I want to be a Priest to Forgive Sins

Exchanging emails recently with a young man about a vocation to the priesthood, I asked why he felt someone should be drawn to the priesthood, his reply was, "to forgive sins". Personally I thought that was pretty good, but maybe not what most bishops would regard as the normal answer, some might even find it an unacceptable answer.

Co-incidently, I then read Fr Z on Pope Francis' little homily from yesterday morning. It really is brilliant, I think I am going to put it on the back of next Sunday's newsletter. Fr Z is the expert "fisker" so read it there, rather than the Vatican Radio form below.

Interesting, JPII generation of priests wanted to teach or preach the faith, Benedict XVI generation of priests wanted to celebrate the liturgy reverently. I wonder will the Pope Francis generation want to be priests because they want to forgive sins. How exciting if they do".

In many ways what Francis says explains his motto: Miserando atque Eligendo my loose translation "I was given mercy and as a consequence I chose". A priest must be someone who is aware of God's mercy and his need for it. He should be ashamed of falling short of God's love, and be uncomfortable with it and want to seek God's mercy through the Sacrament of Mercy, often.

Pope Francis doesn't seem to be against daily confession, "And if tomorrow I do the same? Go again, and go and go and go .... He always waits for us".  Obviously there are dangers of a priest pandering to a neurosis or a penitent failing to make a firm enough purpose of amendmentment  but with a wise confessor can deal with that but God's mercy helps us to stop sinning. A priest never wastes time hearing Confessions or going to Confession himself. Amongst clergy we need to create culture of frequent Confession. Perhaps Pope Francis will do that, that will certainly be a huge step to "humbler, poorer Church", a Church that identifies with sinners.

I have met plenty of "good" priests and bishops, the less impressive ar those who are naturally good, the more impressive are those in whom one can actually see the workings of Grace. Not necessarilly the most good but certainly the most Holy, was a Bishop who lived with two elderly priests, who used to speak about them as "my confessors". I think he used to go to confession daily, either to one of these priest, or to a priest who he was visting, or to a priest who confessed to him.

"Walking in darkness means being overly pleased with ourselves, believing that we do not need salvation. That is darkness! When we continue on this road of darkness, it is not easy to turn back. Therefore, John continues, because this way of thinking made him reflect: 'If we say we are without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us'. Look to your sins, to our sins, we are all sinners, all of us ... This is the starting point. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful, He is so just He forgives us our sins, cleansing us from all unrighteousness…The Lord who is so good, so faithful, so just that He forgives. "
"When the Lord forgives us, He does justice" - continued the Pope - first to himself, "because He came to save and forgive", welcoming us with the tenderness of a Father for his children: "The Lord is tender towards those who fear, to those who come to Him "and with tenderness," He always understand us”. He wants to gift us the peace that only He gives. " "This is what happens in the Sacrament of Reconciliation" even though "many times we think that going to confession is like going to the dry cleaner" to clean the dirt from our clothes:
"But Jesus in the confessional is not a dry cleaner: it is an encounter with Jesus, but with this Jesus who waits for us, who waits for us just as we are. “But, Lord, look ... this is how I am”, we are often ashamed to tell the truth: 'I did this, I thought this'. But shame is a true Christian virtue, and even human ... the ability to be ashamed: I do not know if there is a similar saying in Italian, but in our country to those who are never ashamed are called “sin vergüenza’: this means ‘the unashamed ', because they are people who do not have the ability to be ashamed and to be ashamed is a virtue of the humble, of the man and the woman who are humble. "
Pope Francis continued: “ we must have trust, because when we sin we have an advocate with the Father, "Jesus Christ the righteous." And He "supports us before the Father" and defends us in front of our weaknesses. But you need to stand in front of the Lord "with our truth of sinners", "with confidence, even with joy, without masquerading... We must never masquerade before God." And shame is a virtue: "blessed shame." "This is the virtue that Jesus asks of us: humility and meekness".
"Humility and meekness are like the frame of a Christian life. A Christian must always be so, humble and meek. And Jesus waits for us to forgive us. We can ask Him a question: Is going to confession like to a torture session? No! It is going to praise God, because I, a sinner , have been saved by Him. And is He waiting for me to beat me? No, with tenderness to forgive me. And if tomorrow I do the same? Go again, and go and go and go .... He always waits for us. This tenderness of the Lord, this humility, this meekness .... "
This confidence, concluded Pope Francis "gives us room to breathe." "The Lord give us this grace, the courage to always go to Him with the truth, because the truth is light and not the darkness of half-truths or lies before God. It give us this grace! So be it. "

Peronism in the Apostolic Palace?

A political journalist friend of mine said, "If you want to understand Pope Francis, you have to understand Peronism". Certainly, Argentina's press seem to want to paint him as a Peronist.

Not being Argentinian, I don't understand it but it is something that can embrace the Kirchners but also those who oppose them. It seems to be about a strong (and benign) populist leader, who sets out to gain mass support, the message is simple: the national good, national harmony, national solidarity, an appeal to the majority, to the workers, in other words "the poor".

