Following his meeting with the leadership of Brazil, the
Holy Father, Pope Francis met on Saturday afternoon with the bishops of Brazil
at the residence of the Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro.
Address of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
Dear Brothers,
How good it is to be here with you, the Bishops of
Brazil!
Thank you for coming, and please allow me to speak with
you as one among friends. That’s why I prefer to speak to you in Spanish, so as
to express better what I carry in my heart. I ask you to forgive me.
We are meeting somewhat apart, in this place prepared by
our brother, Archbishop Orani Tempesta, so that we can be alone and speak to
one another from the heart, as pastors to whom God has entrusted his flock. On
the streets of Rio, young people from all over the world and countless others
await us, needing to be reached by the merciful gaze of Christ the Good
Shepherd, whom we are called to make present. So let us enjoy this moment of
repose, exchange of ideas and authentic fraternity.
Beginning with the President of the Episcopal Conference
and the Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro, I want to embrace each and every one of
you, and in a particular way the Emeritus Bishops.
More than a formal address, I would like to share some
reflections with you.
The first came to mind again when I visited the
shrine of Aparecida. There, at the foot of the statue of the Immaculate
Conception, I prayed for you, your Churches, your priests, men and women
religious, seminarians, laity and their families and, in a particular way, the
young people and the elderly: these last are the hope of a nation; the young,
because they bring strength, idealism and hope for the future; the elderly
because they represent the memory, the wisdom of the people (cf Aparecidadocument, 447).
Aparecida: a key for interpreting the Church’s mission
In Aparecida, God gave Brazil his own Mother. But in
Aparecida, God also offered a lesson about himself, about his way of being and
acting: a lesson about the humility which is one of God’s essential features,
and which is part of God’s DNA. Aparecida offers us a perennial teaching
about God and about the Church; a teaching which neither the Church in Brazil
nor the nation itself must forget.
At the beginning of the Aparecida event, there were poor
fishermen looking for food: so much hunger and so few resources. People always
need bread. People always start with their needs, even today.
They have a dilapidated, ill-fitted boat; their nets are
old and perhaps torn, insufficient.
First comes the effort, perhaps the weariness, of the
catch, yet the results are negligible: a failure, time wasted. For all their
work, the nets are empty.
Then, when God wills it, he mysteriously enters the
scene. The waters are deep and yet they always conceal the possibility of a
revelation of God. He appeared out of the blue, who knows for how long, when
he was no longer expected. The patience of those who await him is always
tested. And God arrived in a novel fashion, since God is wonder: as a fragile
clay statue, darkened by the waters of the river and aged by the passage of
time. God always enters clothed in poverty, littleness.
Then there is the statue itself of the Immaculate
Conception. First, the body appeared, then the head, then the head was joined
to the body: unity. What had been broken is restored and becomes one. Colonial
Brazil had been divided by the shameful wall of slavery. Our Lady of Aparecida
appears with a black face, first separated, and then united in the hands of the
fishermen.
Here there is a message which God wants to teach us. His
own beauty, reflected in his Mother conceived without original sin, emerges
from the darkness of the river. In Aparecida, from the beginning, God’s message
was one of restoring what was broken, reuniting what had been divided. Walls,
chasms, differences which still exist today are destined to disappear. The
Church cannot neglect this lesson: she is called to be a means of
reconciliation.
The fishermen do not dismiss the mystery encountered in
the river, even if it is a mystery which seems incomplete. They do not throw
away the pieces of the mystery. They await its completion. And this does not
take long to come. There is a wisdom here that we need to learn. There are
pieces of the mystery, like the stones of a mosaic, which we encounter. We are
impatient, anxious to see the whole picture, but God lets us see things slowly,
quietly. The Church also has to learn how to wait.
Then the fishermen bring the mystery home. Ordinary
people always have room to take in the mystery. Perhaps we have reduced our way
of speaking about mystery to rational explanations; but for ordinary people the
mystery enters through the heart. In the homes of the poor, God always finds a
place.
The fishermen bundle
up the mystery, they clothe the Virgin drawn from the waters as if she were
cold and needed to be warmed. God asks for shelter in the warmest part of
ourselves: our heart. God himself releases the heat we need, but first he
enters like a shrewd beggar. The fishermen wrap the mystery of the Virgin with
the lowly mantle of their faith. They call their neighbours to see its
rediscovered beauty; they all gather around and relate their troubles in its
presence and they entrust their causes to it. In this way they enable God’s
plan to be accomplished: first comes one grace, then another; one grace leads
to another; one grace prepares for another. God gradually unfolds the
mysterious humility of his power.
