Vatican City, 20 May 2014 (VIS) –
Yesterday afternoon Pope Francis inaugurated the 66th assembly of
Italian bishops, in which they will discuss proposals to amend the
Statute and Regulation of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), as
well as the “Guide to proclamation and catechesis in Italy”. They
will also consider the theme “Christian education and missionarity
in the light of the Apostolic exhortation 'Evangelii gaudium'”. It
is the first time that a pontiff has presided at an assembly of the
CEI.
Francis structured his discourse in
three points, directing it at pastors of a Church that is the
community of the Resurrected, that is the body of the Lord, and that
anticipates and promises the Kingdom. He began by telling the
bishops: “The people look to us. They look to us for help in
grasping the singularity of their daily lives in God's providential
plan”; and emphasised that “faith is the living memory of an
encounter nurtured by the fire of the Word that shapes the ministry
and anoints the people. … Without constant prayer, the Pastor is
exposed to the danger of being ashamed of the Gospel, and ends up
defusing the scandal of the Cross in worldly 'wisdom'”.
“The temptations, which aim to
obscure the primacy of God and His Christ, are legion in the life of
the Pastor: they range from lukewarmness, which leads to mediocrity …
which dodges renunciation and sacrifice; then there is the temptation
to haste in pastoral ministry, along with that sloth that leads to
intolerance, almost as if everything were a burden. … There is a
temptation to grow accustomed to sadness, cancelling out every
expectation and creativity, leaving us unsatisfied and therefore
incapable of entering into the lives of our people and understanding
them in the light of Easter morning”.
To combat these temptations, the Pope
urges the Italian bishops never to cease to seek the Lord, because
“He is the principle and foundation that envelops our weaknesses
with mercy, transforming and renewing everything; we are called to
offer He Who is most precious to our people, so as not to leave them
at the mercy of a society of indifference, indeed desperation. … If
we want to follow him, there is no other path. Following it with Him,
we discover that we are a people, to the point of recognising with
wonder and gratitude that all is grace, even the difficulties and
contradictions of human life, if these are lived with a heart open to
the Lord”.
Proceeding to speak of pastors of the
Church as the body of the Lord, he remarked that the Church is the
“other grace for which we must feel profoundly indebted. … Unity
is a gift and responsibility, and its sacrament shapes our mission. …
The lack of communion is the greatest scandal”, and “as Pastors,
we must seek refuge from temptations that otherwise disfigure us; …
the hardness of he who judges without being involved, and the laxity
of those who acquiesce without taking responsibility for the other. …
the ambition that generates 'currents', sectarianism … and then,
the tendency to seek the lost security of the past, and the claims of
those who wish to defend unity by denying diversity, thus humiliating
the gifts with which God continues to keep His Church young and
beautiful”.
“In relation to these temptations,
ecclesial experience is the most effective antidote. It emanates from
the sole Eucharist, whose cohesive strength generates fraternity, the
ability to accept, forgive and walk together”. The Holy Father
urged the bishops to love people and communities with generous and
total dedication” and to trust that “the holy people of God has
the pulse to find the right roads. Accompany with breadth the growth
of lay coresponsibility. ... With their insight and help, you will be
able to avoid remaining attached to a pastoral of conversation –
indeed, generic, dispersed, fragmented and of limited influence –
and will instead adopt a form of pastoral care that focuses on the
essential”.
In relation to the third point,
“Pastors of a Church that anticipates and promises the Kingdom”,
he commented that “serving the Kingdom means living a life
decentred from oneself, striving for the encounter that is the path
for truly rediscovering what we are: proclaimers of the truth of
Christ and His mercy. ... With this clarity, brothers, may your
proclamation be cadenced by the eloquence of gestures. ... And, among
the 'places' in which your presence seems to me to be most necessary
and meaningful ... there is, first and foremost, the family.
Nowadays, the domestic community is strongly penalised by a culture
that privileges individual rights and transmits a logic of the
temporary. Promote the life of the unborn child as well as that of
the elderly. ... And do not forget to tend, with the compassion of
the Samaritan, to those who are emotionally wounded and whose plans
for life are compromised”.
Another space that the bishops must not
desert is the “waiting room crowded with the unemployed ... where
the drama of those who do not know how to bring bread home to the
table encounters that of those who are not able to keep their
businesses afloat. It is an historic emergency, that appeals to the
social responsibility of all: as Church, let us not give in to
catastrophism and resignation, instead supporting with every form of
creative solidarity the efforts of those who, without work, feel
deprived even of their dignity. ... Finally, there is the welcoming
embrace to migrants: they flee intolerance, persecution, a bleak
future. May no-one turn their gaze away! ... And, more generally, in
the difficult situations that so many of our contemporaries, may they
find you attentive and participatory, ready to re-examine the current
model of development that exploits creation, sacrifices people at the
altar of profit and creates new forms of marginalisation and
exclusion”.
“Reach out towards whoever asks to
reason for the hope that is in you; welcome their culture, offer them
respectfully the memory of faith and the company of the Church, the
signs of brotherhood, gratitude and solidarity, that anticipate in
man's days the reflections of a Sunday without end”.