Vatican City, Feb 26, 2017 / 11:31 am (CNA/EWTN News).- During his Sunday visit to Rome’s Anglican parish of All Saints, Pope Francis voiced gratitude for the good relations Catholics and Anglicans now enjoy, and said that on the path toward full communion, humility has to be the point of departure.
“(Humility) is not only a beautiful virtue, but a question of identity,” the Pope said in his Feb. 26 visit to the Anglican parish of All Saints.
He noted that in evangelizing the Christians in Corinth, St. Paul had to “grapple” with the fact that relations with the community weren’t always good. But when faced the question of how to carry out the task despite ongoing tensions, “where does he begin? With humility.”
“Paul sees himself as a servant, proclaiming not himself but Christ Jesus the Lord. And he carries out this service, this ministry according to the mercy shown him,” he said, adding that this ministry is done “not on the basis of his ability, nor by relying on his own strength, but by trusting that God is watching over him and sustaining his weakness with mercy.”
To become humble, he said, “means drawing attention away from oneself, recognizing one’s dependence on God as a beggar of mercy: this is the starting point so that God may work in us.”
Francis then quoted a former president of the World Council of Churches, who described Christian evangelization as “a beggar telling another beggar where he can find bread.”
“I believe Saint Paul would approve,” he said, because “he grasped the fact that he was fed by mercy and that his priority was to share his bread with others: the joy of being loved by the Lord, and of loving him.”
Pope Francis spoke to a crowd of both Catholic and Anglican faithful during his Feb. 26 visit to the Anglican church of All Saints, which marked the first time a Roman Pontiff has set foot in an Anglican parish inside his own diocese of Rome.
This visit coincided with the 200th anniversary of the foundation of the Anglican parish community in the heart of the Eternal City, and consisted of a short choral Evensong service, during which the Pope blessed and dedicated an icon of “St. Savior” commissioned for the occasion.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Jesus, <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/PopeFrancis?src=hash”>#PopeFrancis</a> said, seems to ask "Are you ready to leave evrythng frm your past for me? Do you want to make my love known, my mercy?" <a href=”https://t.co/lNAG2NmIZB”>pic.twitter.com/lNAG2NmIZB</a></p>— Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) <a href=”https://twitter.com/cnalive/status/835873589844914176″>February 26, 2017</a></blockquote>
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During the ceremony, the symbolic “twinning” of All Saints Anglican Church with the Catholic parish of “Ognissanti” – the only Catholic parish in Rome dedicated to All Saints – also took place, forming strong ecumenical ties between the two.
Ognissanti is the parish where Bl. Paul VI, on March 7, 1965, celebrated the first Mass in Italian following the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
After his arrival, Pope Francis was greeted by the church’s pastor, Rev. Johnathan Boardman, and Rev. Robert Innes, Bishop of the Church of England Diocese in Europe.
In his greeting, Innes thanked Pope Francis for his “global leadership, and for the particular inspiration you have been to those of us in the Anglican Communion,” particularly when it comes to the issues of the poor, migrants, refugees, and human trafficking.
“Within Europe and our diocese, you have challenged members of the European Union to rediscover their Christian heritage and values. Your published work speaks far beyond Rome in addressing difficult ethical issues that face us all,” he said.
Innes voiced his hope and prayer that the Pope’s visit would be “one more small step in further strengthening the unity between our churches and in celebrating the deep bonds of Anglican Roman Catholic friendship that we already enjoy.”
After singing Evensong, Pope Francis gave a homily, during which he noted that “a great deal has changed” both in Rome and in the world since the parish’s founding 200 years ago.
“In the course of these two centuries, much has also changed between Anglicans and Catholics,” he said, noting that while in the past the Churches viewed each other “with suspicion and hostility,” today we recognize one another as we truly are: brothers and sisters in Christ, through our common baptism.”
Francis pointed to the icon he blessed, noting that when looking at it, Jesus “to call out to us, to make an appeal to us: ‘Are you ready to leave everything from your past for me? Do you want to make my love known, my mercy?’”
“His gaze of divine mercy is the source of the whole Christian ministry,” the Pope said, and turned to the ministry of St. Paul, particularly in the community of Corinth.
As the Apostle’s letters show, he “did not always have an easy relationship” with the community in Corinth, the Pope said, noting that at one point there was even “a painful visit” during which “heated words” were exchanged in writing.