There is much we can learn from the approach of the
fishermen. About a Church which makes room for God’s mystery; a Church which
harbours that mystery in such a way that it can entice people, attract them.
Only the beauty of God can attract. God’s way is through enticement which
attracts us. God lets himself be brought home. He awakens in us a desire to
keep him and his life in our homes, in our hearts. He reawakens in us a desire
to call our neighbours in order to make known his beauty. Mission is born
precisely from this divine allure, by this amazement born of encounter. We
speak about mission, about a missionary Church. I think of those fishermen
calling their neighbours to see the mystery of the Virgin. Without the
simplicity of their approach, our mission is doomed to failure.
The Church needs constantly to relearn the lesson of
Aparecida; she must not lose sight of it. The Church’s nets are weak, perhaps
patched; the Church’s barque is not as powerful as the great transatlantic
liners which cross the ocean. And yet God wants to be seen precisely through
our resources, scanty resources, because he is always the one who acts.
Dear brothers, the results of our pastoral work do not
depend on a wealth of resources, but on the creativity of love. To be sure,
perseverance, effort, hard work, planning and organization all have their
place, but first and foremost we need to realize that the Church’s power does
not reside in herself; it is hidden in the deep waters of God, into which she
is called to cast her nets.
Another lesson which the Church must constantly recall is
that she cannot leave simplicity behind; otherwise she forgets how to speak the
language of Mystery, and she herself remains outside the door of
the mystery, and obviously, she proves incapable of approaching those
who look to the Church for something which they themselves cannot provide, namely,
God himself. At times we lose people because they don’t understand what we are
saying, because we have forgotten the language of simplicity and import an
intellectualism foreign to our people. Without the grammar of simplicity, the
Church loses the very conditions which make it possible to fish for God in the deep waters of his Mystery.
A final thought: Aparecida took place at a crossroads.
The road which linked Rio, the capital, with São Paulo, the resourceful
province then being born, and Minas Gerais, the mines coveted by the courts of
Europe, was a major intersection in colonial Brazil. God appears at the
crossroads. The Church in Brazil cannot forget this calling which was present
from the moment of her birth: to be a beating heart, to gather and to spread.
Appreciation for the path taken by the Church in
Brazil
The Bishops of Rome have always had a special place in
their heart for Brazil and its Church. A marvellous journey has been
accomplished. From twelve dioceses during the First Vatican Council, it now
numbers 275 circumscriptions. This was not the expansion of an organization or
a business enterprise, but rather the dynamism of the Gospel story of the five loaves and two fish which, through
the bounty of the Father and through tireless labour, bore abundant fruit.
Today I would like to acknowledge your unsparing work as
pastors in your local Churches. I think of Bishops in the forests, travelling
up and down rivers, in semiarid places, in the Pantanal, in the pampas, in the
urban jungles of your sprawling cities. Always love your flock with complete
devotion! I also think of all those names and faces which have indelibly marked
the journey of the Church in Brazil, making palpable the Lord’s immense bounty
towards this Church (ie. Lorscheider, Mendes de Almeida, Sales, Vital, Camara,
Macedo... as well as the first Bishop in Brazil, Pero Fernandes Sardinha
(1551/1556), killed by hostile local tribes).
The Bishops of Rome were never distant; they followed,
encouraged and supported this journey. In recent decades, Blessed John XXIII
urged the Brazilian Bishops to draw up their first pastoral plan and, from that
beginning a genuine pastoral tradition arose in Brazil, one which prevented the
Church from drifting and provided it with a sure compass. The Servant of God
Paul VI encouraged the reception of the Second Vatican Council not only in
fidelity but also in creativity (cf. the CELAM General Assembly in Medellin),
and decisively influenced the self-identity of the Church in Brazil through the
Synod on evangelization and that basic point of reference which remains
relevant is the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi. Blessed John Paul II visited
Brazil three times, going up and down the country, from north to south,
emphasizing the Church’s pastoral mission, communion and participation,
preparation for the Great Jubilee and the new evangelization. Benedict XVI
chose Aparecida as the site of the Fifth CELAM General Assembly and this left a
profound mark on the Church of the whole continent.
The Church in Brazil welcomed and creatively applied the
Second Vatican Council, and the course it has taken, though needing to overcome
some teething problems, has led to a Church gradually more mature, open,
generous and missionary.
Today, times have changed. As the Aparecida document
nicely put it: ours is not an age of change, but a change of age. So today we
urgently need to keep putting the question: what is it that God is asking of
us? I would now like to sketch a few ideas by way of a response.
