"The great ideas which once inspired Europe ... replaced by the bureaucratic technicalities of its institutions." Pope Francis





Pope Francis complains of 'haggard' Europe in Strasbourg


25 November 2014


Pope Francis has warned that the world sees Europe as "somewhat elderly and haggard" during a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

The Pope said the continent felt "less and less a protagonist", in a world that regarded it with mistrust.

He also called for a "united response" to the help the boatloads of migrants arriving in Europe.

Pope Francis's whistle-stop visit to Strasbourg disgruntled some, who accused him of neglecting Europe.

Many of Strasbourg's Catholics were upset that the Pope would not meet them or visit the city's cathedral.

The four-hour visit - the shortest made by any Pope abroad - was his second European trip since his election last year. He travelled to Albania in September.

'Vast cemetery'

Addressing the Parliament on Tuesday, the Pope called for action following the deaths of thousands of migrants who have drowned while trying to cross the Mediterranean.

"We cannot allow the Mediterranean to become a vast cemetery," he said.

"The absence of mutual support within the European Union runs the risk of encouraging... solutions which fail to take into account the human dignity of immigrants, and thus contribute to slave labour and continuing social tensions."

The treatment of migrants was a subject he also touched on during a second speech at the Council of Europe, Europe's main human rights body.

His remarks came as the Greek authorities said they were trying to rescue a cargo ship, believed to be carrying some 500 migrants, that was adrift off the eastern Mediterranean island of Crete.

Grandmother

The Pope also used his visit to Strasbourg to call for the creation of jobs and better conditions for workers.

At the European Parliament, he spoke of a need to reinvigorate Europe, describing the continent as a "grandmother, no longer fertile and vibrant" and saying it risked "slowly losing its own soul".

"The great ideas which once inspired Europe seem to have lost their attraction, only to be replaced by the bureaucratic technicalities of its institutions," he said.

Pope Francis left his Popemobile behind on Tuesday, instead opting for a French-made Peugeot 407 family car.

Residents in Strasbourg were told they could watch both the pontiff's speeches on a giant screen installed inside the cathedral, which is celebrating its millennial anniversary.

One worshipper told Reuters: "I think there is disappointment but I think he also has reasons for making his decision.

"He knows what he is doing but we would have liked him to be here."

It was the second time a Pope has visited Strasbourg.

In 1988 Pope John Paul II visited the city and addressed the European Parliament, where he was heckled by Northern Irish MEP the Rev Ian Paisley.

During his speech the late Pope called Europe "a beacon of civilisation".

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Taken from: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30180667

These same northern European bishops and theologians have presided over the collapse of western European Catholicism.

George Weigel

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According to Vatican-speak, a specially scheduled session of the Synod of Bishops is an “Extraordinary Synod,” meaning Not-an-Ordinary Synod, held every three years or so. In the case of the recently-completed Extraordinary Synod of 2014, extraordinary things did happen, in the “Oh, wow!” sense of the word. And if this year’s Extraordinary Synod was a preview of the Synod for which it was to set the agenda, i.e., the Ordinary Synod of 2015, that Synod, too, promises to be, well, extraordinary.

How was the Extraordinary Synod of 2014 extraordinary? With apologies to the Bard, let me count the ways:

1. The 2014 Synod got an extraordinary amount of press attention. Alas, too much of that attention was due to the mass media misperception that The Great Moment of the Long-Awaited Catholic Cave-In was at hand: the moment when the Catholic Church, the last major institutional hold-out against the triumph of the sexual revolution, would finally admit the error of its ways and join the rush into the promised land of sexual liberation, symbolized in this instance by a Catholic cave-in on the nature of marriage. What ought to have gotten the world’s attention—the witness of African bishops to the liberating power of monogamy and lifelong marital fidelity—got sadly short shrift, though Third World women are the principal beneficiaries of the truth about marriage the Church received from its Lord.

2. The 2014 Synod demonstrated the extraordinary self-confidence of bishops from dying local churches who nonetheless feel quite comfortable giving pastoral advice to local churches that are either thriving or holding their own. Many northern European bishops and theologians (and bishop-theologians) acted as if the blissful years when they set the agenda for the world Church at Vatican II had returned. That these same bishops and theologians and bishop-theologians have presided over the collapse of western European Catholicism in the intervening five decades seemed not to matter to them in the slightest. Happy days were here again.

3. The 2014 Synod was extraordinary, or at least the media claimed it was, for an unprecedented public display of discord among cardinals. Perhaps those who found this either unprecedented or unseemly could consult Galatians 2:11, where Paul reports that he “rebuked” Peter “to his face.” Or ponder the fierce arguments among North African bishops during the Donatist controversy. Or look into the quarrel between Bishop Cyprian of Carthage, a doctor of the Church, and Pope Stephen, Bishop of Rome. Or read the debates at the first session of Vatican II. The 2014 controversies were indeed noteworthy, in that otherwise intelligent men whose position had been pretty well demolished by fellow scholars were incapable of admitting that they’d gotten it wrong. But upon further review (as they say in the NFL), that isn’t so new either.

4. The 2014 Synod was extraordinary in that a lot of theological confusion was displayed by elders of the Church who really ought to know better. The idea of the development of doctrine was especially ill-used by some. Of course the Church’s self-understanding develops over time, as does the Church’s pastoral practice. But as Blessed John Henry Newman showed in the classic modern discussion of the subject, all authentic development is in organic continuity with the past; it’s not a rupture with the past. Nor is there any place in a truly Catholic theory of doctrinal development for rewriting the words of the Lord or describing fidelity to the plain text of Scripture as “fundamentalism.”