But by living his ministry in light of the mercy that he’s received, St. Paul “does not give up in the face of divisions, but devotes himself to reconciliation,” Francis observed, explaining that Christians of different confessions must have the same attitude.
“When we, the community of baptized Christians, find ourselves confronted with disagreements and turn towards the merciful face of Christ to overcome it, it is reassuring to know that we are doing as Saint Paul did in one of the very first Christian communities,” he said.
The Pope then noted how at perhaps the most difficult moment St. Paul had with the community in Corinth, the Apostle cancelled a trip he was planning to make, and renounced the gifts he would have received.
However, while there were certainly tensions in their relationship, “these did not have the final word,” Francis said, explaining that the two communities eventually reconciled and the Christians in Corinth eventually helped St. Paul in his ministry to the poor and needy.
“Solid communion grows and is built up when people work together for those in need,” he said, adding that “through a united witness to charity, the merciful face of Jesus is made visible in our city.”
Pope Francis then voiced his gratitude that after “centuries of mutual mistrust,” Catholics and Anglicans can now “recognize that the fruitful grace of Christ is at work also in others.”
“We thank the Lord that among Christians the desire has grown for greater closeness, which is manifested in our praying together and in our common witness to the Gospel, above all in our various forms of service,” he said.
Although the path to full communion can at times seem “slow and uncertain,” the Pope said the two communities ought to be encouraged by his visit to the Anglican parish and the joint prayer.
The visit, he said, “is a grace and also a responsibility: the responsibility of strengthening our ties, to the praise of Christ, in service of the Gospel and of this city.”
Francis closed his homily encouraging both Catholics and Anglicans to work together “to become ever more faithful disciples of Jesus, always more liberated from our respective prejudices from the past and ever more desirous to pray for and with others.”
After his homily, Pope Francis took three questions from the congregation on the state of Catholic-Anglican relations today, his approach to relations versus that of his direct predecessor Benedict XVI and what Catholics and Anglicans can learn from the “creativity” of Churches in the global south, specifically Africa and Asia.
In his answer to the first question, the Pope noted that despite a turbulent past, relations between Catholics and Anglicans today “are good. We see each other as brothers.” He added that monasteries and the communion of Saints are two particular “strengths” the Churches have in common.
He also stressed the importance of not taking certain moments of history out of context and using them as ammo to damage current relations, saying “a historic fact must be read in the hermeneutic of that moment, not in another hermeneutic.”
In the second question it was asked if Pope Francis, by emphasizing a strategy of “walking and working” together toward unity was perhaps the opposite of Benedict XVI, who at one point warned that collaboration in social action shouldn’t take priority over theological matters.
Francis responded to the question with a joke told to him by Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, that while the different Churches work together on other things, the theologians “can go to an island” and have their discussions there.
Theological questions are important, he said, noting that there are “many things in which we still don’t agree.”
But having this discussion “can’t be done in a laboratory, it has to be done walking,” he said, explaining that “we are on a journey.”
It’s important to have these theological discussions, “but in the meantime we help each other” though acts of charity such as serving the poor, migrants and refugees, he said, adding that “you can’t have ecumenical dialogue that is stopped…you have to do it walking.”
When responding to the third question, Pope Francis noted that “young Churches” in Africa and Asia do have “a different vitality because they are different and they look for ways to express themselves differently.”
However, the “older Churches” in European countries, also have their own benefits, he said, noting that they have had time to “mature” and deepen in many things, including theological and ecumenical questions.
The Pope acknowledged that young Churches “have more creativity,” just as the European Church did when it began, and said there is “a strong need” for the two – old and young – to collaborate together.
As an example, he revealed that he is considering a trip to South Sudan sometime this year, and explained that the idea came from a recent visit the heads of three major Christian churches in the country to Rome.
In October Archbishop Paulino Luduku Loro of the Catholic Archdiocese of Juba traveled to Rome alongside ev. Daniel Deng Bul Yak, Archbishop of the Province of the Episcopal Church of South Sudan and Sudan, and Rev. Peter Gai Lual Marrow, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of South Sudan, to explain the dire situation of their country, and their joint collaboration in working to quell the effects of the crisis.
Pope Francis noted that during his Oct. 27, 2016, meeting with the three, they invited him to come, but told him “don’t do it alone,” and requested that he make the trip alongside the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, Primate of the Anglican Communion.
