Vatican City, Nov 15, 2018 / 04:13 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis encouraged the community of the Pontifical Latin American College Thursday to avoid cultural fragmentation and to be close to their people.
“One of the phenomena currently afflicting the continent is cultural fragmentation, the polarization of the social fabric and the loss of roots,” the pope said Nov. 15 in the Clementine Hall of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace.
“This is exacerbated when arguments are fomented that divide and propagate different types of confrontations and hatred towards those who ‘are not one of us’, even importing cultural models that have little or nothing to do with our history and identity and that, far from combining in new syntheses as in the past, end up uprooting our cultures from their richest autochthonous traditions.
He spoke to the community to mark the 160th anniversary of the college’s founding. He noted that it “is one of the few Roman Colleges whose identity does not refer to a nation or a charism, but which seeks rather to be the meeting place, in Rome, of our Latin American land … offering you, young priests, the opportunity to create a vision, a reflection and an experience of communion that is expressly ‘Latin Americanized’.”
Francis lamented that new generations are “uprooted and fragmented”, and said that “the Church is not external to this situation and is exposed to this temptation; since she is subject to the same environment, she runs the risk of becoming disoriented by falling prey to one form of polarization or another, or becoming uprooted if one forgets that the vocation is a meeting ground.”
He added that “the invasion of ideological colonization is also suffered in the Church.”
Because of this, he said it is important at the college “to create bonds and alliances of friendship and fraternity. And not because of a declaration of principles or gestures of goodwill, but because during these years you can learn to know better and make your own the joys and hopes, sorrows and anguish of your brothers; you can name and face specific situations that our people live, and face and feel your neighbour’s problems as if they were your own.”
The Pontifical Latin American College should help create a good priestly community “if one knows how to help oneself, if one is able to lay down roots in the lives of others, brothers and sons with a common history and heritage, part of a same presbytery and the same Latin American people. A priestly community that discovers that the greatest strength it has to build history is born of the concrete solidarity among you today, and will continue tomorrow between your churches and peoples to be able to transcend the merely ‘parochial’ and to lead communities that know how to open up to others to interact and to promote hope.”
Latin America needs, he said, “artisans of relationship and communion, open and trusting in the novelty that the Kingdom of God can inspire today … A priest in his parish, in his diocese, can do a lot – and this is fine – but he also runs the risk of burning himself out, of isolating himself or harvesting for himself. Feeling part of a priestly community, in which everyone is important – not because it is the sum of people living together, but because of the relationships they create, this feeling part of the community – can awaken and encourage processes and dynamics capable of transcending time.”
“This sense of belonging and recognition will help to creatively unleash and stimulate renewed missionary energies that promote an evangelical humanism capable of becoming intelligence and a driving force in our continent,” Pope Francis said.
“Without this sense of belonging and work hand in hand, on the contrary, we will disperse, we will weaken and, worse still, we will deprive so many of our brothers of the strength, the light and the consolation of friendship with Jesus Christ and of a community of faith that gives a horizon of meaning and life. And so, little by little, and almost without realizing it, we will end up offering Latin America … a God without Christ, a Christ without a Church, a Church without a people … pure re-elaborated Gnosticism.”
He said Latin America knows that “the love for Christ and of Christ can not manifest itself except in passion for life and for the destiny of our peoples, and especially solidarity with the poorest, the suffering and those in need.”
The pope said this “reminds us of the importance … of developing the pleasure of always being close to the life of our people; never isolating ourselves from them. The life of the diocesan presbyter is lived – the repetition is valid – in this identification and belonging. The mission is passion for Jesus, but at the same time, it is passion for His people. It is learning to look where He looks and to let ourselves be moved by the same things He is moved by: feelings for the life of His brothers, especially sinners and of all those who are despondent and fatigued, like sheep without a shepherd. Please, do not huddle in personal or community enclosures that keep us away from the hubs where history is written. Captivated by Jesus and members of His Body, we integrate fully into society, share life with everyone, listen to their concerns … rejoice with those who are happy, mourn with those who mourn and offer every Eucharist for all those faces that were entrusted to us.”
Francis said the linking of the college’s anniversary with the canonization of St. Oscar Romero, a sometime student, is providential, calling him a “living sign of the fruitfulness and sanctity of the Latin American Church. A man rooted in the Word of God and in the hearts of his people.”
