1215 'Off the cuff' Papal remarks mirror EAO Team Visit conclusions
austraLasia 1215
'Off the cuff' Papal remarks mirror EAO Team Visit
conclusions
INTROD: 29 July 2005 -- Introd is not short for
introduction; it happens to be the village closest to where Pope
Benedict is relaxing in the Val D'Aosta, at the Salesian holiday
cottage. On 25th July the Pope made some off the cuff comments
about culture and life in the West and East today. The comments
mirror the Rector Major's conclusions at the end of the Team Visit in
Thailand earlier this year, so may be of interest to readers. L'Osservatore
Romano reported them but perhaps, as it was no major speech, it
won't go beyond that unless austraLasia comes to the rescue!
The Pope commented to a handful of people, some
priests included, that 'it seems the world has no need of us, that
everything we do is uselss' and he said that he had no simple solution
to this, that he suffered along with those who felt this way. He
puts it down to a Western mentality 'which is tired of its own
culture' and contrasts that with a certain 'enthusiasm of faith' in the
East, and in Africa.
In the West 'in a climate of rationalism closed in
on itself, which considers the pattern of science the only pattern of
knowledge, all the rest is subjective. Even...Christian life
becomes a subjective choice'. From his experience thus far of ad
limina visits by Asian and African Bishops, he says he senses another
dynamic at work, where there are strong traditional religions, 'at a
given time of their history, namely at a time when traditional
religions...reveal their insufficiency', These traditional
religions, he says, 'carry in themselves a promise but expect
something'. And at a time when their culture reaches out to a new
hour in history, 'two offers - Christianity and Islam - are history's
possible answers'. Interesting!
It is particularly what the Pope says next that most
mirrors our own Rector Major's comments. He asks priests, for
example, to 'deepen [their] personal relationship with the Lord...'
because 'through this personalization...new vocations grow'. He
also recommends more community life (he is speaking to priests at this
point): 'If young men see priests isolated, sad, tired, they say: if
that is my future, forget about it.' He then says that communion
of life must be really created to show the young 'yes, this can be a
future for me too, this can be life'.
And in a comment that could have come from the
commentary on the 2005 Strenna, the Pope says: 'It is important that
young people can discover the beauty of faith...that it is beautiful to
have God as a friend...this intellectual factor must then be
accompanied by an affective and social factor, that is by socialization
in faith...so that faith forms community, offers places of life,
convinces...'.
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