He said the trip hasn’t been confirmed since situation on the ground is so risky, but assured that it’s “being studied,” because each of the Churches there “have the will to work for peace” together.
The Pope ended his answer to the question with the suggestion that, given the benefits of both the “old” and “young” Churches throughout the world, there be an exchange set up where priests from Europe travel to the “younger Churches” for a pastoral experience, rather than it always being the other way around.
“It would do us well,” he said, “You learn a lot.”
[…]
Point A. Benedict XVI was opposed by the homosexual cult organization of Danneels-Martini, self-called the Sanct Gallen Mafia, because he deposed and defrocked some 400 sex abusing priests, and dozens of Bishops for sex abuse snd or coverup; 80% or more of the cases we know were homosexual predators of teen boys.
B. When the sex abuse coverup Cardinals we’re fanning the flames when B16 abdicated, the coverup Cardinals obviously hatched a buzz-subversion-phrase not-so-curiously repeated in pulpits by homosexual promoting priests (as I heard in Spring Lake NJ), and obviously repeated by such from pulpits in some parishes in Maryland (when I heard Catholics there use the very same phrase). The exact words were this: He can’t handle the sex abuse crisis.
C. In 2010 the Catholic world learned that Cardinal Danneels was forced to retire in disgrace after being exposed in the Belgian Press (De Staandard and other papers) in Aug 2010 for denying justice to the Vanguelwhe family, who were reporting that their own uncle Bishop Roger Vanguelwhe had taped his little nephew, their brother. Danneels tried to intervene to protect his friend Bishop Vanguelwhe, and suspecting Danneels of betrayal, the Vanguelwhe family tape recorded his intervention against them, where (get this) he specifically refused the family’s request to report their uncle Bishop Vanguelwhe to Pope Benedict, preposterously telling the family that it was not possible for him (the primate of Belgium) to get in contact with B16.
D. When the same homosexual Sanct Gallen mafiosi Danneels published his biography, he bragged about getting Cardinal Bergoglio elected to the papacy, and reminded audiences that he and his mafiosi tried to do the same in 2005, but failed on the first try.
E. And while Bergoglio was Archbishop of Buenos Aries and President of the Argentine Bishops Conference, he directed a multi-million dollar defense and victim smear campaign defending the notorious sex predator Rev. Julio Grassi, which is reported by more candid Catholic sources, including Damian Thompson of the Spectator (UK). Bergoglio even dared to try to intervene and influence judges on the Argentine Supreme Court, who repulsed him and sentenced Grassi to 15 years in prison. This may explain why The Pontiff Bergoglio/Francis prefers not to return to Argentina, even though he managed to visit Chile when he was trying to protect Bishop Barros in the Osorno sex abuse case.
F. And when in 2013, after diligent years subverting B16, Danneels and his like-minded fiendish-sex abusers and coverup artists, including McCarrick and Mahoney of the US, managed to get Cardinal Bergoglio, the great Argentinian sex abuse coverup artist, elected as Pontiff, who was the man standing on the balcony with the new Pontiff Francis? You guessed it: sex abuse coverup Cardinal Danneels, resurrected by the Pontiff Francis, and rewarded for his electioneering by being placed on the guiding committee for “The Family Synod.” (That’s what “The Family” is really all about in the Buenos Aries Pontificate.)
And so now we hear from CNA reiterating this German Catholic Church establishments little smear attempt against B16, all narrative, and no facts, while at the same time not-so-curiously for nine long years having managed never to write an article about the Argentine Julio Grassi sex predator case, the biggest sex abuse case in Argentine history, involving then Cardinal Bergoglio defending Grassi.
Pardon me if, given the known behavior of the sitting Pontiff and his Cardinal electors and friends, that I perceive this whole article to be nothing other than a carefully calibrated way of the Church’s McCarrick-Danneels establishment damning B16 with faint praise, in order to pave the way for the German-Katholik-Sex-Revolution-Synod, while the Pontiff Francis grins, and pretends he is against it.
(I will be post links to articles and podcasts by Damian Thompson etc.)
I would suggest stepping back a bit and considering the impression these continual rants are making of you and how they reflect on your integrity and character. The common theme of your many posts is some issue related to McCarrick and the church’s response to clergy abuse, whether or not the posted article speaks to those topics.
