...Pope Francis devotes much of his exhortation to the shortcomings of the church itself. He laments its "excessive centralization" in the Vatican, which he finds a hindrance to the church's "missionary outreach." He complains about members of religious orders who show an "inordinate concern for their personal freedom and relaxation," and about priests "obsessed with protecting their free time."
The pope criticizes those who show an "ostentatious preoccupation with the liturgy, doctrine and the church's prestige, but without any concern that the Gospel have a real impact on God's faithful people and the concrete needs of the present time." He upbraids Catholics with a "business mentality, caught up with management, statistics, plans and evaluations, whose principal beneficiary is not God's people but the church as an institution." And he regrets that women do not yet have a sufficient role in decision-making within the church.
Pope Francis also deplores divisiveness within the ranks, writing: "It always pains me greatly to discover how some Christian communities, and even consecrated persons, can tolerate different forms of enmity, division, calumny, defamation, vendetta, jealousy and the desire to impose certain ideas at all costs, and even persecutions which appear as veritable witch hunts. Whom are we going to evangelize if this is the way we act?"
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The pope criticizes those who show an "ostentatious preoccupation with the liturgy, doctrine and the church's prestige, but without any concern that the Gospel have a real impact on God's faithful people and the concrete needs of the present time." He upbraids Catholics with a "business mentality, caught up with management, statistics, plans and evaluations, whose principal beneficiary is not God's people but the church as an institution." And he regrets that women do not yet have a sufficient role in decision-making within the church.
Pope Francis also deplores divisiveness within the ranks, writing: "It always pains me greatly to discover how some Christian communities, and even consecrated persons, can tolerate different forms of enmity, division, calumny, defamation, vendetta, jealousy and the desire to impose certain ideas at all costs, and even persecutions which appear as veritable witch hunts. Whom are we going to evangelize if this is the way we act?"
Read it all.
