he said, but what they did instead was “adapt to the work of the Spirit.”
“And so,” he continued, “removing almost every obligation related to the Law, they communicate the final decisions, made — and they write this — by ‘the Holy Spirit and by us’ (cf. Acts 15:28).”
“This is how the apostles always act,” he underlined. “Together, without being divided, despite having different sensitivities and opinions, they listen to the Spirit.”
Pope Francis asked everyone to think about whether they pray often to the Holy Spirit, or if they only speak to Jesus and the Father, or invoke the Virgin Mary and the saints, in their prayers.
“Because, as Church, we can have well-defined times and spaces, well-organized communities, institutes and movements, but without the Spirit, everything remains soulless,” he said. “The organization … is not enough. It is the Spirit who gives life to the Church.”
“The Church, if it does not pray to him and invoke him, closes in on itself, in sterile and exhausting debates, in wearisome polarizations, while the flame of the mission is extinguished,” he added.
The pope called it sad to see the Church operate as if it is just a parliament, when it is really a community of men and women who believe in and proclaim Jesus Christ, guided by the Holy Spirit, not their own reason.
“The Spirit makes us go out, urges us to proclaim the faith in order to confirm ourselves in the faith, to go on mission to discover who we are,” he said. “That is why the Apostle Paul recommends: ‘Do not quench the Spirit’ (1 Thessalonians 5:19).”
“Let us pray to the Spirit often, let us invoke him, let us ask him every day to kindle his light in us,” he urged. “Let us do this before each encounter, to become apostles of Jesus with the people we find.”
If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!
Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.
Members of the Sts’ailes First Nation at Holy Rosary Cathedral last year for the first Mass to integrate a First Nation language. A Cardus report presents the voices of Indigenous Canadians speaking about their faith and distinguishing it from the traditional spirituality they’re often associated with. / Photo courtesy Nicholas Elbers, 2022
Vancouver, Canada, May 17, 2023 / 14:15 pm (CNA).
A groundbreaking report published by the Ottawa-based Cardus Institute has given voice to Indigenous Canadians who are frustrated by secular society’s unawareness of — or unwillingness to accept — the fact that almost half of them are Christian.
“I find that insulting to Indigenous people’s intelligence and freedom,” Catholic priest Father Cristino Bouvette said of the prejudice he regularly encounters.
Bouvette, who has mixed Cree-Métis and Italian heritage and now serves as vicar for vocations and Young Adults in the Diocese of Calgary, was one of 12 individuals interviewed by Cardus for the report “Indigenous Voices of Faith.”
Father Deacon Andrew Bennett, left, leads a post-production discussion by Indigenous Voices of Faith participants. Photo courtesy of Cardus
Prejudice against Indigenous Christians has become so strong, even inside some Indigenous communities, “that Indigenous Christians in this country right now are living in the time of new martyrdom,” Bouvette said.
Although that martyrdom may not cost them their lives, “they are ostracized and humiliated sometimes within their own communities if they openly express their Christian or Catholic faith.”
Statistics Canada reported last year that the 2021 census found that 850,000, or 47%, of Canada’s 1.8-million Indigenous people identify as Christian and that more than a quarter of the total report they are Catholic. Only 73,000, or 4%, of Indigenous people said they adhere to traditional Indigenous spiritual beliefs.
In a new report, Cardus wants to “amplify the voices of Indigenous Canadians speaking for themselves about their religious commitments, which sometimes clash with the typical public presentation of Indigenous spirituality.” Photo courtesy of Cardus
Ukrainian Catholic Deacon Andrew Bennett, program director for Cardus Faith Communities, conducted the interviews for the think tank last fall. He published his report in March at a time when Canadian mainstream media and many political leaders continued to stir division and prejudice through misleading commentary about abandoned cemeteries at Indian Residential Schools.
The purpose of the report, he writes, “is to affirm and to shed light on the religious freedom of Indigenous peoples to hold the beliefs and engage in the practices that they choose and to contextualize their faith within their own cultures.”
