Not even the setting (the beautiful and vast Metropolitan Cathedral of São Paulo), the music (some tasteful polyphonic pieces and an aesthetically deficient, yet dignified, use of plainchant for the psalms and hymns of Vespers -- unfortunately, in the vernacular), nor the overall attentive mood of those who were present at the event could possibly have prepared the largest episcopate in the world for the remarkable speech of the Holy Father to the Bishops of Brazil.
The Holy Father delivered a precise diagnosis of the deep crisis of the Catholic Church in Brazil - extensive to many other nations: all important topics were covered by the Pope, from liturgical disobedience to attentiveness to the sexual maturity of seminarians, from a condemnation of the use of the Church as a field for ideological confrontation to the need to be clear in all ecumenical settings that the only Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church presided by the Successor of Peter.
In our modest opinion, this remarkable speech (in English - called a "homily" in the Official Program, due to its liturgical setting, but not particularly homiletic) is one of the most important of the Pontificate, along with the Christmas Address of 2005 and the Regensburg Address of 2006. The true question is, however: will the bishops of the world understand and take heed of this Papal reprimand?
Some excerpts (our translation from the actual Portuguese text spoken by the Holy Father):
The Holy Father delivered a precise diagnosis of the deep crisis of the Catholic Church in Brazil - extensive to many other nations: all important topics were covered by the Pope, from liturgical disobedience to attentiveness to the sexual maturity of seminarians, from a condemnation of the use of the Church as a field for ideological confrontation to the need to be clear in all ecumenical settings that the only Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church presided by the Successor of Peter.
In our modest opinion, this remarkable speech (in English - called a "homily" in the Official Program, due to its liturgical setting, but not particularly homiletic) is one of the most important of the Pontificate, along with the Christmas Address of 2005 and the Regensburg Address of 2006. The true question is, however: will the bishops of the world understand and take heed of this Papal reprimand?
Some excerpts (our translation from the actual Portuguese text spoken by the Holy Father):
The mission which is entrusted to us [bishops], as Masters of the faith, consists in remembering, as the same Apostle of the Gentiles wrote, that our Savior "wishes all men to be saved and to reach the knowledge of truth" (I Tim 2, 4-6). This, and not anything else, is the purpose of the Church: the salvation of souls, one by one.
......in the Church's bosom, when the worth of priestly commitment -- as a total pledge to God through the apostolic celibacy and as total availability to serve souls -- is questioned, with preference being granted to ideological and political, even partisan, questions, the structure of total consecration to God begins to lose its deepest significance. How can we not feel sorrow in our soul? But be confident: the Church is holy and incorruptible! (cf. Eph. 5, 27). Saint Augustine said, "The Church will fail if its foundation fails, but shall Christ fail? As Christ cannot fail, the Church will remain intact until the end of time."
...
It seems clear that the main cause, among others, for this problem [of Catholics who leave the Church] can be attributed to the lack of an evangelization in which Christ and His Church are in the center of every explanation.
...
It is not enough to observe reality through faith; it is necessary to work with the Gospel in the hands and grounded on the rightful heritage of Apostolic Tradition, without interpretations caused by Rationalist ideologies.
...
A stern message to the strong centrifugal forces in the Brazilian episcopate:
Some among you have fomented movements of evangelization to help the gathering of the faithful in a line of action. The Successor of Peter counts on you so that your groundwork shall always be anchored to that spirituality of communion and fidelity to the See of Peter, so that the action of the Spirit will not be in vain.
In effect, the integrity of the faith, along with ecclesial discipline, is and will always be a theme which will demand attention and zeal from all of you, especially when one considers the consequences of the fact that there is "one only faith and one only baptism".
A warning about the problems of Ecumenism:
... Ecumenism, that is, the search for the unity of Christians, becomes in this our age, in which the meeting of cultures and the challenge of Secularism take place, an ever more urgent task for the Catholic Church. However, with the multiplication of always new Christian denominations, and above all due to certain varieties of frequently aggressive proselytism, the ecumenical effort becomes a complex task. ...the principle of fraternal love and the search for mutual comprehension and understanding always matter; but also the defense of the faith of our people, confirming them in the joyful certainty that "unica Christi Ecclesia... subsistit in Ecclesia catholica, a successore Petri et Episcopis in eius communione gubernata” (the one Church of Christ ... subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him - Lumen Gentium, 8)