5. The 2014 Synod was extraordinary in its demonstration that too many bishops and theologians (and bishop-theologians) still have not grasped the Iron Law of Christianity in Modernity: Christian communities that maintain a firm grasp on their doctrinal and moral boundaries can flourish amidst the cultural acids of modernity; Christian communities whose doctrinal and moral boundaries become porous (and then invisible) wither and die.

6. One more thing: why were no representatives of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute on Marriage and the Family invited to a Synod on the family?

Extraordinary, indeed: in both Vatican-speak and plain English.

George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

More on: Synod on the Family

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Taken from: http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/10/an-extraordinary-synod-indeed

"... the first pope from the Western Hemisphere is throwing open the gates of Vatican City and letting the world in".



by Kate O'Hare25 Aug 2014

Catholics are often told to be in the world but not of the world, meaning that while they carry on ordinary lives, they should never forget their faith and what it demands of them.

 

In a similar way, Pope Francis seems to be urging the Vatican to be in Italy (or at least, entirely surrounded by it) but not of Italy. While geography and history have led to a dominance of Italians within the Vatican bureaucracy, both among clerics and laity, the Catholic Church is a worldwide institution, and the first pope from the Western Hemisphere is throwing open the gates of Vatican City and letting the world in.

On Aug. 23, The Spectator published a long, thoughtful piece by British writer Damian Thompson, who discusses his belief that the Roman Curia – the administrative framework of the Holy See, through which the pope conducts the Church's business, both spiritual and temporal – thwarted and ultimately derailed the papacy of Francis' predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

It's Thompson's assertion that, behind Francis' quick rise to popularity as a faith leader, moral force, and folk hero, his real business, the reason the cardinals elected this Argentinian outsider, was to clean up the Vatican, mired in cronyism and corruption and hamstrung by scandal.

While Thompson notes that Francis shares a strong, orthodox Catholic faith and a love of classical music with Benedict, he writes, "But there is one big difference. To quote a senior bishop, 'Benedict allowed the Roman Curia, and specifically the Italians in it, to kill his pontificate. Francis will not permit that to happen.' He will strike first."

He also points out, "As superior of the Argentine Jesuits, Bergoglio expected instant obedience."

Although their luster has considerably dimmed in recent years – ironically, because too often Jesuits, especially those in education, have become too much of the world and not enough of the Church – the Society of Jesus once had a reputation as a producer of fearless missionaries, explorers, and martyrs.

During Francis's recent trip to South Korea, it was pointed out that the first Catholic texts that led to the conversion of many Koreans came from Jesuit missionaries in China.

As Thompson writes, "The decline of the Jesuits is one of the biggest disasters to have hit the Church in recent decades, emptying countries of their brightest missionaries and leaving schools and parishes in the hands of jobsworths. Pope after pope has tried to reverse it, but perhaps only a Jesuit pontiff can force the order to start training its priests properly again."

At 77, Francis comes from the pre-Baby Boomer Jesuit tradition of muscular Catholicism (which seems to be making a comeback among younger Jesuits), so he's taking a no-nonsense approach to his reforms, starting with the dodgy goings-on at the Institute for Religious Works, popularly known as the Vatican Bank. In recent decades, it's been somewhat less of a bank and more of a sieve, with money disappearing into pet projects and cronies' pockets.

As quoted in July in The New York Times, Australian Cardinal George Pell, Francis' new prefect for economic affairs, said, "Our ambition is to become something of a model in financial management rather than a cause for occasional scandal."

Speaking to Catholic News Service (CNS) earlier this month, Pell said, "If we are going to help the poor, we need to have the wherewithal, and the better we manage our finances, the more good works we can do. I remember Margaret Thatcher's comment, that the Good Samaritan, if he hadn't been a little bit of a capitalist, had his own store of money, he couldn't have helped. We can do more if we generate more."

While much of the Vatican's wealth is tied up in historic architecture and works of art, world treasures which are open to all visitors, making sure there's a steady cash flow can ensure that when help is urgently needed it can be quickly delivered.

As an example of this, Cardinal Fernando Filoni, the pope's personal envoy to Iraq, announced that Francis had made a $1 million donation to help Iraqi Christians and other persecuted and displaced minorities.

Speaking to Catholic News Agency, Filoni said that, when he traveled to Iraq earlier this month, he carried one tenth of the total sum and that "75 percent of the money was delivered to Catholics, and the remaining 25 percent to the Yazidi community."

Francis has also been intent on decentralizing power from the Vatican bureaucracy and returning it to local bishops, which is in line with the original intent for the Church's structure. So even as he wields his papal authority to correct what he sees as problems, Francis has called for synods of bishops, including one on the marriage and the family set for October, for which he's sought information on issues from the parish level. He's also created councils of cardinals from around the world and commissions of lay people to debate issues and advise him.

As the successor of St. Peter, the Bishop of Rome has the final say in many things, but individual bishops and cardinals have rights and powers of their own as fellow successors of the apostles.

As Pell explained to CNS, "We're a very flat organization. The individual bishops respond to the pope, and I fully understand this, and I want to maintain this authority and independence. I think it's more congenial to, you might say [encourage] the flowering of the prophetic spirit, rather than having individuals smothered regularly by national or continental conferences."

He continued, "We don't want big Roman bureaucracies, apart from the fact that we couldn't pay for them. But I think, as a matter of principle, practical authority should be exercised by bishops."

Francis has a Herculean task ahead of him, and, as he joked with reporters on the plane returning from Korea, "I know this will last a short time, two or three years, and then to the house of the Father."

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio may have been elected pope to change the Vatican and not the world, but if this spectacularly popular figure can play his cards right in the next "two or three years," Pope Francis just may be able to do both.

Below, see Thompson and others discussing "The Pope vs. the Vatican":

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Taken from: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/08/25/Is-Pope-Francis-at-War-with-the-Vatican-Itself