Too often, however, “the public narrative implies, or boldly declares, that there’s a fundamental incompatibility between Indigenous Canadians and Christianity or other faiths,” Bennett said. “[M]any Indigenous Canadians strongly disagree with those narratives.”
Father Bouvette is clearly one of those.
“We did not have Christian faith imposed upon us because of [my Indigenous grandmother’s] time in the residential school or her father’s time in the trade school that he was sent to,” Bouvette said. “No, it was because our family freely chose to receive the saving message of Jesus Christ and lived it and had continued to pass it down.”
Bouvette said his “grandmother was not tricked into becoming something that she didn’t want to be, and then tricked into staying that way for 99 years and 11 months of her life. She was a Christian from the day of her birth, and she remained a Christian until the day of her death. And so that was not by the consequence of some imposition.”
Nevertheless, Canadians continue to labor under a prejudice holding the opposite view. “I do believe that probably the majority of Canadians at this time, out of some mistaken notion of guilt for whatever their cultural or ethnic background is, think they are somehow responsible for Indigenous people having had something thrust upon them that they didn’t want,” Bouvette said.
“We did not have Christian faith imposed upon us,” Father Cristino Bouvette says in a Cardus report on Indigenous faith. Photo courtesy of Cardus
“But I would say, give us a little more credit than that and assume that if there is an Indigenous person who continues to persevere in the Christian faith it is because they want to, because they understand why they have chosen to in the first place, and they remain committed to it. We should be respectful of that.”
The executive director of the Catholic Civil Rights League, Christian Elia, agrees and says society should grant Indigenous Catholics the respect and personal agency that is due all Canadians.
“Firstly, I am not an Indigenous person, so I cannot speak for our Indigenous brothers and sisters, but neither can non-Indigenous secularists who choose to ignore that Indigenous people in Canada continue to self-identify as Christian, the majority of these Catholic,” Elia said in an interview with The B.C. Catholic.
He said his organization has heard from many Indigenous Catholics who are “growing weary of the ongoing assumption that somehow they have been coerced into the faith, that it is inconceivable that they wish to be Catholic. This condescending attitude must stop.”
Deacon Rennie Nahanee, who serves at St. Paul’s Indian Church in North Vancouver, was another of the 12 whom Bennett interviewed. A cradle Catholic and member of the Squamish First Nation, Deacon Nahanee said there is nothing incompatible with being both an authentic Indigenous person and a Catholic.
“I’m pretty sure we had a belief in the Creator even before the missionaries came to British Columbia,” he said. “And our feelings, our thoughts about creation, the way that we lived and carried out our everyday lives, and the way that we helped to preserve the land and the animals that we used for food, our spirituality and our culture, were similar to the spirituality of the Catholic Church.”
“I believe that’s why our people accepted it. I don’t think anybody can separate themselves from God, even though they say so.”
Interviewed later by The B.C. Catholic, Nahanee said he is not bothered by the sort of prejudice outlined by Bouvette. “People are going to say or do what they want,” he said.
Voices of Indigenous Christianity
Bennett, program director of Cardus Faith Communities, interviewed 12 Indigenous Canadians, most of them Christian, about their religious commitments, “which often clash with the typical public presentation of Indigenous spirituality.” Here is a selection of some of their comments:
Tal James of the Penelakut First Nation in Nanaimo spoke about the relationship between Indigenous culture and his Christian faith:
Tal James and wife Christina. Photo courtesy of Project 620 – James Ministry
“I think … that our [Indigenous] cultures were complete, and in Jesus they’re more complete. I think that’s a big thing and a big step for a lot of us. You’re going to have a lot of non-Indigenous people look at you and question your actions based on your Aboriginal heritage. Don’t take that to heart. They’re the ignorant ones who don’t want you to flourish. Those of you who are Christians, First Nations Christians, you come to the table with the same gifting that non-Aboriginal people have. For them to say, ‘We want to make room for you at the table,’ correct them. You are already at the table, and encourage them to step back and allow your gifts to flourish. Because it’s one in the same spirit.”