It’s pretty clear that there is some unresolved personal issue going on here. If that is the case, it is not appropriate to use this forum as an outlet for your personal axe grinding. Personal issues should be addressed with professionals in the context of therapy, not in a comments section on a website.
What is the basis for the diagnosis of as clear “unresolved personal issue”? By what credential are we to judge an “appropriate…use [of] this forum as an outlet for …personal axe grinding”?
Could we not lay the same claim to many comments by many posters? Chris and you both usually have viewpoints from which others may profit.
The article IS about clerical sex abuse and Benedict’s handling of same. Chris’ comment relates to the OP. Germany’s secular report on clerical abuse was released this past week. The secular authorities implicated Benedict in mismanagement and cover-up of legitimate claims of abuse against clergy under his oversight. The comment is relevant, timely, of general interest, and fact-based.
Thank you Meiron, I appreciate what you wrote, mainly because I sense that candor and truth-telling are completely out of fashion in our “contemporary” Church.
I relay these horrible truths (which are very ugly) because I love Christ’s Church, and I am fighting, with ehat little means are in my power, for truthfulness and justice in our Church, and at this moment in history, I believe the Church is largely controlled by those Bishops and Cardinals who are Saduccees: they have no supernatural faith, they have contempt for the truth, contempt for law, and contempt for justice.
Here, here. I am in total agreement with you. Chris in Maryland (where I also happen to reside) brings up many valid points about the historical “sweeping under the rug” of the sexual abuse scandal and how many of those now in positions of power are at the root of that scandal. We have long since passed the point of “polite discussion” concerning this and several other related issue. In our secular “Heinz 57” gender society, those of us who believe God created man and woman, and nothing more, had better wake up and see that there is a dedicated war being waged against us, and the “enemy” is “inside the wire”. If you are still in “negotiation mode”, you are losing. The time to fight has arrived.
As a coda, wrt to the title, I might suggest an alternative:
“Who is Cardinal Filoni?”
Apparently, he is a card-carrying member of the Secretariat of State. Given the Secretariat of State’s history of covering up sex abuse cases, to the point where Cardinal Ratzinger finally persuaded Pope JP2 to take sex abuse investigations away from the Secretariat of State (under the then-corrupt head Cardinal Sodano, accused in print by Editor of First Things Jody Bottum), it is not serious for The Church faithful to be served a “defense” of B16 by a member of the organization that helped resurrect McCarrick (despite knowing that he had been confronted and discreetly ordered to cease his “activities” by B16, because of the allegations of abusing seminarians), and having McCarrick help the Secretariat of State complete its long-desired treacherous Secret China Accord, completed by the likewise corrupt Secretary of State Parolin.
I think Benedict was too discrete in dealing with McCarrick.
I agree with that.
An investigation should have been opened.
But frankly, given the adulation heaped on McCarrick before he was exposed by James Grein, I doubt that most Bishops or Cardinals or in fact laity would have supported B16 in putting McCarrick under investigation.
What are you, Chris – a sedevacantist or a sedeprivationist?
No, and no.
While I am neither, I do agree with Jesus that some people are on their way to the abyss, and I agree with Dante that some of them will be Popes, and I have the distinct impression that the sitting Pontiff, and many of his Cardinal electors and assorted sycophants in our contemporary Church, may be joining company with Alexander VI.
Papa Ben is a hero of the Faith. Any attack on him can only originate in someone’s envy or resentment or jealousy, perhaps from anti-German stereotypes, or from – I dare say it – Satan.
Agree.
Damian Thompson on Pontiff Francis corruption in 2018.
Damian Thompson in Sep 2018, on the repulsive sex coverup artist Danneels, and the legacy-media covering for the Pontiff Francis:
https://www.complicitclergy.com/2018/09/01/how-the-media-are-covering-up-for-pope-francis/
And we had the fanatical pro-fornication and pro-abort Cardinal Martini come and go in the modern history of the Church and his scandal hardly caused a stir of embarrassment let alone condemnation. If you’re a prelate with seniority, you apparently get a free pass even by the “good” prelates.
I’m a nobody and I am grateful to have this important and verified information made available. Thank You and God Bless You.
Thank you Bill…from one nobody to another.
The problem with BXVI was his unhealthy almost singular focus on doctrinal matters over pastoral concerns. This horrific imbalance resulted in deeper damage to the Church. A number of comments above mention the case of Ted McCarrick. Long known by Ratzinger to be a homosexual predator, Uncle Ted was never punished by Papa Ben. However, Ratzinger was quick to remove doctrinally challenged bishops, like for example, William Morris of Toowoomba, Australia.
