Pope, in candid
speech, speaks of 'exodus' from the Church
By Philip Pullella
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Pope Francis, in a
stunningly candid assessment of the state of the Catholic
Church, said on Saturday it should look in the mirror
and ask why so many people are leaving the faith of their fathers.
On the penultimate day of his trip to
Brazil, Francis delivered a long address to the
country's bishops in which he suggested elements of what could become a
blueprint for stopping what he called an "exodus."
"I would like all of us to ask ourselves
today: are we still a Church capable
of warming hearts?" he said in a speech remarkable for its frankness about
the hemorrhaging of the Church in many countries.
The Argentine pope, who is in Rio for a
Catholic international jamboree known as World
Youth Day,
referred to what he called "the mystery of those who leave the
Church" because they think it "can no longer offer them anything
meaningful or important."
The Church has been losing members throughout the world to secularism
and to other religions, including in Latin America, where evangelical groups
have won over many converts.
He acknowledged that many people see the Church as a "relic of the
past," too caught up in itself, and a "prisoner of its own rigid
formulas."
While he said the Church "must remain faithful" to its
religious doctrine, it had to be closer to the people and their real problems.
"Today, we need a Church capable of walking at people's side, of
doing more than simply listening to them," he said.
"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," he said.
In Brazil, the number of Catholics has dwindled rapidly in the decades
since its once-rural population moved increasingly to major cities, where
modern consumer culture has overtaken more provincial mores and where
Protestant denominations, aggressively courting followers in urban outskirts
and shantytowns, have won many converts.
"We need a Church capable of restoring citizenship to her many
children who are journeying, as it were, in an exodus," he said.
The address to the bishops complemented an earlier homily in Rio's
cathedral, where he urged priests worldwide to leave their comfortable
surroundings to go out and serve the poor and needy.
"We cannot keep ourselves shut up in parishes, in our communities,
when so many people are waiting for the Gospel," he said in the sermon of
a Mass in Rio's cathedral.
Since his election in March as the first non-European pope in 1,300
years, Francis has been prodding priests, nuns and bishops to think less about
their careers in the Church and listen more to the cries of those who are
hungry to fill both material and spiritual needs.
"It is not enough simply to open the door in welcome, but we must
go out through that door and meet the people!" he said.
'SLUM CARDINAL'
Known as the "slum cardinal" in his native Argentina because
of his austere lifestyle and visits to poor areas, Francis made a clarion call
to clergy to take risks and go out among the faithful who need them most.
"It is in the 'favelas' and 'villas miseria' that one must go to
seek and to serve Christ," he said, quoting the late Mother Teresa of
Calcutta and using the terms used in Brazil and Argentina for shantytowns.
Francis has set a new tone in the Vatican, rejecting the lush papal
residence his predecessors used in the Apostolic Palace and living instead in a
small suite in a Vatican guest house, and often eating in the common dining
room.
The pope spoke as hundreds of thousands of young people were converging
on Rio's famed Copacabana beach for an all night prayer vigil ahead of
concluding ceremonies on Sunday, when he returns to Rome.
Earlier, in a talk at Rio's theater, he said leaders must address the
issues raised in protests in Brazil, saying dialogue was the only way to
resolve the issues.
Latin America's largest nation has been rocked by protests against
corruption, the misuse of public money and the high cost of living. Most of the
protesters are young.
He urged leaders not to remain deaf to "the outcry, the call for
justice (that) continues to be heard even today" and, in an apparent
reference to corruption, spoke of "the task of rehabilitating
politics." (Additional reporting by Esteban Israel in Sao Paolo; Editing
by Vicki Allen)
