Pope Francis spoke to a group of Argentine labor union leaders in Vatican City on Tuesday.
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Evangelii Gaudium
An Apostolic Exhortation
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By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
November 26, 2013 383 Comments
In his first nine months as leader of one billion Roman Catholics, Pope Francis has parceled out glimpses of his vision for remaking the church — in homilies and news conferences, interviews and offhand remarks to visitors.
"Pope Francis appears obsessed with the gospel message of comforting and nourishing the poor, the despondent, the incarcerated, and the oppressed. Long live this pope..."the doctor, allentown, pa
On Tuesday, he announced his agenda in his own unfiltered words, reaffirming the impression that he intends to jolt the church out of complacency and enlist all Catholics in his ambitious project of renewing the church by confronting the real needs of people in need.
In a challenge to the Vatican hierarchy, Francis called for decentralizing power in the church, saying the Vatican and even the pope must collaborate with bishops, laypeople and in particular women.
“I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security,” Francis said in the first teaching document of his papacy that he alone composed.
“I do not want a church concerned with being at the center and then ends by being caught up in a web of obsessions and procedures,” he wrote.
The document, called “Evangelii Gaudium” (the Joy of the Gospel), is an apostolic exhortation — less authoritative than an encyclical, but an important pronouncement. He drafted it in August in Spanish, said a Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, as a reflection on a synod of bishops last year that took up the “new evangelization.”
Francis’ prescription for the church is inextricably tied up with his analysis of what is wrong with the world. He devotes many pages to denouncing the “dictatorship” of a global economic system and a free market that perpetuates inequality and “devours” what is fragile, including human beings and the environment.
“How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?” he wrote, in the folksy language that has already marked his as a memorable papacy.
Vincent J. Miller, a theologian who writes on economic globalization at the University of Dayton, a Catholic university, said that while other popes have critiqued the economy, Francis has perspective on economic injustice as the first pope from Latin America, and is putting forward the church as the counterpoint.
“He talks about an economy of exclusion, while he’s been modeling and practicing inclusion publicly through his whole papacy,” Mr. Miller said.
After months in which many have parsed his comments for hints of change, the pope used the document to reiterate church teachings on abortion, homosexuality and the ordination of women. On abortion, he said, “It is not ‘progressive’ to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life. On the other hand, it is also true that we have done little to adequately accompany women in very difficult situations,” who may seek abortions because of rape or extreme poverty.
Nowhere in the document did Francis speak explicitly of homosexuality or same-sex marriage. However, he said the church should not give in to “moral relativism,” and cited with approval a document written by the bishops of the United States on ministering to people with “homosexual inclination.” The pope said the American bishops are right that the church must insist on “objective moral norms which are valid for everyone” — even when the church is perceived by supporters of gay rights as promoting prejudice and interfering with individual freedom.
Echoing his predecessors, Francis said that ordaining women to the priesthood “is not a question open to discussion.” He acknowledged that “many women share pastoral responsibilities with priests,” and said, “We need to create still broader opportunities for a more incisive female presence in the church.” But he offered no specifics on doing so.
But the document dwells at length on how priests can preach better homilies, which he said are the “touchstone” for judging how close a pastor is with his people. Francis said that both clergy and laypeople suffer from homilies: “The laity from having to listen to them, and the clergy from having to preach them! It is sad that this is the case.”
Francis criticized those within the church who foster division to the point of “veritable witch hunts.” In recent years, some bishops in the United States and Europe have advocated denying the eucharist, or holy communion, to Catholic politicians who support abortion rights or same-sex marriage. Francis did not take up this issue directly, but he advocated open doors.
“Everyone can be part of the community, nor should the doors of the sacraments be closed for simply any reason,” Francis said. “The eucharist, although it is the fullness of sacramental life, is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.”
Francis proposed a vision of a decentralized church. Bishops and priests have a better sense of the needs of the faithful, he said. Parishes should be the point of “contact with the homes and the lives of its people,” not a “useless structure out of touch with people or a self-absorbed cluster made up of a chosen few.”
“Laypeople are, put simply, the vast majority of the people of God. The minority — ordained ministers — are at their service,” Francis wrote.
John Thavis, a former Vatican bureau chief for Catholic News Service, who wrote “The Vatican Diaries,” said, “He’s laying down some real markers about the kinds of reforms he expects to preside over, including greater decentralization, openness to diversity in the church, and a greater emphasis on the gospel message of salvation as opposed to church doctrines and rules.”
The pope wrote that national bishops’ conferences can be fruitful sounding boards.
Archbishop Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, noted Tuesday that the document made repeated references to documents drafted by various bishops’ conferences — a first. It signals the will “to allow the bishops of the world to participate in the leadership of the church,” he said.
The Rev. Antonio Spadaro, editor of the leading Jesuit journal in Rome, who interviewed the pope last summer just as Francis was writing the exhortation, said, “It is an ample and profound document,” which finds its roots in the pope’s personal history.
“But it isn’t complete,” he said. “I think we’ll see more.”