Syro Malabar - Indult

Late Fr Terence Lobo

Cardinal Alencherry

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Please go to the link above for the photos of the reception at the University convention center Ahmedabad for cardinal Alencherry on Sunday 20th Oct 2013
Devasia

The Tablet 26 Sep 2013

Catholic reformers' letter to Pope Francis: tackle injustice within the Church

Reform-minded Catholics urge Pope to listen to the the laity on governance and women26 September 2013, 9:00

This week in Rome Pope Francis is meeting with the group of eight cardinals he named shortly after his election to discuss how best to implement reform within the Church. Last week a coalition of reform-minded Catholics sent an open letter to the Pope and the eight, outlining the issues they feel he should focus on. The letter is below:

His Holiness, Pope Francis
Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, President of the Vatican City state administration
Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa, Retired archbishop of Santiago, Chile
Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Archbishop of Mumbai, India
Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich and Freising, Germany
Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, Archbishop of Kinshasa, Congo
Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley, Archbishop of Boston
Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, Australia
Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras

Dear Pope Francis and Brother Cardinals:

It is out of a deep concern for the Catholic Church, in the face of its many crises, that we, representing millions of Catholics from around the world, have collaborated in writing this letter. We are filled with hope that church governance will be discussed at your October meeting and we respectfully request that you give primary consideration to acknowledging the rights and responsibilities of the baptised to have a voice of influence in the decision-making of our Church.

Like you, we have experienced the catastrophic loss of trust in our Church, arising from the global revelations of Catholic clergy sexual abuse and hierarchical cover up. Abuses of power at the Vatican bank, as well as damaging disrespect and marginalisation experienced by the laity, have caused many ofour sisters and brothers to abandon Catholicism altogether. Our church seems unable to read the signs of the times and so handing on the faith to future generations has become ever more challenging.

In our understanding, what lies at the root of many of these problems is the destructive effects of clericalism. We support your desire, Pope Francis, to rid our Church of clericalism inorder that we become a community of equals called, through our baptism, to live and proclaim the Gospel of Jesus. All Catholics have the right and responsibility, innately deriving from our baptism, to have an effective and deliberative voice in the decision-making of our Church. The full participation of the faith community is in accordance with the Gospel, the tradition of the early Church, and the vision of Vatican II.

To this end we have outlined five areas that reflect the hopes and needs of the sensus fidelium.

1. A Church that embodies the radical justice of Jesus in the world

We are inspired, Pope Francis, by your compassion for the poor and desire for social justice as well as your personal commitment to live more simply. We want to work, as sisters and brothers, to build the reign of God on earth - so that all people may live free from oppression, war, unjust economic systems, violence, hunger, poverty, and the degradation of God's creation. But our commitment to justice is compromised and often viewed as hypocritical because injustice exists within the Church itself. We hope for a time when all Catholics come to experience a joyfully renewed church that truly places justice and respect for the dignity and equality of every person at the heart of its lived mission.

2. A Church that welcomes open dialogue among its members

When speaking in Brazil, Pope Francis, you advised that 'dialogue, dialogue, dialogue' is a cornerstone of all human progress, and we agree. The freedom of expression (including faithful dissent when required), freedom of reasoned inquiry, and the primacy of an informed conscience are vital to the health of our Church. We believe that prophetic women and men are continually calling us to engage the urgent theological, pastoral, social, and environmental questions of our time in new and inspiring ways. In this light, we recommend reinstating theologians, clergy and religious who, since Vatican II, have been censored and/or sanctioned for following their conscience. Secondly, as has been expressed by so many Catholics around the world, we believe that the Apostolic Visitation of US Women Religious and the investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious were unwarranted and unjust. Open dialogue cannot exist where fear of punitive action exists.

3. A Church that recognises the fundamental equality of its members

Catholic teaching tells us that all persons have been created with equal dignity in the image of God. Therefore church structures must reflect this reality. Since all governance in the Church now rests exclusively with ordained male celibate priests, this excludes the vast majority of baptised Catholics. Therefore we recommend a canonical study of the feasibility of linking church governance to baptism rather than to ordination. With regard to ordained ministry, we recommend that identifying the call be based on individual and communal discernment of the candidate's gifts, spirituality, pastoral sense, and theological formation, rather than gender, sexual orientation, or state in life. We reject the sexist exclusion of women from full participation at all levels of the Church. Equally, it is unacceptable to deny our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters' access to full participation in every aspect of Church life and ministry. And it is unjust to ordain married male ministers from other denominations, while refusing to accept lifelong Catholic priests who have left the active ministry to marry. Further, divorced and remarried Catholics should not be withheld from full communion; their personal conscience in this matter should be respected.

