from: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2013
Eight cardinals appointed by Pope Francis to help him come up with a plan to reform the Vatican will meet October 1-3. Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston is the only American on the committee. This is because American bishops have been vocal on radical reform for Roman Catholic Church.
The cardinals are to meet at the time in a historic move that will see Richard Dawkins-atheists in Ireland have secured the right to teach the republic’s primary schoolchildren that God doesn’t exist.
The first ever atheist curriculum for thousands of primary-school pupils in Ireland has been drawn up by Atheist Ireland in an education system that the Catholic church hierarchy has traditionally dominated.
The class of September 2014 will be reading texts such as Dawkins’ The Magic of Reality, his book aimed at children, as well as other material at four different primary levels, according to Atheist Ireland.
Up to 16,000 primary schoolchildren who attend the fast-growing multi-denominational Irish school sector will receive direct tuition on atheism as part of their basic introduction course to ethics and belief systems.
Although the Catholic bishops in Ireland may not allow this subject to be taught for catholic children, but Michael Nugent, Atheist Ireland’s co-founder, stressed that all primary-school pupils, including the 93 percent of the population who attend schools run by the Catholic church, can access their atheism course on the internet and by downloading an app on smartphones.
There will be a module of 10 classes of between 30 to 40 minutes from the ages of four upwards. Atheists see their course as a chance for young Irish children to get an alternative view on how the world works.
This comes when Catholics are left wondering as to what exactly can we expect from these cardinals, who will meet Oct. 1-3.
Following Pope Francis recent extensive interview of his new papacy, jointly published by La Civiltà Cattolica and America Magazine, there are four areas that the pope may want the change focus on:
1. The church must have a pastor’s heart
Since Pope Francis took over as a pope in charge of 1.2 billion Catholics, his wish has been that the church must be a field hospital. He sees clearly that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity.
The church foremost he says is about healing people, emotionally, spiritually, physically, and even healing from wounds that the church itself has inflicted. He says faith is not about just attending mass, following rules and asking forgiveness when the rules are broken. People need a church that loves in practical ways. Catholicism’s future, he explains, depends upon the courage to change and adopt this attitude.
2. True faith that putts people over issues
But Pope Francis argues that issues need to be based on people, not the other way around. Instead of starting with the issue of abortion and Catholic teaching about it, for example, priests must think about the person they are ministering to and what it means for her future — if a woman has had an abortion, a priest needs to help her move forward in her life, which means an emphasis on grace and not sin.
The same is true for gay marriage. This reframes the emphasis in church life. “God is greater than sin,” the Pope says. “The confessional is not a torture chamber, but the place in which the Lord’s mercy motivates us to do better.”
3. The church must stop narrowing Jesus’ message to the old issues of abortion, gay marriage and contraception
Francis pushes the church away from its focus on culture-war issues. He says we cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods.
The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The message of the Gospel, therefore, is not to be reduced to some aspects that, although relevant, on their own do not show the heart of the message of Christ.
Religious men and women are to be prophets, he says, meaning they must speak God’s love, and not condemnation, into daily life. At times that means they mess up the current order of things.
It is a view he shared when he asked young people to stir up troubles in their dioceses and exchange the church’s traditional clericalism for a new attitude of compassion, especially for the poor.
4. Women are essential to church life
On his return trip from Rio de Janeiro, the pope hinted that the church lacked a strong theology of women and their participation in Christian life. The church he says has to work harder to develop a profound theology of women within the church.
This is because the feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions. The feminine is part of God’s plan for the church, and the Catholic Church needs to better grow into that theological truth. Pope Francis dreams of a church that is a mother and shepherdess.
But liberal Catholics are saying this is not enough and have asked to meet the pope to add their views when meeting begins to talks next week.
More than 100 groups of reform-minded Roman Catholics sent the appeal in an open letter to the pope and the eight cardinals he has chosen to help him govern the Church and reform its troubled bureaucracy.
The groups come from around the globe, mostly the English-speaking world but also Germany, Austria, France, Poland, Spain and India.
They want the pope to come with clear guidelines of what to do with mismanagement by bishops, especially in covering up for sexually abusive priests.
The letter also appeals for divorced and remarried Catholics to be allowed to receive the Eucharist. They also call for women priests, although Francis ruled that out in July, saying that women cannot be ordained priests because Jesus only ordained men.
The groups also said homosexual Catholics should have “full participation in the life of the Church and its service.”
The eight cardinals come from Italy, Chile, India, Germany, Democratic Republic of Congo, the United States, Australia, and Honduras, indicating Francis intends to heed calls by bishops from around the world to have more say in Vatican decisions.
The meeting is about to begin at the time Father Greg Reynolds of Melbourne, Australia found out last week that Pope Francis had excommunicated him, and he was shocked. Father Granted supports women’s ordination and gay marriage.
Excommunication is a severe penalty in the Catholic Church. Today it is the church’s harshest punishment, and it means an individual can no longer participate in the sacraments or worship ceremonies, much less ever officiate a mass again.
Father Granted has officiated mass weddings for gay couples, even though he claimed they were unofficial, and he justified his actions as a call for reform.
One thing for sure is very obvious, that one of the new pope’s most important challenges is to repair the tainted image of the Roman Catholic Church following revelations regarding sexual abuse of children by priests.
Critics have also urged Francis to deal with financial corruption, increasing secularism among the Catholics and the prevalence of homosexuality among members of the clergy in the Church.
Francis will have also to deal with challenges including “a shortage of priests, growing competition from evangelical churches in the Southern Hemisphere, and difficulties governing the Vatican itself.
Pope Francis should also tackle the issue of a divided church in the United States. Various cases of child abuse in the US alone have cost the Catholic Church more than USD 3 billions.
According to a recent survey, most US Catholics consider the cases of sexual abuse as the most important challenge which should be confronted by the new pope.
Ever since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), reformers have been calling for more collegiality and subsidiarity (decentralization) in the church and good management.
Good management involves adopting the best practices of business and government in managing finances and personnel, such as standard accounting practices, good financial records, internal and external audits, open and competitive bidding on contracts, transparency, conflict of interest rules, etc.
Although when the Protestant Reformation in Europe in the first half of the 16th century seriously challenged the Roman Catholic Church, this did not go very well with the church hierarchy, the Catholic Church has recognized that some Protestant criticisms were valid, and successive sessions of the Council of Trent, held between 1545 and 1563, aimed to tackle some of these issues.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
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Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ
UN Disarmament
Conference, 2002