Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Vincent J. MillerSeptember 22, 2013

Like so many, I continue to digest Pope Francis’ interview.

Never in my life have I heard from so many people who shared they were moved to tears. Never in my life have I heard so many saying their faith has been “restored.” (My instinct is to write “rekindled” but that’s not the word they use.)

I’ve heard from many colleagues that they just did not respond to media queries, hesitating to speak too soon. Perhaps they wanted to discern “patiently,” wary of that “first decision.”

Francis has changed the game in the church and for the church in the world in ways that I know I don’t fully fathom.

The petitions are beginning, incorporating Francis’ words—and with Canon 212, I affirm everyone’s right to make their opinion known. But there is something new in Francis’ interview, another dimension in which we might act.

Francis evoked a vision of the whole church, at once the “people of God” and “holy mother the hierarchical church,” gathered together in pastoral closeness and in healing the wounded in “nearness, proximity,” “proclaiming the Gospel on every street corner.”

Perhaps the way forward is to take the first step in living that together as people and pastors?

At the risk of speaking too soon, let me hesitantly suggest that one way forward is to seek to act in the dimension Francis has opened.

Rather than sign a petition, ask your bishop to meet. Seriously, call and ask. If that isn’t possible, write him a letter of the sort Francis is receiving. Share your faith, your fears, your frustrations, your hopes, your tears.

Rather than signing petitions to be sent “to the places with power is exercised,” we could begin to invite, encourage and build these relationships. They might indeed be the “long-run historical processes” we need to start.

Maybe what we need most is not a cry for reform, but a cry to really be church together. In that, perhaps we might all agree, will be found the only true reform.

 

Photo caption: Parishioners recite the Lord's Prayer during Mass at St. Mary of the Isle Church in Long Beach, N.Y., Aug 15, the feast of the Assumption of Mary. (CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz, Long Island Catholic)

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

"We, the members of the Society of Jesus, continue to be lifted up in prayer, in lament, in protest at the death and destruction that continue to reign in Gaza and other territories in Israel/Palestine, spilling over into the surrounding countries of the Middle East."
The Society of JesusMarch 28, 2024
A child wounded in an I.D.F. bombardment is brought to Al Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on March 25. (AP Photo/Ismael abu dayyah)
While some children have been evacuated from conflict, more than 1.1 million children in Gaza and 3.7 million in Haiti have been left behind to face the rampaging adult world around them.
Kevin ClarkeMarch 28, 2024
Easter will not be postponed this year. It will not wait until the war is over. It is precisely now, in our darkest hour, that resurrection finds us.
Stephanie SaldañaMarch 28, 2024
The paradox at the heart of Christianity is that we must die in order to live again. And few movies witness to that truth like “Romero” (1989).
John DoughertyMarch 28, 2024