Church should not be afraid of change, says Pope Francis
At the Mass, Pope Francis beatified Pope Paul VI and also said that he wants a more merciful and less rigid Church
http:// www. asianage. com
Pope Francis has closed an assembly of Catholic bishops that revealed deep divisions on how to respond to homosexuality and divorce, saying on Sunday the Church should not be afraid of change and new challenges.
Francis, who has said he wants a more merciful and less rigid Church, made his comments in a sermon to some 70,000 people in St. Peter’s Square for the ceremonial closing of a twoweek assembly, known as a synod. The working session of the gathering ended on Saturday night with a final document that reversed a historic acceptance of gays by the Church made just a week earlier, a result some progressives see as a setback for Francis. “God is not afraid of new things. That is why he is continuously surprising us, opening our hearts and guiding us in unexpected ways,” the Pope said. At the Mass, he beatified Pope Paul VI, who died in 1978, bringing the Pontiff best known for concluding the ground- breaking reforms of the Second Vatican Council and enshrining the Church’s ban on contraception a step closer to sainthood.
After an initial draft of the synod’s final document was released on Monday, conservative bishops vowed to row back on the upbeat tone adopted regarding gays, cohabitation and remarriage, saying it would create confusion among the faithful and threatened to undermine the traditional family. The Pope said the Church had “to respond courageously to whatever new challenges come our way”. Francis called the synod, where some 200 bish- ops had heated debates on issues of sexual morality, “a great experience” because participants were able to speak “in true freedom and humble creativity”. Now, he said, “the Church is called to waste no time in seeking to bind up open wounds and to rekindle hope in so many people who have lost hope”.
The Pope, who urged the bishops to speak their minds frankly at the start of the meeting, told them on Saturday night that he would have been “worried and saddened” if there had not been such honest discussion during the gathering. Voting tallies released by the Vatican showed that three controversial articles, including the final version of one concerning gays, won an absolute majority but failed to get the required two- thirds vote.
Former Pope Benedict XVI attended Sunday’s Mass, making only his fourth public appearance at a major Church event.