MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Francis urges bishops to drop ‘princely attitudes’ and go out to the people (and save the Church)
Bishops must be pastors, men who love poverty… Pope Francis chided the Catholic hierarchy Sunday, telling regional bishops not to behave like authoritarian “princes” and urging them to move closer to the people.
“Bishops must be pastors, close to the people, men who love poverty, men who do not think and behave like princes,” the pontiff told Latin American and Caribbean bishops on the last day of his weeklong visit to Brazil.
“Bishops must lead, which is not the same as being authoritarian, bossy” he added in a speech that also warned against “clericalism” under which the church projects an image of power and privilege while the laity's role is simply to pray and obey.
“The phenomenon of clericalism explains, in great part, the lack of maturity and Christian freedom in a good part of the Latin American laity,” the Argentine-born Francis said.
The spread of bible study groups and pastoral councils were “helping to overcome clericalism and increase lay responsibility,” he added.
Since his inauguration in March, the first Latin American pope has sought to re-energize Catholics, using his Rio trip to urge young believers to spread the Gospel and “make a mess” in their dioceses.
On Saturday, he told thousands of bishops, priests and seminarians that “it is in the favelas... that we must go to seek and serve Christ.”
“We cannot keep ourselves shut up in parishes, in our communities, when so many people are waiting for the Gospel,” he added.
Top Comments
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Read all commentsIt seems to me that all religions except Islam are on a declining curve.
Jul 29th, 2013 - 01:35 pm 0Unsurprising really with the increase in litteracy across the world.
@1 ChrisR
Jul 29th, 2013 - 02:10 pm 0Plus it's easier for people to spot the hypocrisy in the Church these days too.
Islam itself will decline too once they can no-longer 'force' people to pray.
Indeed, a few years back (whilst serving in the Army) we had some Kuwaiti's, Quatari's and Saudi's over for training exercises. They rarely prayed, and spend most of their free time drinking, whoring and gambling, because they weren't allowed to do those things in their own countries.
Islam itself (just like the Catholic Church is) is a dying religion, it just hasn't realised it yet. When you have to force people to 'believe' then you know it isn't any good. When the Protestants broke the Catholic Churches all powerful grip and gave people an alternative, then the Church wobbled badly and tried to force the Protestants to revert back or face death.
Islam is no different. They force the people in these countries to 'believe', when in actual fact most of them couldn't care less.
Most religions are fairy tales anyway, used by greedy men to control people's lives.
2 LEPRecon
Jul 29th, 2013 - 03:22 pm 0Totally agree.
The Wahhabi sect of Islam are areal bunch of nutters and will eventually make western people wake up and do something about the real threat of Islam.
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