Canada July 29, 2022
Complaining about the world is ‘not Christian’: Pope to Canadians
By Michael Swan
If Canadian Catholics were looking for a roadmap to reconciliation, Pope Francis laid it out for them at a vespers prayer service in Quebec City’s exquisite Notre Dame Basilica Cathedral on a rainy Thursday evening.
Speaking to a group of priests, bishops, deacons, consecrated persons, seminarians, and pastoral workers, Pope Francis urged those present to model Christian joy and fraternity to those to whom they minister.
He presented three challenges to the Church in Canada.
The first is to “make Jesus known,” proclaiming him in a similar way to the apostles in the Book of Acts, through “a pastoral creativity capable of reaching people where they are living, finding opportunities for listening, dialogue and encounter.”
The second challenge the Pope offered is “witness.” In this part of his speech, Pope Francis again acknowledged and apologized for the abuses suffered by Indigenous students at church-run residential schools in Canada.
The third challenge he offered is “fraternity.” The Pope encouraged the pastoral workers to examine how they are doing in terms of building “relationships of fraternity with everyone.”
“Are we brothers, or competitors split into parties? And how about our relationships with those who are not ‘one of our own,’ with those who do not believe, with those who have different traditions and customs? This is the way: to build relationships of fraternity with everyone, with Indigenous brothers and sisters, with every sister and brother we meet, because the presence of God is reflected in each of their faces.”
None of those three priorities for a reconciling Church has anything to do with having a negative, judgmental, condemnatory, defensive, narrow, navel-gazing version of Christian life, the Pope in his homily as part of the vespers service.
“The negative view is often born of a faith that feels under attack and thinks of it as a kind of ‘armour,’ defending us against the world,” he said.
A real Christian remembers that God chose to be incarnate in the world, he said.
“If we are limited to a negative view, we will end up denying the incarnation,” said Pope Francis. “We will flee from reality, lament our losses, constantly complain, and fall into gloom and pessimism, which never come from God.”
The alternative to a Church defined by nostalgia and a long list of secular enemies is a discerning Church, said Pope Francis. He praised the Canadian Church for discerning a path forward in the wake of its own history of sexual abuse.
“The Gospel is preached effectively when life itself speaks and reveals the freedom that sets others free, the compassion that asks for nothing in return, the mercy that silently speaks of Christ,” Pope Francis said.
“The Church in Canada has set out on a new path, after being hurt and devastated by the evil perpetrated by some of its sons and daughters,” the Pope observed.
“I think in particular of the sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable people, scandals that require firm action and an irreversible commitment. Together with you, I would like once more to ask forgiveness of all the victims. The pain and the shame we feel must become an occasion for conversion: Never again!” he said.
“And thinking about the process of healing and reconciliation with our Indigenous brothers and sisters, never again can the Christian community allow itself to be infected by the idea that one culture is superior to others, or that it is legitimate to employ ways of coercing others,” he vowed.
Francis also brought out the big guns of Canadian intellectual tradition, citing both McGill University philosopher Charles Taylor and Canadian Jesuit Bernard Lonergan. The Lonergan quote came from a 1974 essay The Future of Christianity.
“The love that God gives us overflows into love … It is a love that prompts the Good Samaritan to stop and take care of the traveller attacked by thieves. It is a love that has no borders, that seeks the kingdom of God … and this kingdom is universal,” Lonergan wrote.
The Pope urged his listeners to “recover the zeal of your first bishop, St. Francois de Laval, who railed against those who demeaned the Indigenous people by inducing them to imbibe strong drink in order then to cheat them. Let us not allow any ideology to alienate or mislead the customs and ways of life of our peoples, as a means of subduing them or controlling them.”
“Bitterly” complaining that “the world is evil; sin reigns” is “not Christian,” the Holy Father asserted.
“We are called, instead, to have a view similar to that of God, who discerns what is good and persistently seeks it, sees it and nurtures it,” the Pope preached.
“If we yield to the negative view and judge matters superficially, we risk sending the wrong message, as though the criticism of secularization masks on our part the nostalgia for a sacralized world, a bygone society in which the Church and her ministers had greater power and social relevance,” the Pope said.
“And this is a mistaken way of seeing things … secularization demands that we reflect on the changes in society that have influenced the way in which people think about and organize their lives,” he continued. “If we consider this aspect of the question, we come to realize that what is in crisis is not the faith, but some of the forms and ways in which we present it.”
The Pope received a standing ovation after his homily.
He spoke following an introduction and welcome from Bishop Raymond Poisson, president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Afterward Archbishop Gerald Lacroix, Archbishop of Quebec and Primate of Canada, accompanied the Pope to the tomb of St. Francis de Laval, where they prayed silently.
Continuing what he has called a “penitential pilgrimage” in Canada, Pope Francis was set to fly north on Friday, July 29, to Iqaluit, to meet privately with students of the former residential schools. He will return to Rome the same day, arriving on Saturday, July 30.
The Catholic Register with files from Catholic News Agency