Rose-Alma McDonald, a Mohawk from Akwesasne, which borders New York, Ontario, and Quebec, talked about re-embracing her Catholic faith:
Rose-Alma McDonald. Photo courtesy of Cardus
“I surprised everybody, including myself, in terms of embracing Catholicism after 20 years away. So I’ve had a few epiphanies in the sense that this is why my mother made me do so much in the church growing up. When I’m working, volunteering, and doing stuff in the church, I remember that. I keep remembering I’m Catholic and I’m still Catholic. I will stay Catholic because of the way I was raised.”
Jeff Decontie, a Mohawk from the Algonquin First Nations who lives in Ottawa, talked about being a person of faith in a secular world:
Jeff Decontie. Photo courtesy of Cardus
“Secular worldviews can sort of eat up everything around them and accept a whole wide range of beliefs at the same time. For example, you have the prevailing scientific thinking alongside New Age believers, and people in society just accept this, saying, ‘Oh, whatever it is you believe in, all religions lead to the same thing.’ No one questions it. How can these contradictions coexist? … Then we ask an [Indigenous] elder to lead prayer? Any other religion would be a no-no, but you can ask for an elder who’s going to pray a generic prayer to some generic Creator, and it’s not going to ruffle any feathers. I think that’s the danger of secular thought creeping into Canada: It goes unnoticed, it’s perceived as neutral, but at the same time it’s welcoming a whole wide range of beliefs. And it doesn’t just influence Indigenous thought. It’s influencing Christianity.”
Rosella Kinoshameg, a member of the Wikwemikong Reserve on Manitoulin Island in Ontario, spoke about being Indigenous and Catholic:
Rosella Kinoshameg. Photo courtesy of the Catholic Register
“Well, I can’t change being Indigenous. That’s something that is me. I can’t change that. But to believe in the things that I was taught, the traditional things, the way of life and the meanings of these things, and then in a church, well, those things help one another and they make me feel stronger.”
This article was originally published May 10, 2023, in The B.C. Catholic, a weekly publication serving the Catholic community in British Columbia, Canada, and is reprinted here on CNA with permission.
Pilgrims attend Mass ahead of a Marian procession on May 31, 2024, near the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City of Jerusalem to ask Our Lady of Palestine to intercede for peace in war-torn Gaza. / Credit: Rafi Ghattas
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 5, 2022 / 09:13 am (CNA).
Gunmen have killed multiple worshipers Sunday at a Catholic Church in southwestern Nigeria, according to state officials.Dozens of people, including children, are beli… […]
10 Comments
To me this exaggerates the circumcision question. They were doing this in my former parish in the late 1990’s so it’s not new; what seems to be happening is there is a purpose to make it theologically definitive.
I raised objections back then and it is not as if I wasn’t heard.
An interesting detail is that today’s exaggeration now involves a Pope just as the original stumbling block – circumcision – held up Peter the first Pope.
The Council of Jerusalem laid out 4 prohibitions and from the account in Acts the matter of circumcision was ultimately sidelined as not bearing on forward with any continuing importance.
The 4 prohibitions apply to everyone not merely to the unconverted. Peter put the stress on grace and hence the Council was a witness to the integrity and efficacy of baptism. The sense is very much that the conclusions reached are permanently enduring and unchangeable.
By this time Peter would have felt the further edification in his own baptism of Cornelius; however, to get to it he had to endure the imposition from Paul and yield to Paul.
In the CNA account above, the idea is given that at the time of the first Apostles, some “tradition” extends from the past. Is that really so? Surely it is our faith that what they were initiating in the Council of Jerusalem is Tradition as it comes forth from the Redemption.