4. A Church with greater participation of the baptised in governance:

Addressing the needs of our Church requires implementing collegial systems and structures based on:

i) participation of the faithful in the selection and tenure of bishops

ii) reinstatement of the principle of subsidiarity in parish councils, diocesan pastoral councils, and national conferences of bishops

iii) inclusion of qualified lay men and women serving in leadership positions in the Curia

Implementation of collegial structures will promote a culture of authentically accountable leadership that more fully orients the Church toward the common good.

5. A Church that effectively confronts and prevents sexual abuse

The scandal of clergy sexual abuse can only be overcome when the bishops who facilitate or ignore the abuse are removed from office and brought to justice by church and civil authorities with universal, binding protocols established and implemented. The Catholic Church must earnestly examine the complex of systemic causes that have led to this scandal of global proportions and do everything in its power to prevent it in the future.

In closing, we ask you once again to recognise the rights and responsibilities of the baptised to participate in the deliberative decision-making of our Church. We offer to send a delegation to the Vatican to discuss our proposal further. We look forward to your reply as, together, we continue this important dialogue for thggood of our church. We pray the wisdom of the Holy Spirit be upon you and your deliberations.

Your sisters and brothers in Christ,

[Copied to]

Monsignor Marcello Semeraro, Bishop of Albano, panel secretary

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President, Pontifical Council for Culture

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, U.S. Apostolic Nuncio

Archbishop Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State

Unteshwari Medo 2013

Fr. Barron comments on the Pope Francis Interview

Too spirtiual? Pope Francis

Pope urges nuns "not to be too spiritual"

Francis warns against "the smile of a flight attendant"
Picture: Shutterstock

• Business Standard reporter
• Italy
• October 7, 2013

Pope Francis Friday berated the nuns whose fixed smiles betray "a lack of joy that comes from within".

"I am so disappointed when I meet nuns who are joyless, who may smile with the smile of a flight attendant but not with the smile of joy that comes from within," the pontiff told nuns at the Santa Chiara cloistered convent in the Italian city of Assisi.

Living in an enclosed order must not be "purgatory", Francis told the nuns.

"Nuns must not be too spiritual, and must endeavour to be experts in humanity in order that convent life is not purgatory," he said.

He urged the nuns to embrace communal living and to live together like members of a happy, loving family.

"Know how to forgive, how to tolerate each other because the devil takes every opportunity to divide us. Nurture friendships with each other and family life. And don't brag!" he told the nuns.

Earlier, 50,000 people packed into the square outside Assisi's medieval Basilica of San Francesco to hear Francis celebrate mass.

The charismatic Argentinian pontiff was on a one-day pilgrimage to the Umbrian hillside town to pray at the shrine of the 13th-century saint whose name he adopted when elected earlier this year.

Francis also met groups of poor, sick and disabled people who were being looked after by Catholic orders or charities.

The Pope said he wants to see an overhaul of the Church, bringing it closer to ordinary people. 

Pagola to Pope Francis

Get the evangelical renewal going!

José Antonio Pagola

Priest and theologian

Dear brother Francis:

Ever since you were elected to be the humble “Rock” on which Jesus wishes to keep on building his Church, I have carefully followed your speeches.

I have just returned from Rome where I was able to see you embrace children, bless the sick and helpless and greet the crowds. They say you love people, are simple, humble and friendly… and so much else.

I think I see in you something more, much more. I had a chance to see St. Peter’s square and the Via della Conciliazione full of enthusiastic people.

Within a few months you have become “good news” for the Church and even much beyond the Church. Why? Almost without realizing it, you are bringing to the world the Good News of Jesus.   

You are creating a new climate in the Church – more evangelical and more human. You are bringing us the Spirit of Christ. People who have abandoned the Christian faith tell me you help them to trust more in life and in the goodness of the human being. Some who know no paths to God admit to me that a small light has lit up within them which invites them to think again about their attitude to the ultimate Mystery of existence.