The icon of Emmaus as a key for interpreting the
present and the future
Before all else, we must not yield to the fear once
expressed by Blessed John Henry Newman: …
the Christian world is gradually becoming barren and effete, as land which has
been worked out and is become sand (Letter
of 26 January 1833 to his mother, The
Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, vol. III (Oxford, 1979), p.
204). We must not yield to
disillusionment, discouragement and complaint. We have laboured greatly and, at
times, we see what appear to be failures. We feel like those who must tally up
a losing season as we consider those who have left us or no longer consider us
credible or relevant.
Let us read once again, in this light, the story of
Emmaus (cf. Lk 24:13-15). The two disciples have left Jerusalem. They
are leaving behind the nakedness of
God. They are scandalized by the failure of the Messiah in whom they had hoped
and who now appeared utterly vanquished, humiliated, even after the third day
(vv. 17-21). Here we have to face the difficult mystery of those people who
leave the Church, who, under the illusion of alternative ideas, now think that
the Church – their Jerusalem – can no longer offer them anything meaningful and
important. So they set off on the road alone, with their disappointment.
Perhaps the Church appeared too weak, perhaps too distant from their needs,
perhaps too poor to respond to their concerns, perhaps too cold, perhaps too
caught up with itself, perhaps a prisoner of its own rigid formulas, perhaps
the world seems to have made the Church a relic of the past, unfit for new
questions; perhaps the Church could speak to people in their infancy but not to
those come of age (cf. Aparecida document, 225). It is a fact that nowadays there are many
people like the two disciples of Emmaus; not only those looking for answers in
the new religious groups that are sprouting up, but also those who already seem
godless, both in theory and in practice.
Faced with this situation, what are we to do?
We need a Church unafraid of going forth into their
night. We need a Church capable of meeting them on their way. We need a Church
capable of entering into their conversation. We need a Church able to dialogue
with those disciples who, having left Jerusalem behind, are wandering
aimlessly, alone, with their own disappointment, disillusioned by a
Christianity now considered barren, fruitless soil, incapable of generating
meaning.
A relentless process of globalization, an often
uncontrolled process of intense urbanization, has promised great
things. Many people have been captivated by their potential, which of
course contains positive elements as, for example, the shortening of
distance, the drawing closer of peoples and cultures, the diffusion of
information and of services. On the other hand, however, many are living the
negative effects of these realities without realizing how they affect a proper
vision of man and of the world. This generates enormous confusion and an
emptiness which people are unable to explain, regarding the purpose of life,
personal disintegration, the loss of the experience of belonging to a home and the absence of personal space
and strong personal ties.
And since there is no one to accompany them or to show
them with his or her own life the true way, many have sought shortcuts, because
the standards set by Mother Church seem to be asking too much. There are also
those who recognize the ideal of man and of life as proposed by the Church, but
they do not have the audacity to embrace it. They think that this ideal is too
lofty for them, that it is beyond their abilities, and that the
goal the Church sets is unattainable. Nonetheless they cannot live
without having at least something, even a poor imitation of what seems too
grand and distant. With disappointed hearts, they then go off in search
of something which will lead them even further astray, or which brings
them to a partial belonging that, ultimately, does not fulfill their lives.
The great sense of abandonment and solitude, of not even
belonging to oneself, which often results from this situation, is too painful
to hide. Some kind of release is necessary. There is always the option of
complaining. But even complaint acts like a boomerang; it comes back and
ends up increasing one’s unhappiness. Few people are still capable of hearing
the voice of pain; the best we can do is to anaesthetize it.
From this point of view, we need a Church capable of
walking at people’s sides, of doing more than simply listening to them; a
Church which accompanies them on their journey; a Church able to make sense of
the night contained in the flight of
so many of our brothers and sisters from Jerusalem; a Church which realizes
that the reasons why people leave also contain reasons why they can eventually
return. But we need to know how to interpret, with courage, the larger picture.
Jesus warmed the hearts of the disciples of Emmaus. I
would like all of us to ask ourselves today: are we still a Church capable of
warming hearts? A Church capable of leading people back to Jerusalem? Of
bringing them home? Jerusalem is where our roots are: Scripture, catechesis, sacraments,
community, friendship with the Lord, Mary and the apostles … Are we still able
to speak of these roots in a way that will revive a sense of wonder at their
beauty?
Many people have left because they were promised
something more lofty, more powerful, and faster.