To sum up. The sorry state of the Church is such, even our faithful and holy prelates do not have many they can trust to assist them in all matters necessary to carry out pastoral and doctrinal matters. JPII, for example, is often faulted for those he elevated to the episcopate when he essentially rubber stamped those, whom he did not know, that were presented to him.
Yes, what you say is very true. Remember Benedict saying that his authority stopped at his office door? His resignation in light of having few to trust is reasonable. Continually confronted by betrayals, immoralities, and brazen acts of disobedience (e.g., McCarrick’s exemplar), subjectively he must have mourned the objective fact of his inability to function. Our giving him the benefit of the doubt allows his resignation within
Benedict understanding of God’s Divine Will, and justifiably acting upon that understanding.
In this regard, BXVI’s resignation is forgivable. God does allow good to follow confusing and sorrowful events (e.g., Crucifixion followed by Resurrection). The faithful now have no excuse to deny or overlook sins of the fathers; such sins have been over-exposed to light, and we can no longer easily explain them away. Remember Benedict’s saying the boat was seriously listing and his saying that the church would become a remnant? We cannot deny that we’ve all been witness to that.
“never punished,” I mean, “not defrocked….”
I would argue that Benedict’s emphasis on sound doctrine and theology was not a “horrific imbalance” at all. It was a necessary and long-overdue course correction. A God-honoring life is built from the ground up, and its foundation is rooted in sound doctrine. Good theology produces God-honoring behavior, and theological distortions and ambiguities create the spiritual swamp that is the current state of affairs in the church. The fact that many “leaders” have drifted away from basic and essential Catholic teaching is the real horror here.
From Filoni we read: “In those years, the issue of pedophilia emerged with virulence in the Church. It was not known in the terms with which it has since gradually emerged. But it was always clear to me that Benedict XVI was willing to face it with determination.”
This assertion is thoroughly documented in Peter Seewald’s second volume: “Benedict XVI: A Life—Professor and Prefect to Pope and Pope Emeritus 1966-The Present”, 2021.
After setting the record straight, Seewald then supplies the media-suppressed Big Picture (pp. 226-228…):
-Abusing priests are 0.2 to 1.7 percent of total clerics, while the ratio is 2.0 to 3.0 for Protestant clergy (Philip Jenkins, and Evangelical press agency Christian Ministry Resources, 20020;
-In Germany in the past 15 years, out of 29,058 abusers, 30 had been employed by the Catholic Church (0.1 percent compared to 99.9 percent other, Lower Saxony Criminological Research Institute);
-Of 62,000 paedophile cases in the U.S. in 2008, 18 were priests (0.03 percent, U.S. Government report);
-UNICEF reports that in the early twenty-first century, 220 million children are forced into sex each year;
-Hundreds of thousands of non-celibate (!) men download child porn every year;
-In the U.S. 12,250 children have been sexually abused in the Boy Scouts of America [and yet, efforts to exclude homosexual leaders were repulsed by the courts];
-In the U.S. armed forces in the 2010s about 100,000 men and 13,000 women soldiers were victims of sexual attacks (U.S. ministry of defense [sic]; in Europe, six out of ten women were victims of sexism (according to the Brussels Foundation for European Progressive Studies);
-In Nov. 2017 a ‘sex pest list’ naming 40 Tory MPs was leaked, including secretaries of state and ministers. In the same month, in Sweden, “in answer to a phone call, on a single day 1,100 people reported sexual attacks in the country’s entertainment industry;”
-In Austria, 99.7 percent of all abusers are not church people (court-appointed expert Reinhard Haller).
And, to fix this historic, cultural and civilizational collapse, victimization and crime pandemic, we can be sure that, within the targeted Church, the poster-child Fr. James Martin will ensure that his tribe will be available at the synods in the United States, for example, to leave their mark on the synodal flip charts.
This, while the “facilitator” bishops sit on their hands as instructed in the Vademecum, possibly assuming naively that the later synodal “synthesis” reports (local, continental, and Vatican under the tutelage of Cardinal Hollerich) will set things straight, so to speak.
Now Peter I can better appreciate President of the Catholic League Bill Donohue’s frequent complaint that media focus on the Church is comparatively out of proportion.