I know that in the Church we need very  deep reforms to correct the deviations fostered for many centuries, but during these last years a conviction has been growing in me. For these reforms to be able to be brought about, we first need a conversion at a more deep and radical level.

Quite simply, we need to return to Jesus, to have our Christianity rooted more truly and more faithfully in his person, his message and his project of the Kingdom of God.

That is why I wish to tell you what it is that appeals to me most in your ministry as Bishop of Rome at the beginning of your career.

I thank you for embracing children and holding them close to your heart. You  are helping us to recover that prophetic gesture of Jesus so forgotten in the Church, but so important to understand what he wanted from his followers. According to the Gospel story, Jesus called the Twelve, placed a little child in the midst of them, embraced him and said to them: Whoever receives a little child like this one  in my name receives me.”

We had forgotten that in the middle of the Church, drawing the attention of all have to be  the little ones, the weakest and the most fragile and vulnerable. It is important that you are among us as a “Rock” on which Jesus builds his Church, but it is as important or more so that you are in the midst of us embracing the little ones and blessing the sick and helpless, to remind us how we are to receive Jesus. This prophetic gesture seems to me decisive at this time in which the world runs the risk of being dehumanized by evading the responsibility for those of no account.

I thank you for calling us time and again to get outside the Church to enter into the life of people who suffer and enjoy  life, who struggle and work hard; the world  where God wants to build a more human, just and supportive society.

I believe that the most serious and subtle heresy that has penetrated Christianity is to have made the Church the centre of everything displacing the project of the Kingdom of God from the horizon.

John Paul II reminded us  that the Church is not an end in itself, but only the seed, sign, and instrument of the Kingdom of God; but his words were lost among many other discourses.

It makes me very happy when you call us to get out of ourselves to reach out to the existential periphery, where we will meet the poor, the victims, the sick, the unfortunate ones.

I enjoy underlining your words: We must build bridges, not walls to defend the faith; we need a Church with open doors, not of people who control the faith; “ the Church does not grow through proselytism, but through attraction, witness and preaching. “ I seem to hear the voice of Jesus who from the Vatican urges us: “Go and announce that the Kingdom of God is near.” “Go and heal the sick” , “what you have freely received, freely give.”

I thank you, too, for your constant calls to be converted to the Gospel. How well you know the Church. Your freedom to name our sins amazes me.  You do not do so in the language of a moralist, but in the power of the Gospel: the incidents of envy, social climbing, the desire for wealth, disinformation, defamation and calumny , arrogance and clerical hypocrisy, “spiritual worldliness” and selfishly materialistic, salon Christians,  believers who are museum pieces, Christians who wear funereal aspects.

Salt that has lost its taste worries you a lot, a salt that doesn’t have any taste. And you call us to be disciples who learn to live life modeled on Jesus.  

You do not call us only to an individual conversion. You urge us on to a structural  renewal of the Church. We are not used to hearing such language.  Deaf to the call for renewal of Vatican II, we  have forgotten that Jesus invited his followers “to put new wine in new wineskins.”

That is why, your homily for the feast of Pentecost fills me with hope.  “Novelty always fills us with a little fear, because we feel more safe if we have everything under control, it is we who build, program and plan our lives according to our mindsets, feelings of security and tastes… We are afraid God will lead us through new ways, draw us out of our frequently limited, closed , egoistic horizons to open us out to his own.

This is why you beg us to ask ourselves sincerely: “Are we open to the surprises God has for us, or do we shut ourselves in out of fear to the newness of the Holy Spirit? Are we ready to follow the new ways the novelty God presents us, or do we entrench ourselves in outdated structures that have lost the ability to respond? Your message and your spirit are announcing a new future for the Church.

I want to   end these lines by humbly expressing a desire. Perhaps you may not be able to make great reforms, but you can move forward the evangelical renewal in the whole Church. Surely, you can take suitable measures so that the future bishops of the dioceses of the whole world have the personal qualities and pastoral approach capable of promoting that conversion to Jesus which you try to encourage from Rome.

Francisco, you are a gift of God. Thanks!

Fr Pariza sj 80 year in the Society of Jesus

c/o Jagdish Christian