But what is more lofty than the love revealed in
Jerusalem? Nothing is more lofty than the abasement of the Cross, since there
we truly approach the height of love! Are we still capable of demonstrating
this truth to those who think that the apex of life is to be found elsewhere?
Do we know anything more powerful than the
strength hidden within the weakness of love, goodness, truth and beauty?
People today are attracted by things that are faster
and faster: rapid Internet connections, speedy cars and planes, instant
relationships. But at the same time we see a desperate need for calmness, I
would even say slowness. Is the Church still able to move slowly: to take the
time to listen, to have the patience to mend and reassemble? Or is the Church
herself caught up in the frantic pursuit of efficiency? Dear brothers, let us
recover the calm to be able to walk at the same pace as our pilgrims, keeping
alongside them, remaining close to them, enabling them to speak of the
disappointments present in their hearts and to let us address them. They want
to forget Jerusalem, where they have their sources, but eventually they will
experience thirst. We need a Church capable of accompanying them on the road
back to Jerusalem! A Church capable of helping them to rediscover the glorious
and joyful things that are spoken of in Jerusalem, and to understand that she
is my Mother, our Mother, and that we are not orphans! We were born in her.
Where is our Jerusalem, where were we born? In Baptism, in the first encounter
of love, in our calling, in vocation (cf Aparecida document, 226). We need a Church that kindles hearts and
warms them.
We need a Church capable of restoring citizenship to her
many children who are journeying, as it were, in an exodus.
4. Challenges facing the Church in Brazil
In the light of what I have said above, I would like to
emphasize several challenges facing the beloved Church in Brazil.
Formation as a priority: Bishops, priests,
religious, laity
Dear brothers, unless we train ministers capable of
warming people’s hearts, of walking with them in the night, of dialoguing with
their hopes and disappointments, of mending their brokenness, what hope can we
have for our present and future journey? It isn’t true that God’s presence has
been dimmed in them. Let us learn to look at things more deeply. What is
missing is someone to warm their hearts, as was the case with the disciples of
Emmaus (cf. Lk 24:32).
That is why it is important to devise and ensure a
suitable formation, one which will provide persons able to step into the night
without being overcome by the darkness and losing their bearings; able to
listen to people’s dreams without being seduced and to share their
disappointments without losing hope and becoming bitter; able to sympathize
with the brokenness of others without losing their own strength and identity.
What is needed is a solid human, cultural, effective, spiritual
and doctrinal formation (cf. Aparecida document, 212, 316-325). Dear brother
Bishops, courage is needed to undertake a thorough review of the structures in
place for the formation and preparation of the clergy and the laity of the
Church in Brazil. It is not enough that formation be considered a vague
priority, either in documents or at meetings. What is needed is the practical
wisdom to set up lasting educational structures on the local, regional and
national levels and to take them to heart as Bishops, without sparing energy,
concern and personal interest. The present situation calls for quality
formation at every level. Bishops may not delegate this task. You cannot
delegate this task, but must embrace it as something fundamental for the
journey of your Churches.
Collegiality and solidarity in the Episcopal
Conference
The Church in Brazil needs more than a national leader; it
needs a network of regional testimonies
which speak the same language and in every place ensure not unanimity, but true
unity in the richness of diversity.
Communion is a fabric to be woven with patience and perseverance,
one which gradually draws together the
stitches to make a more extensive and thick cover. A threadbare cover will
not provide warmth.
It is important to remember Aparecida, the method of
gathering diversity together. Not so much a diversity of ideas in order to
produce a document, but a variety of experiences of God, in order to set a
vital process in motion.
The disciples of Emmaus returned to Jerusalem, recounting
their experience of meeting the risen Christ. There they came to know other
manifestations of the Lord and the experiences of their brothers and sisters.
The Episcopal Conference is precisely a vital space for enabling such an
exchange of testimonies about encounters with the Risen One, in the north, in
the south, in the west… There is need, then, for a greater appreciation of
local and regional elements. Central bureaucracy is not sufficient; there is
also a need for increased collegiality and solidarity. This will be a source of
true enrichment for all (cf. Aparecida document, 181-183, 189).
Permanent state of mission and pastoral conversion
Aparecida spoke about a permanent state of mission (cf.
216) and of the need for pastoral conversion (cf. 365-372). These are two
important results of that Assembly for the entire Church in the area, and the
progress made in Brazil on these two points has been significant.
