Pope Francis and Fr Sean McDonagh
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Do you remember the ‘Year of the Three Popes’?
Chris McDonnell reflects on the events of The Year of the Three Popes — 40 years ago
Comprehensive interview with Pope Francis is published
America, the national American Jesuit magazine, has published an extensive interview with Pope Francis, conducted last month. You can read it here
Not an era of change but a change of era. Updated
Updated to include a translation of Pope Francis’ address. Translation kindly provided by Pádraig McCarthy. Translations of the Popes addresses are very slow to appear in Rome so our thanks to Pádraig.
Joshua J. McElwee reports in NCR on a speech by Pope Francis to a national conference of the Italian church in Florence.
Pope Francis made a fairly strong statement that the Church must continue to face problems of the present in new and culturally relevant ways.
“Before the problems of the church it is not useful to search for solutions in conservatism or fundamentalism, in the restoration of obsolete conduct and forms that no longer have the capacity of being significant culturally,”
“Christian doctrine is not a closed system incapable of generating questions, doubts, interrogatives — but is alive, knows being unsettled, enlivened,” said the pope. “It has a face that is not rigid, it has a body that moves and grows, it has a soft flesh: it is called Jesus Christ.”Yes Pope, a.k.a. Yes Minister
The Website IP5, or onepeterfive, carries an interesting article about an open letter written to Pope Francis by a “former member of the curia”.
The letter originally appeared in the German-language magazine, FOCUS.
While clearly meant to be read as a criticism of Pope Francis it perhaps unintentionally gives a disturbing insight into much of the culture and mindset of the curia and how they see their position, power and status in the church.
Do all bureaucracies, in the spirit of “Yes Minister’s” Sir Humphrey, eventually come to think that they are there to be served rather than serve, that all wisdom resides in them and none in the temporary ministers, or popes, who come and go and that all decisions should be left firmly in their control?
Pope Benedict’s reasons for retiring become clearer every day.[for international readers; “Yes Minister” was a BBC tv comedy. The chief civil servant, bureaucrat, Sir Humphrey was apt to reply ‘Yes Minister’ to every request of the Government Minister and then worked wholeheartedly at subverting every single plan and policy of the minister if it in any way infringed on the power and control of the civil service.}
Caring for our common home
Sean McDonagh tells us that Pope Francis’ encyclical is ‘ one of the most important documents to come from a Pope in the past one hundred-and-twenty years.’
‘Pope Francis is the first to acknowledge the magnitude of the ecological crisis, the urgency with which it must be faced and the irreversible nature of ecological damage.’
Sean reminds us though that while ‘this is a most exciting document, it is only a beginning. Real efforts and resources have to be placed behind it if this concern is to find its rightful place at the heart of Christian ministry.’Marriage Annulment Process Changed
Pope Francis has announced new procedures for the annulling of marriages.
The documents making the announcement, Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus and Mitis et misericors Iesus, are still only available in Italian and Latin.
We carry a report on this move from Crux.
http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2015/09/08/pope-francis-streamlines-process-for-granting-annulments/
Is this an important step for reform and Francis’ message of Mercy?
How relevant is it for the majority of catholics who divorce and remarry?