Published in French, a 417-page book, Politique et Société (“Politics and Society”) will be released on September 6.
The book consists of a series of interviews with Dominique Wolton, a 70-year-old French sociologist and expert in media and political communication.
Catholic News Service obtained an advance copy, and excerpts have already begun appearing online.
The interviews cover a range of topics from same sex unions to the scandals of clergy sexually abusing minors, from issues related to abortion to questions pertaining to the role of women in the Church.
Perhaps what is most intriguing to me (from the excerpts I have been successful at finding) are the Pope’s comments regarding money constituting the gravest moral threat in the world today.
The Pope is quoted as saying: “the biggest threat in the world is money. In St Matthew’s Gospel, when Jesus talked about people’s love and loyalty being torn between two things, he didn’t say it was between “your wife or God”, it was choosing between God or money.”
When asked why people do not listen to this message even though it has been clearly condemned by the Church since the time of the Gospels, the Pope said it is because some people prefer to speak only about sexual morality.
“There is a great danger for preachers, lecturers, to fall into mediocrity,” which is condemning only those forms of immorality that fall “below the belt”, he said.
“But the other sins that are the most serious: hatred, envy, pride, vanity, killing another, taking away a life … these are really not talked about that much,” he said.
“The most minor sins are the sins of the flesh,” he said, because the flesh is weak. “The most dangerous sins are those of the mind”, and confessors should spend more time asking if a person prays, reads the Gospel and seeks the Lord. (Thank you, Holy Father, for saying what I have always believed as a sinner and as a Priest.)
One temptation the Church has always been vulnerable to, the Pope said, is being defensive because it is scared.
“Where in the Gospels does the Lord say that we need to seek security? Instead he said, ‘Risk, go ahead, forgive and evangelize.'”
Another temptation, he said, is to seek uniformity with rules, for example, in the debate concerning his Apostolic Exhortation on the family, Amoris Laetitia.
“When I talk about families in difficulty, I say, ‘Welcome, accompany, discern, integrate …’ and then everyone will see the doors open. In reality, what happens is you hear people say, ‘They cannot receive Communion.’ ‘They cannot do this and that.'”
That temptation of the Church to emphasize “no, no and no” and what is prohibited is the same “drama Jesus [experienced] with the Pharisees.”
This closed, fundamentalist mindset like Jesus faced is “the battle I lead today with the exhortation”.
Jesus followed “another logic” that went beyond prohibitions as he did not adhere to customs – like not touching lepers and stoning adulterers – that had become like commandments, he said.
Church leaders are used to “frozen norms” and “fixed standards”, but when they ask, “‘Can we give Communion to divorcees?’ I reply, ‘Speak with the divorced man and woman, welcome, accompany, integrate and discern”, which opens a path and a way of communication to lead people to Christ.
Encountering Christ is what leads people onto a path of living a moral life, he said.
I find the Pope’s comments particularly refreshing, even as I confess that I was raised in a Church of do’s and don’ts. It’s difficult indeed for me to change my perspective on what was taught to me as irrefutable and immutable truths pertaining to the ministry of the Church.
We need many more messages and messengers of this same message of openness and forgiveness in the Church. May I and all of us in our small ways of influence be apostles of the bountiful mercy and forgiveness of the Lord.
No comments:
Post a Comment