Concerning mission, we need to remember that its urgency
derives from its inner motivation; in other words, it is about handing on a
legacy. As for method, it is essential to realize that a legacy is about
witness, it is like the baton in a relay race: you don’t throw it up in the air
for whoever is able to catch it, so that anyone who doesn’t catch it has to
manage without. In order to transmit a legacy, one needs to hand it over
personally, to touch the one to whom one wants to give, to relay, this
inheritance.
Concerning pastoral conversion, I would like to recall
that pastoral care is nothing other
than the exercise of the Church’s motherhood. She gives birth, suckles, gives
growth, corrects, nourishes and leads by the hand … So we need a Church capable
of rediscovering the maternal womb of mercy. Without mercy we have little
chance nowadays of becoming part of a world of wounded persons in need of understanding, forgiveness and love.
In mission, also on a continental level (cf Aparecida
document, 547-554), it is very important to reaffirm the family, which remains
the essential cell of society and the Church; young people, who are the face of
the Church’s future; women, who play a fundamental role in passing on the faith
and who are a daily source of strength in a society that carries this faith
forward and renews it. Let us not reduce the involvement of women in the
Church, but instead promote their active role in the ecclesial community. If
the Church, in her complete and real dimension, loses women, she risks
becoming sterile. Aparecida also highlights the vocation and mission of men in
the family, in the Church and in society, as fathers, workers and citizens. Let
us take this seriously!
The task of the Church in society
In the context of society, there is only one thing which
the Church quite clearly demands: the freedom to proclaim the Gospel in its
entirety, even when it runs counter to the world, even when it goes against the
tide. In so doing, she defends treasures of which she is merely the custodian,
and values which she does not create but rather receives, to which she must
remain faithful.
The Church affirms the right to serve man in his
wholeness, and to speak of what God has revealed about human beings and their
fulfilment. The Church wants to make present that spiritual patrimony without
which society falls apart and cities are overwhelmed by their own walls, pits
and barriers. The Church has the right and the duty to keep alive the flame of
human freedom and unity.
Education, health and social harmony are pressing
concerns in Brazil. The Church has a word to say on these issues, because any
adequate response to these challenges calls for more than merely technical
solutions; there has to be an underlying view of man, his freedom, his value,
his openness to the transcendent. Dear brother Bishops, do not be afraid to
offer this contribution of the Church, which benefits society as a whole and to
offer this word incarnate also
through witness.
The Amazon Basin as a litmus test for Church
and society in Brazil
There is one final point on which I would like to dwell,
which I consider relevant for the present and future journey not only of the
Brazilian Church but of the whole society, namely, the Amazon Basin. The
Church’s presence in the Amazon Basin is not that of someone with bags packed
and ready to leave after having exploited everything possible. The Church has been
present in the Amazon Basin from the beginning, in her missionaries,
religious congregations, priests, laity and Bishops and she is still
present and critical to the area’s future. I think of the welcome which the
Church in the Amazon Basin is offering today to Haitian immigrants following
the terrible earthquake which shook their country.
I would like to invite everyone to reflect on what Aparecida
said about the Amazon Basin (cf. 83-87, 475), its forceful appeal for respect
and protection of the entire creation which God has entrusted to man, not so
that it be indiscriminately exploited, but rather made into a garden. In
considering the pastoral challenge represented by the Amazon Basin, I have to
express my thanks for all that the Church in Brazil is doing: the Episcopal
Commission for the Amazon Basin established in 1997 has already proved its
effectiveness and many dioceses have responded readily and generously to the
appeal for solidarity by sending lay and priestly missionaries. I thank
Archbishop Jaime Chemelo, a pioneer in this effort, and Cardinal Hummes, the
current President of the Commission. But I would add that the Church’s work
needs to be further encouraged and launched afresh. There is a need for quality
formators, especially formators and professors of theology, for
consolidating the results achieved in the area of training a native clergy and
providing priests suited to local conditions and committed to consolidating, as
it were, the Church’s Amazonian face.
In this, please, I ask you, be courageous, and have parrhesia! In the porteño language (of Buenos Aires), be
fearless.
Dear brother Bishops, I have attempted to offer you in a
fraternal spirit some reflections and approaches for a Church like that of
Brazil, which is a great mosaic made up of small stones, images, forms,
problems and challenges, but which for this very reason is an enormous
treasure. The Church is never uniformity, but diversities harmonized in unity,
and this is true for every ecclesial reality.
May the Virgin of Aparecida be the star which illumines
your task and your journey of bringing Christ, as she did, to all the men and
women of your immense country. Just as he did for the two lost and
disillusioned disciples of Emmaus, he will warm your hearts and give you new
and certain hope.
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