Editorial
Francis is speaking… are we listening?
W
hen a Pope says something once, it could be a fleeting idea or something an aide prompted him to include. But when the pope returns over and
Pope Francis showed his insurgent side by urging young Catholics to shake up the Church and make a “mess” in their dioceses by going out into the streets to spread the faith. It is a message he put into practice by visiting one of Rio’s most violent slums and opening the event on a rain-soaked Copacabana Beach. Dubbed the “slum pope” for his work with the poor, Francis received a rapturous welcome in the Varginha shantytown, part of a slum area of northern Rio so notorious for its violence that it is referred to as Gaza Strip. The 76-year-old Argentine seemed at home, wading into cheering crowds, kissing people, young and old and telling them the Catholic Church is on their side. The Pope called for a revival of the virtue of solidarity with the poor. “No one can remain insensitive to the inequalities that persist in the world!” Francis told a crowd of thousands who braved the cold rain and stood in a muddy soccer field to welcome him. This was a message aimed at reversing the decline in the numbers of Catholics in most of Latin America, with many poor worshippers leaving the Church for evangelical congregations. Those churches have taken up a huge presence in favelas, or shantytowns, such as Varginha, attracting souls with nuts-andbolts advice on how to improve their lives. Although Brazil still has more Catholics than any other country in the world, a study released mid last month by Pew Research Center indicates that the percentage of protestant Brazilians is on the rise. So is the number of Brazilians who do not identify with religion. In 1970, the study shows, Brazil was 92% Catholic; in 2010, that figure had dropped to 6 5% with young people increasingly becoming the least Catholic age group. No one will doubt that during the Rio trip, his first foreign tour since he was elected Pope in March 13, the Argentine-born pontiff presented a broad sketch of his key papal priorities: charity for the poor, bringing priests closer to the people, and re-evangelizing regions where Catholics have left the church -particularly Latin America, where the Catholic population has dramatically shrunk.
over again to the same theme, like a composer weaving a leitmotif through a piece of music, then you drop everything else and start listening. During Pope Francis’ seven-day sweep through Brazil for the World Youth Day, I found it impossible to ignore three themes which he stressed over again: the culture of encounter with the people, solidarity with the poor and mission. In his homily during Mass with bishops, priests, religious and seminarians taking part in World Youth Day, the Pope urged the clergy to have the courage to go against the tide. “Let us courageously look to pastoral needs, beginning on the outskirts, with those who are farthest away, with those who do not usually go to church. They too are invited to the table of the lord.” He offered a version of his core pastoral idea: that the Church has to get out of the sacristy and into the streets, urging bishops, priests and religious to get out and “walk through the door.” “We must go out through that door to seek and meet the people!” he said. What the first Latin American pope with a background in liberation theology seems to be calling for is not aggressive proselytism, but rather a relentless commitment to service and presence, of discerning what is happening in people’s lives and positioning the Church in that space. The Roman Pontiff delivered the same point during a session with youth from his home country, Argentina. “I want you to make yourselves heard in your dioceses, I want the noise to go out, I want the church to go out onto the streets, I want us to resist everything worldly, everything static, everything comfortable, everything to do with clericalism, everything that might make us closed in on ourselves,” he said. “The parishes, the schools, the institutions are made for going out ... if they don’t, they become an NGO, and the church cannot be an NGO.”
THE SEED - VOL 25, No. 8, AUGUST 2013
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