Peronism was Argentina's own response to the dictatorships of Europe. If one subtracts the Hitler pact, racism and the castor oil of pre-war Mussolini, who got the trains running on time, virtually destroyed the Mafia, brought about a sense of hope, economic well being, vitality and national pride, might well be more accessible model for Europeans. Mussolini was essentially a moderniser, who re-presented the dream of the ancient Rome. Someone once suggested that Mussolini modelled himself as a secular Pope and to some degree Pius XII modelled himself on Mussolini.

I am certainly not suggesting that Papa Bergoglio is a latter day Mussolini but getting the Church's trains running on time, getting rid of corruption, regaining the masses seems to be his mandate. The message of simplicity, or in fact simplifying the message, popularising, de-intellectualising seems to be what we have seen so far.

Despite the Tablet and other journals, Archbishop Piero Marini and a few other Curial members, the German Bishops, even our own Bishops, to some extent, presentation of Francis seems to want to present him as a break with Benedict, apart from the outward signs of Papacy, there doesn't seem to be a doctrinal rift, on the contrary Francis seems, in the best sense of the phrase, the poor man's Pope Benedict, speaking to the masses rather than an elite. In deed the announcement this week that he intends to complete Benedict's  encyclical on Faith seems to suggest continuation rather than rupture.

Even when he speaks to the Cardinals as he did on St George's day his message ended simply, "Avanti! Avanti!", (which might well ring bells, of good or ill, with certain Italians) or to biblical scholars, he seems more concerned to communicate to the doorman or the cleaners or the security men, or those beyond his immediate audience, to the masses.

Cripples, Non-entities, Mediocrities and Curial Reform

As Curial reform is very much in the air, let us start from basics. Is this true?

Bishops

"Most of the bishops, instead of being the strong characters presently needed, dynamic and active personalities, even if indeed pious and religious men are in effect at the same time mediocre, or even below mediocrity. Some are apathetic, timid, indolent or vain; others are conformists, bureaucrats or introverts; many are ignorant and clumsy administrators. 

Sometimes the whole episcopate of a country looks like a bunch of cripples".

Cardinals

"As for the cardinals, the senate of the Church and the electors of the pope, here the situation is even worse, particularly in the case of those attached to the Roman curia. The sacred college contains too many non-entities who have reached their rank by never asking awkward questions. The merit of many eminences is not their excellent pastoral experience or learning, but that of having staffed a Vatican desk for a very long time. Without any real knowledge of the world or the life of the universal Church, they are nevertheless automatically promoted and placed in executive jobs far above their modest talents."

Italians

"Almost half of the cardinals and the great majority of the curial ones are Italians, as if the Holy Ghost had a distinct preference for the Italian nation. 

This only aggravates the matter, for even if Italians may have many talents, they are certainly not noted for their organizational skills. For the universal Church, this is at the same time both an insult and an injustice. The few excellent foreign prelates present in the curia are examples of what the alternative might look like."

These aren't my words, they weren't even written recently, neither are the the criticism of someone on an extreme of the Church but by Willem Marinus van Rossum, a Dutch Redemptorist Cardinal who was Prefect of “Propaganda Fide" with Benedict XV and Pius XI.

In fact His Eminence actually is pretty damning about mediocre Popes too! Read more here.

Van Rossum's solution is "Collegiality", which seems to be the solution that VII and Pope Francis put forward, and practically everyone else. It probably is the answer but then Collegiality also brings problems - "too many cooks spoiling the broth", springs to mind, especially if the cooks are not too competent. What the Franciscan Papacy will bring, if anything, is too early to tell. So far it has brought about a fair degree of confusion, organs like the Tablet, America and NCR seem to think that everything including doctrine is up for grabs. The German Bishops have reversed rulings by Rome over abortiofacients. Other Episcopal Conferences seem to see the new Papacy as a time for continue to do their own thing, to appoint their own men, to build up their nationally distinct churches.

A Papal transition has always been a time for the worse of clerical activities; score settling and jockeying for position, power grabbing, intimidation, factionalism and gossip. The worse excesses of this happened before Benedict's election, during JPII's long death. The continuation between him and his successor who knew an awful lot about the different types of filth and a great deal about the problems of various Episcopal Conferences meant that apart from the press and getting Cardinal Sodano out of the Secretary of States office and apartments the transition was reasonable smooth. Pope Francis on the other hand is a complete outsider, who will take months at least, if not years, to "learn the job", if he is actually interested in doing so, whereas Benedict had twenty years plus understudying JPII at the CDF.

As far as E&W is concerned Benedict seemed to have deep understanding of both the history of modern Catholicism here, as well as, so I am told, by those who have discussed it with him, an understanding of our present problems too. As a polyglot I understand he was a regular, if critical, Tablet reader. I can't imagine that Pope Francis is, or has bothered to find out more than he was told by Archbishop Nichols on his recent visit with our Bishops to the Holy See, which probably means we will be left to go our own sweet way. As with England and Wales, so with the US and so many parts of the world.