“This reality allows us to make contact with that long chain of witnesses in which we are invited to place our roots and take inspiration from every day … Do not fear holiness, and do not fear spending your life for your people.”
“On the path of cultural and pastoral miscegenation we are not orphans; Our Mother accompanies us,” Pope Francis stated. “She wanted to be like that, mestizo and fertile, and that is how she is with us, our Mother of tenderness and strength who rescues us from the paralysis or confusion of fear, just because she is simply there, as our Mother.”
“Brother priests, let us not forget, and confidently ask her to show us the way, to free us from the perversion of clericalism, increasingly to make us ‘village pastors’ and not to let us become ‘clerics of the state’.”
He concluded with a message for his brother Jesuits who help run the college, saying that “one of the distinctive notes of the Society’s charism is seeking to harmonize contradictions without falling prey to reductionism. This is why Saint Ignatius wanted to think of the Jesuits as men of contemplation and action, men of discernment and obedience, committed to daily life and free to leave.”
The Jesuits at the college should help the young priests “to harmonize the contradictions that life presents to them and present them without falling into reductionism, gaining in the spirit of discernment and freedom,” he said.
“Teach how to embrace problems and conflicts without fear; to handle dissent and confrontation. Teach how to reveal all kinds of ‘correct’ but reductionist discourse is a crucial task for those who accompany their brothers in formation. Help them to discover the art and taste of discernment as a way of proceeding to find, in the midst of difficulties, the ways of the Spirit by tasting and feeling the Deus semper maior within. Be teachers of broad horizons and, at the same time, teach how to take charge of the small, to embrace the poor and the sick, and to take on the reality of everyday life. Non coereceri a maximo, contineri tamen a minimo divinum est.”
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With the lead-in picture of the ring hand, reminds me of the “diamonds are forever” jingle; often seems more of a fantasy with earthly marriages.
“We cannot reduce a human situation to a prescriptive one” [Francis] translates the Roman Pontiff does not want the Church to be constricted by [to adhere to] doctrine. Whether Benedict XVI expressed an opinion [neither is an opinion a proscription] that a given number of marriages are invalid due to lack of faith that cannot be made an assumption that every divorced and remarried outside the Church falls into that category. If we accept that assumption on invalidity [Benedict’s alleged opinion] as a standard for judgment then that doubt must be presumed for all.
Pope Francis immediately after publication of Amoris Laetitia announced that most presumed sacramental marriages are invalid. Then walked it back following the expected uproar. That has been his gradual process of seeking to modify doctrine. Timing is essential.
A person unless retarded knows what an affirmation is [when exchanging vows]. If they don’t [due to lack of faith] they will likely remain as oblivious even if after a similar process of instruction they’re conferred the Holy Eucharist. Based on these premises this new document on divorced and remarried may well be footnote 351 on steroids.
Card Kevin Farrell, McCarrick associate when assigned to DC is one of the fast rising stars selected by His Holiness to complete the large tent Church renovation. Numbers versus quality, secular religiosity versus adherence to revelation. Unless I’m wrong and happily surprised.
“…without an annulment.” The easy-annulment mentality of the last fifty years has in effect amounted to being a Church endorsement for divorce. Oh, but annulments are NOT Catholic divorce, said Bishop James Conley in the Denver Catholic newspaper a decade ago or so. Sorry, bishop. they really are, in every way but officially. And every time the Church grants an annulment, it guarantees that there will be many more — the annulment mentality is part of the Church now. Thank you, New Springtime of Vatican II.
Yes!
This document like so many others emanating from this pontificate are DOA.
Excerpt: Pope Francis said. “When young people say ‘forever,’ who knows what they mean [by] ‘forever.’”
It is not just YOUNG people. My new wife and her maniacal first husband were divorced since she could no longer deal with his bipolar disorder. He died before I met Gail. I am a widower who lost my first wife at age 42. For 13 years I was single and alone. Then I met Gail and after a year we decided to get married. We were deeply in love and planned a lifetime together. That was when we experienced the harshness Catholic Church. Our parish priest would not marry us because Gail was divorced without an annulment. The fact that her first husband was now dead meant little. Across from St. Josephs was the Old Dutch Church where my friend Rev Paul Bennis was rector. After several “pre-cana” sessions he married us. We returned to St. Josephs, but were not given the Host. We have settled in and look forward to a long life.
