The Valley Catholic
Commentary
‘Having the familiar
disappear can
grieve the heart.’
We have heard snippets of an interview Pope Francis did for Jesuit publications in which he suggested we should
not always emphasize abortion, gay
marriage and contraception. The whole
interview, however, is remarkable for its
candor and includes a range of thoughts
that give a sense of how Francis intends
to color his papacy:
• On why our pastoral focus needs
to be on healing, not on reiterating
certain moral concerns:
“I see clearly the Church needs most
today is the ability to heal wounds and
warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs
nearness, proximity. I see the Church as
a field hospital after battle. It is useless to
ask an injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the levels of his blood
sugars! You have to heal his wounds…
“During the return flight from Rio
de Janeiro I said that if a homosexual
person is of good will and is in search
of God, I am no one to judge. By saying this, I said what the Catechism says.
Religion has the right to express its
opinion in the service of the people, but
Spirituality
15
By Father Ron Rolheiser
Pope Francis: In his own words
God in creation has set us free: it is not
possible to interfere spiritually in the
life of a person.
“A person once asked me, in a
provocative manner, if I approved of
homosexuality. I replied with another
question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at
a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject
and condemn this person?’
“I also consider the situation of a
woman with a failed marriage and
who also had an abortion. This woman
remarries and is now happy and has
five children. That abortion in her past
weighs heavily on her conscience and
she sincerely regrets it. She would like
to move forward in her Christian life.
What is the confessor to do?
“We cannot insist only on issues
related to abortion, gay marriage and
the use of contraceptive methods. This
is not possible. I have not spoken much
about these things, and I have been
reprimanded for that. But when we
speak about these issues, we have to talk
about them in context. The teaching of
A poor Church for the poor…
By Gregory R.
Kepferle
“Oh, how I would
like a poor church, and
for the poor.” Since
proclaiming these
words, Pope Francis
continues to inspire
through his simplicity, humility, humor
and candor. The message is not new.
From Jesus’ declaration that he was
called to bring good news to the poor,
the emphasis on justice for the poor is
proclaimed throughout the Gospels
and the Acts of the Apostles.
As Pope Francis noted, “The proclamation of the Gospel is destined primarily to the poor, to those who often
lack the essentials for a decent life. The
good news is first announced to them,
that God loves them before all others
and comes to visit them through acts
of charity the disciples of Christ carry
out in his name.”
This message has been echoed
throughout the Church’s teachings and
through its ministries of Catholic charities, Catholic education, and Catholic
health care. As the Pope notes, it is
not an abstract care for the poor, but
a concrete and practical witness by
giving voice to the cry of the poor and
by touching those in poverty and on
the margins of society through direct
compassionate service.
What feels new is not the message,
but the messenger. Pope Francis doesn’t
merely proclaim, he lives the message,
whether by driving a less expensive
car or by washing the feet of young
November 5, 2013
detainees, including women and undocumented immigrants.
Pope Francis also challenges the
moral framework of the economic and
political structures that keep people
in poverty. In speaking to a group of
ambassadors, he said, “I encourage
the financial experts and the political
leaders of your countries to consider
the words of St. John Chrysostom: ‘Not
to share one’s goods with the poor is to
rob them and to deprive them of life. It
is not our goods that we possess, but
theirs.’”
Perhaps today, especially in Silicon
Valley, we are like that rich young man
in Mark’s Gospel (22) who had kept
all the commandments and wanted
to know what else he needed to do to
obtain eternal life. “And Jesus, looking
at him, loved him, and said to him, ‘You
lack one thing: go, sell all that you
have and give to the poor, and you will
have treasure in heaven; and come,
follow me.’”
There are 330,000 people living in
poverty here in our own diocese -Santa Clara County. Catholic Charities
reaches 41,000 of them and needs help
through volunteers, contributions and
advocacy. Many of our parishes have
active social concerns, outreach committees, Ladies of Charity or St. Vincent
de Paul Societies that can benefit from
volunteers and contributions.
Pope Francis is showing us a way we
can be a Church of the poor and for the
poor. I invite each of us to consider how
we can follow that call.
• Gregory Kepferle is CEO of Catholic
Charities of Santa Clara County.
the Church is clear and I am a son of the
Church, but it is not necessary to talk
about these issues all the time.”
• On women in the Church:
“Women are asking deep questions
that must be addressed. We must investigate further the role of women in the
Church. The challenge today is to think
about the specific place of women in
those places where the authority of the
Church is exercised for various areas of
the Church.”
• On what it means to think with
the church:
“All the faithful, considered as a
whole, are infallible in matters of belief,
and the people display this infallibility
in believing, through a supernatural
sense of the faith of all the people walking together. This is what I understand
today as ‘thinking with the Church.’
We should not even think, therefore,
that ‘thinking with the Church’ means
only thinking with the hierarchy of the
Church.”
• On manifesting wide Catholicity:
“This Church is the home of all,
not a small chapel that can hold only a
small group of selected people. We must
not reduce the bosom of the universal
Church to a nest protecting mediocrity.”
• On the temptation to defensively
“circle the wagons” in face of growing
secularity:
“If the Christian is a restorationist,
a legalist, if he wants everything clear
and safe, then he will find nothing.
Tradition and memory of the past
must help us to open up new areas to
God. Those who look for disciplinarian
solutions, who long for exaggerated
doctrinal ‘security,’ who stubbornly try
to recover a past that no longer exists
-- they have a static and inner-directed
view of things.”
• Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher and award-winning author, is
President of the Oblate School of Theology
in San Antonio, TX. He can be contacted
through his website www.ronrolheiser.com.
Letters to the Editor
• Human trafficking
Editor:
Bishop McGrath, the Diocese of San
Jose and The Valley Catholic are to be
commended for bringing attention to
the tragedy o f human trafficking.
Lisa Thompson, Salvation Army
Liaison for the Abolition of Sexual
Trafficking, urges us not to forget the
“demand” side of that evil business.
That means preventing sex trafficking
by taking on pornography, specifically
Internet porn. Angela Lu writes that
“the continued demand by men to buy
women and the role Internet pornography plays in that demand” need to
be addressed.
Pornography destroys lives and
families and can lead to sex trafficking.
Porn is a serious problem, even within
our parishes. Yet, fighting porn is not
a popular cause. A new group that
educates junior and senior high and
college students about porn is Fight
the New Drug at www.fightthenewdrug.org.
Let us work and pray that someday
sexual exploitation and human trafficking are things of the past.
Deacon Craig Anderson
St. Basil the Great
Byzantine Catholic Church
Los Gatos
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