The archbishop of Havana, Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino was so impressed with the remarks Jorge Mario Bergoglio made before the conclave he asked him for a copy of them. Bergoglio gave Ortega a copy of his outline and soon after the conclave Francis gave Ortega permission to share this document publicly. The unofficial translation below is from Radio Vatican, Bergoglio's Intervention: A diagnosis of the problems in the Church. The original story was broken by the official magazine of the diocese of Havana, Palabra Nueva, Manuscrito entregado por el Cardenal Bergoglio al Cardenal Ortega. Images of the handwritten notes are from Palabra Nueva, Imagen del manuscrito entregado por el Cardenal Bergoglio al Cardenal Ortega.
Evangelizing implies Apostolic Zeal
1. - Evangelizing pre-supposes a desire in the Church to come out of herself. The Church is called to come out of herself and to go to the peripheries, not only geographically, but also the existential peripheries: the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and indifference to religion, of intellectual currents, and of all misery.
2. - When the Church does not come out of herself to evangelize, she becomes self-referential and then gets sick. (cf. The deformed woman of the Gospel). The evils that, over time, happen in ecclesial institutions have their root in self-referentiality and a kind of theological narcissism. In Revelation, Jesus says that he is at the door and knocks. Obviously, the text refers to his knocking from the outside in order to enter but I think about the times in which Jesus knocks from within so that we will let him come out. The self-referential Church keeps Jesus Christ within herself and does not let him out.
3. - When the Church is self-referential, inadvertently, she believes she has her own light; she ceases to be the mysterium lunae and gives way to that very serious evil, spiritual worldliness (which according to De Lubac, is the worst evil that can befall the Church). It lives to give glory only to one another.
Put simply, there are two images of the Church: Church which evangelizes and comes out of herself, the Dei Verbum religiose audiens et fidente proclamans; and the worldly Church, living within herself, of herself, for herself. This should shed light on the possible changes and reforms which must be done for the salvation of souls.
4. - Thinking of the next Pope: He must be a man who, from the contemplation and adoration of Jesus Christ, helps the Church to go out to the existential peripheries, that helps her to be the fruitful mother, who gains life from “the sweet and comforting joy of evangelizing.”
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| (Front page of notes Bergoglio gave Ortega.) |
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| (Reverse of notes Bergoglio gave Ortega.) |
The NO church hierarchy make me laugh as they are so arrogant in their smug self-belief that it is they who have received the diagnosis for the problems with the church. I am amazed that the pre-conciliar church became universal it was, according to the liberal modernists, founded on false premises & that it took 1965 years before the right formula was discovered for evangelism, through a protestant vernacular anthropocentric liturgy and ecumenical and interconfessional pastoral processes.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, these are the very reasons why the church is in a chaotic and disastrous state - it is the same people who pontificate on the subject who miss the point so blinded are they by their own conceit. They need to take a look at the millions of folk they have scandalised and befuddled with their nonsensical ambiguous verbiage and their politically sanitised forms of compromising with non-believers and other sectarians.
We have had 49 years of rapidly accelerating decline and systematic indisicpline in the post-conciliar church incapable of understanding that it underwrote its own self-demolition by abandoning the paradigm which made the church the "robust" and expanding model it had become by the 1950s.
The more this papacy speaks, the more we can perceive the disease of liberal modernism in its true guise: Non sensicus non-catholicus.
No need for the catholic Faith at all; no need for "proselytism"; no need for us to campaign for catholic morality because it is an obsession and no need to be heterosexual, married or a believer as we all get to Heaven in the end. Amen!
When will they ever shut their mouths?
Hit the proverbial nail on the head with that comment!
DeleteWell said LeonG!
6 years later! In 2020...
ReplyDelete