When people get married, they are no longer free to take another partner, in other words, they are “reserved”. When Gail’s husband died, she was no longer “reserved”, and was free to marry for a second man. As for her civil divorce, I don’t know if she incurred any censure or canonical penalty. The remedy would have been a good confession with a knowledgeable priest. How could her parish priest refuse to marry her to a single man, and then refuse her Communion? As recounted by morganD, it seems altogether a bad decision. Another question: where was her bishop?
Marriage ends at death. It is unbelievable that a priest would claim a woman is not free to marry after for the sole reason that she is already married to a dead man.
“Practice continence within their marriage”??? Really?? Excuse me while i roll on the floor laughing. Who on earth does that?? There are a few anecdotal stories of some saintly couples in the long past supposedly doing that. But certainly that is beyond rare. Expect the report to approve of more secular practices for the divorced and remarried. To be kind and merciful of course, which appears to now trump standards if amy kind. And if the Pope assumes most catholic marriages are invalid, dispense with marriage as a sacrament and call in a govt justice of the peace. People are not improved when LESS is expected of them. Is the request for this report the popes way of distracting attention from the results of the recent German synod??? I think the tesults of this report will be sadly predictable.
Marriage is about the procreation and education of children for heaven. But in 1969, Rotal Judge Lucian Anne (accent over the “e”) proclaimed that from then on it was about much more as in a partnership of the whole of life.
But there is no list of how this partnership is defined. Couples can violate it in ignorance; only tribunal judges know how to find evidence that invalidates their marriage under, almost always, canon 1095.2 and 1095.3.
American diocesan marriage tribunals are corrupt. Ask those children who cried themselves to sleep for years, only wanting Mom and Dad back together. And the ” church” let them down again and again.
Using marriage as an indicator of anything relevant to the Church is useless. Casual sex, cohabiting, exploitation of children are rampant, and the wedding ceremony itself is given far more effort than the actual marriage. The truth is that the only one who can police Communion is Christ Himself.
I look forward to the day the Church implements our existing canon law and doctrine about those “having a failed marriage behind them.” The Church, not the government, has competence to decide spouses’ obligations toward each other and their children. No-fault divorce is virtually illegal for Catholics who are bound to follow canon law. For every so-called failed marriage there is one person (or two) who chose to break marriage promises by abandonment, abuse, or adultery. See my blog https://marysadvocates.org/please-stop-saying-those-who-experience-divorce/
Thank you for that post. My wife walked out of our marriage with no effort, no care, no apology, no remorse. She had committed adultery for several years and left for the other man. I would have done anything to save my marriage and took my vows seriously. She did not. Now I suffer as do my adult children.
70 testimonies of adult children of divorce is a must read in Primal Loss by Leila Miller for all clergy and lay Catholic counselors
I have so many questions about this. I was Catholic for almost 20 years, a convert as an adult. My first marriage was not in the church and he was abusive. My priest basically told me to leave him or I might die and he didn’t want to preach my funeral mass. I did, and we divorced. I got married again, once again not in the Church and we were married for 10 years. I had left the Church due to the marriage thing. After the 10 years, he announced he never loved me and he was in love with another woman and basically threw me out. I moved 800 miles away to my sister’s and went to the local church to talk about this and what to do about coming back. That priest told me to go home, throw her out, and tell my husband he had to stay with me. Uh, not happening, and I walked away from the church again.
A year and a half later I met a man who was perfect for me. We were in a whirlwind romance and after doing a handfasting with friends, got the JP ceremony. That was 30 years ago and we’re happier than we’ve ever been. He was divorced too, just getting over it. We worked through the baggage from our pasts and we have grown into a really comfortable, loving marriage.
Now I’m feeling the call to go home to the Church. I keep reading I have to get annulments, I have to live like “brother and sister” with my beloved husband while that’s going on. My first husband is dead, I’ve not had contact with the other one in about six years (at a wedding for our daughter). I don’t know what to do about this whole thing. If I can’t have sacraments, why go back? I can pray at home, I can read on my own. I can watch mass online.
My husband wouldn’t be adverse to conversion, depending on how he finds things. He grew up Methodist, very active since he played piano for the church and his father was a deacon and a lay minister. He has said he will accompany me to mass if I wanted to go.
So, when the Church talks about having to annul a marriage, if you’ve never been married in the Church, is that still valid? I’m very convused.