 |
| Rogation procession at the Pierre-qui-vire Abbey in the pre-conciliar years. |
It is a text that is difficult to read, because it is empty, and because, at each line of this chore that is willed as a hymn to consecrated life, we imagine that the Pope who wrote this or who signed that is the same one who destroyed the most flourishing of the recent institutes of consecrated life, the Franciscans of the Immaculate.
He destroys them in particular because they were each time more turned towards the traditional liturgy, which horrifies Francis (except when it is Eastern Orthodox). And that which is more spectacular in the letter to the Consecrated is that we cannot find in it a single time the words "liturgy" or "mass", no more than the word "sacraments".
We otherwise cannot see what is specifically Catholic in this consecrated life of which the pope speaks. It is largely a matter of communion, but the word seems to be above all a synonym for "meeting-mania". The leitmotiv is always the same: it is necessary to "go out" to "go to the peripheries". Therefore, first of all, to go out to organize meetings in order to know how we can be more efficacious... We know what this has provided to dioceses in the past 50 years...
I had already remarked that, in his address to the Major Superiors of religious orders and congregations, one year ago, Francis seemed to completely ignore the contemplative monastic vocation. I had titled this, "Have we suppressed monks?"
In the apostolic letter, the word "monastery" is mentioned twice: the first time, in an enumeration of the various sites of consecrated life, the second time in order to advise the monasteries to "meet or otherwise engage in an exchange of experiences on the life of prayer", etc. But is this the monastic vocation? If the monk lives within a cloister following the profession of his vow of stability, it is not in order to leave the cloister ceaselessly under various pretexts. Is this truly hard to understand? Or is it a Jesuit condition? (Yves Daoudal, in French)
