Don’t say ‘We have always done things this way’

An extremely important address Pope Francis directed on April 27 to an international congress of Catholic Action (CA) was overshadowed. This CA, a lay movement begun in the late 1800s in Europe, is now most prominent in Italy.

May 12, 2017

By Robert Mickens
An extremely important address Pope Francis directed on April 27 to an international congress of Catholic Action (CA) was overshadowed. This CA, a lay movement begun in the late 1800s in Europe, is now most prominent in Italy.

The CA movement eventually gained a strong foothold in various parts of Latin America and has spread to some areas of Africa and Asia. But, it has not been widely known or well-rooted in English-speaking countries of the Western world, despite the fact that it is the only lay Catholic organisation specifically mentioned in the documents of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).

Pope Francis met with delegates of the CA congress in the Vatican Synod Hall and he spoke to them in his native Spanish for over an hour, mostly making ad-libbed asides from his prepared speech.

The Vatican, at the time of this writing, had not yet made available the complete text of his remarks. But those who understand the Pope’s native language should listen to his talk. It begins at about 23:30 in a video posted on YouTube.

Francis used the occasion to repeat, once again, the importance of his 2013 apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium. He said it is an up-dated version of Paul VI’s exhortation from 1975, Evangelii Nuntiandi, what he called “the most important document after Vatican II.”

That, in and of itself, should give hope to Catholics longing for changes in the way the Church carries out her mission in this post-modern age.

“There’s a phrase that should never be used,” Pope Francis told the AC delegates.

“It is the phrase, ‘It’s always been done this way.’ ”

“This phrase, if you will allow me, is a bad word,” the Pope said.

“The ‘always done this way’ phrase has done so much damage in the Church, and it continues to do so much damage to the Church,” he added.

“We must always be changing because time changes. The only thing that does not change is what’s essential. What doesn’t change is the announcement of Jesus Christ, missionary attitude, prayer, the need to pray, the need to be formed and the need to sacrifice.

That does not change. You have to find the way, how to do it, but it does not change,” said Pope Francis.

Connected to this, he said, was a fixation some Catholics have who want to “regulate things and not allow freedom.” He pointed to the twenty-third chapter of St Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus calls the “fixated” religious leaders of his time “hypocrites.”

In this same talk to the CA delegates, the Pope said Church movements (and religious congregations) that are closed-in on themselves and do not deal with the concrete realities facing people today, are not really Catholic. Neither are those groups that operate like “satellites” without being tethered to a parish or under the direction of the diocese and its Bishop.

“They may be holy agnostics,” he said. “But they are not Catholics!”

One of the essential points Pope Francis tried to convey to the CA assembly is that the faith of Catholic Christianity has always been “concrete” and not something that is esoteric, pie-in-the-sky, or disjointed from the real lives and real experiences of real people. He said it is an “incarnated faith.”

“St John is very clear. Whoever denies that the Word became flesh is the anti-Christ,” he declared.

“If an ecclesial movement is not ‘incarnated’ in the ecclesial reality of the diocese, and through the parish (or some other diocesan apostolate), it borders on not being Christian, if not anti-Christ,” the Pope said.

There is much more in this remarkable talk, especially the Pope’s declaration that Catholic Christian faith and action means nothing unless it changes its expression by following how the Holy Spirit prompts believers to respond to the changing times. Hopefully, the Vatican will soon make the full transcript of the Pope’s remarks available, including in various languages. -- Commonweal Magazine

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