Another insight from my former parish is that there could be a lot of mentalist engagement on all sorts of headings but “going forth” kind of stayed the same, which was generally immobile and well positioned in the comfort zone. What the mentalism achieved was raising mental connectivity and helping the group always behave in concert, quite artificial.
Theory and practice …… diverge? – converge? – both?
“You are making the Gospel a political party, an ideology, a club…”
Francis gave an ambulance to Ukraine, but he continually gives no truck to faithful Catholics.
“And so,” he continued, “removing almost every obligation related to the Law, they communicate the final decisions, made — and they write this — by ‘the Holy Spirit and by us’ (cf. Acts 15:28).”
“This is how the apostles always act,” he underlined. “Together, without being divided, despite having different sensitivities and opinions, they listen to the Spirit.”
Listening to the Spirit of God leads one to follow His Law. His Law includes the Ten Commandments. Love of God is where the Spirit of God dwells. One does not love God if one does not follow all the words of command which God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit speak.
Where the ‘spirit’ speaks differently from the eternal words of the Father and the Son, that ‘spirit’ is UNholy and is not from God. Logic and Reason vs. Francis.
Our God gave us Himself in the Incarnation and in His Spirit. Where the Spirit is, the Son is also. When the Son of God incarnates (appears in the flesh) to confirm Francis’ understanding of the ‘spirit,’ I’ll believe Francis.
Tongues, anyone? When the Holy Spirit anointed and empowered the Church at Pentecost, He proved His Presence with works and words and signs. Francis travels alone with none of the signs (fruits and gifts) of the Holy Spirit. Ergo.
“Everything in the Church must be conformed to the requirements of the proclamation of the Gospel; not to the opinions of the conservatives or the progressives, but to the fact that Jesus reaches people’s lives,” (Pope Francis Feb 22).
Yes. However, Jesus said to Peter and the other Apostles, ‘Teach them all that I have commanded you. Repentance for the forgiveness of sins’. Christ Our Lord never said, ‘Forgive whether or not they repent of their sins’, as you did to Spanish seminarians regarding confession of sins, the sacrament of penance. Christ Jesus never said adultery wasn’t adultery as you did because of mitigating circumstances in Amoris Laetitia. You omitted grace in that section! The whole purpose of the crucifixion and resurrection, of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the faithful. Our Lord never said about homosexuality, ‘God made you as you are, he loves you.
Today is the feast day of the Chair of Peter, on which you sit, instituted by Christ to defend the truth in the Apostolic witness of the Church. All the Apostles condemned homosexual acts, although you appoint homosexual advocates to key positions in the governance of the Church, continue to promote men to high office who believe Church teaching on homosexual behavior, in effect the scriptures themselves need to be revised.
As such it is you who excludes us, those who cannot surrender and repudiate the faith handed down to us from the Apostles. You call us dangerous, ‘backwardists’, persons closed to compassion. You expect us to leave the Catholic Church and join the equivalent of an enlightened men’s social club. That we resist. We remain true to the Chair of Peter, its long history of loyalty to Christ evident in its ample formal doctrinal documentation, not to the opinions of its occupant.
To me this exaggerates the circumcision question. They were doing this in my former parish in the late 1990’s so it’s not new; what seems to be happening is there is a purpose to make it theologically definitive.
I raised objections back then and it is not as if I wasn’t heard.
An interesting detail is that today’s exaggeration now involves a Pope just as the original stumbling block – circumcision – held up Peter the first Pope.
The Council of Jerusalem laid out 4 prohibitions and from the account in Acts the matter of circumcision was ultimately sidelined as not bearing on forward with any continuing importance.
The 4 prohibitions apply to everyone not merely to the unconverted. Peter put the stress on grace and hence the Council was a witness to the integrity and efficacy of baptism. The sense is very much that the conclusions reached are permanently enduring and unchangeable.
By this time Peter would have felt the further edification in his own baptism of Cornelius; however, to get to it he had to endure the imposition from Paul and yield to Paul.