Allowing that to happen is probably the easiest option but strongly local or national Churches growing in independence of Rome have historically always ended up in schism. That is the story of the Reformation, of Jansenism, of the rise of the Old Catholics and as Pope Bergoglio is only too aware of Liberation theology. Whilst guarding against Ultramontanism and excessive centralisation a weakened Papacy will bring about weakened sense of unity, and therefore of the faith.

The great weakness of the Papacy is the Pope himself, as Van Rossum said it is a superhuman task, placed on the shoulders of a rather frail mediocre human being. A serious question is can it continue to exist in its present form.

Vatican Radio "cleans-up" Pope's Sermon

One of the problems Pope Francis must address is the Church's relationship with the media, especially those closely associated with the Papal Court. I don't just mean the rather poisonous words of one or two Curial Archbishops who seem to want emphasise, not just a break in the Papal wardrobe with this Pope and his predecessor but real doctrinal differences. The problems seem much deeper.


Take for example yesterdays homily at the Pope's Mass, to which employees of the Vatican Bank had been invited, according to Rome Reports, the Pope made some pretty pointed remarks:

The Pope also said that the 'organizational aspects' of the Church should never be first in line. At that point, he said, the Church runs the risk of collapsing and becoming an NGO.

If you listen to the original, his unscripted weekday sermons are a bit rambling -see the RR recording of his St George's day sermon- but Vatican Radio in its English report seems to have airbrushed out these particular remarks, which, as there are strong rumours going around Rome that if the bank can't clean up its act it will be closed, seem pretty important.

As Peter above all the Apostles is given the specific role of feeding the Lord's Lambs it is important his words are reported accurately, it was precisely because his message was often distorted that Pope Benedict acted through Moto Propria and issued the texts of his teachings.

Tomas Luis Victoria: God's Composer

The BBC have a rather wonderful programme about Tomas Luis Victoria: God's Composer.
I hadn't realised St Theresa of Avila had actually written a reference for him, in fact I hadn't ralised he grew up in Avila, he seems to have been one of her many proteges. He would have associated with her other proteges like St John of the Cross, he was also a contemporary of El Greco.

In a world, even a Church, where beauty is so often held in contempt and everything seems to take on a certain uniform beigeness it is interesting to reflect on the extra-ordinary nature of the time of Victoria and his associates, his time in Rome I knew a little about, though it is hardly mentioned in the programme. He was an associate of St Philip Neri, he presumably knew St Ignatius, St Camillus de Lellis, he would have sang for and composed for St Pius V.

Holiness flourishes where there is holiness and where there is a general desire for excellence, external and internal beauty and even extravagance. The saints and artists, and saintly artists of the 16th century captured hearts and minds and formed a culture of beauty.

Do we have anything to learn from this extraordinary time, or is it just to be consigned to the museum?

A Modern George

  Sandro Magister has an account Bishop Ioan Ploscaru of the Greek-Catholic diocese of Lugo Romania who suffered for the faith through fifteen years of torture and imprisonment.

My cell was in the basement. The windows were broken, and the cell was very cold. I remained there for the whole month of December until January of 1950. The cold was torture for me. I was often taken to the interrogators at night. They would send me back and, after half an hour, I would be woken up again for another interrogation. The cold of the frozen cell consumed me. I slept very little, always with the urge to wake up again and move around. The chill came in through the broken window, leaving traces of frost on my beard and clothing. In three weeks I lost a great deal of weight. I prayed and offered all of the cold and all of the trials to the Savior. 

METHODS OF COERCION
The interrogations, like the beatings, took place right above our cell. We understood what was happening from the sounds, to which we listened in terror. Then the screams of those who were being beaten. They beat the soles of the feet with a bar of iron. The victim then had to run around if he did not want his feet to swell. The torture was repeated. Many had the bones of their feet dislocated. But heavier than a beating was isolation. They locked you in an empty cell and poured water on the cement floor. After a day or two the feet swelled and the heart could hold out no longer. The victim either fell into the water or asked to be taken out to “confess.”

Dragon Slaying Glorious Martyr

I love this altarpiece painted in honour of St George. One can dream that one day, when it is returned to the Church it might be possible to celebrate Mass before it.
It gives us the two narratives of St George, the dragon slaying, fair maiden rescuing, perfect chivalrous knight, and in the other panels the endless and painful tortures that led to him being called the "Glorious Martyr".
Dragons, speaking beasts with eyes and horns and crowns are very much part of the Apocalyptic tradition, so understanding them is no problem for us, George wrestles with beast in order to tame it, it is above all an image of the spiritual life, of the struggle that goes on within all of us until the tamed beast can be led chained into city of God.
The other panels show the various tortures George goes through before he dies for Christ, one suspects that any possible torture was added by the painter, until the whole thing becomes a catalogue of human brutality. The original story of this near eastern martyr is lost under layers of suffering upon suffering. In this sense George becomes an image of every-Martyr. His actual death is lost amid the process of enduring pain for Christ and receiving his divine reward.

It is the mythical nature of St George that I am sure made him so appealing to the medieval mind, and had him almost dropped even in England in the hyper-rational 70s. In my Paul VI breviary there is nothing except a hymn in the Propers for England an Wales.