In the CNA account above, the idea is given that at the time of the first Apostles, some “tradition” extends from the past. Is that really so? Surely it is our faith that what they were initiating in the Council of Jerusalem is Tradition as it comes forth from the Redemption.
Another insight from my former parish is that there could be a lot of mentalist engagement on all sorts of headings but “going forth” kind of stayed the same, which was generally immobile and well positioned in the comfort zone. What the mentalism achieved was raising mental connectivity and helping the group always behave in concert, quite artificial.
Theory and practice …… diverge? – converge? – both?
“You are making the Gospel a political party, an ideology, a club…”
Francis gave an ambulance to Ukraine, but he continually gives no truck to faithful Catholics.
Where’s the Holy Spirit in that?
“The Spirit makes us go out,…. to go on mission to discover who we are,” Francis said.
No, the spirit makes us go INto God. We go on mission [out to the periphery] to share with others the God in whom we are and in whom others may be.
Will someone mail him a catechism?
“And so,” he continued, “removing almost every obligation related to the Law, they communicate the final decisions, made — and they write this — by ‘the Holy Spirit and by us’ (cf. Acts 15:28).”
“This is how the apostles always act,” he underlined. “Together, without being divided, despite having different sensitivities and opinions, they listen to the Spirit.”
Listening to the Spirit of God leads one to follow His Law. His Law includes the Ten Commandments. Love of God is where the Spirit of God dwells. One does not love God if one does not follow all the words of command which God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit speak.
Where the ‘spirit’ speaks differently from the eternal words of the Father and the Son, that ‘spirit’ is UNholy and is not from God. Logic and Reason vs. Francis.
Our God gave us Himself in the Incarnation and in His Spirit. Where the Spirit is, the Son is also. When the Son of God incarnates (appears in the flesh) to confirm Francis’ understanding of the ‘spirit,’ I’ll believe Francis.
Tongues, anyone? When the Holy Spirit anointed and empowered the Church at Pentecost, He proved His Presence with works and words and signs. Francis travels alone with none of the signs (fruits and gifts) of the Holy Spirit. Ergo.
Could he be urged to step aside?
We read: “In fact, he [the Spirit] is not only the light of hearts; he is the light that orients the Church: he brings clarity…”
Clarity. Indeed.
“Everything in the Church must be conformed to the requirements of the proclamation of the Gospel; not to the opinions of the conservatives or the progressives, but to the fact that Jesus reaches people’s lives,” (Pope Francis Feb 22).
Yes. However, Jesus said to Peter and the other Apostles, ‘Teach them all that I have commanded you. Repentance for the forgiveness of sins’. Christ Our Lord never said, ‘Forgive whether or not they repent of their sins’, as you did to Spanish seminarians regarding confession of sins, the sacrament of penance. Christ Jesus never said adultery wasn’t adultery as you did because of mitigating circumstances in Amoris Laetitia. You omitted grace in that section! The whole purpose of the crucifixion and resurrection, of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the faithful. Our Lord never said about homosexuality, ‘God made you as you are, he loves you.
Today is the feast day of the Chair of Peter, on which you sit, instituted by Christ to defend the truth in the Apostolic witness of the Church. All the Apostles condemned homosexual acts, although you appoint homosexual advocates to key positions in the governance of the Church, continue to promote men to high office who believe Church teaching on homosexual behavior, in effect the scriptures themselves need to be revised.
As such it is you who excludes us, those who cannot surrender and repudiate the faith handed down to us from the Apostles. You call us dangerous, ‘backwardists’, persons closed to compassion. You expect us to leave the Catholic Church and join the equivalent of an enlightened men’s social club. That we resist. We remain true to the Chair of Peter, its long history of loyalty to Christ evident in its ample formal doctrinal documentation, not to the opinions of its occupant.
Truth and courage to say and do what is right. We bless those who lead by godly example. Thanks be to God for Christ inspired leadership.
Gospel – Good News of healing and empowerment.