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Vatican City – French Pope Talk to the daughter-in-law because the mother-in-law has the intention. In the general audience he repeated that the Church is not a “political party” where everything works according to the mechanism of representative majorities, consortia or primaries. “The Church is not a market or a group of entrepreneurs who work in a company,” he said. The passage of the audience is yet to be deciphered but it seemed to refer to two abysses currently open.
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On the one hand, the question of poisons that agitate the curia, mainly due to the case Becciu which now appears for what it is, an artistically constructed patacca in a kind of conspiracy of the Palace formed by consortia. On the other hand, however, the words seem to describe what is happening in Germany, where the bishops have embarked on a revolutionary journey that is questioning the cornerstones of the magisterium or tradition ranging from the abolition of priestly celibacy, to the priesthood. feminine, from communion with Lutherans to transparency in the management of diocesan archives, finances or compensation for victims of pedophilia.
In short, a revolution underway that is creating quite a few headaches in Rome and is breaking the German bishops themselves. A few days ago, even the Munich Cardinal Marx opened – theoretically – a gap for a possible abolition of priestly celibacy in order to cope with the drastic decline in vocations and the fact that now, even in many German dioceses, parishes no longer they have priests available.
Pope Francis is not the first time he has intervened in the German synodal trip. He also did so with a formal letter, addressed to the episcopate last year to ask for unity of purpose and points of view. He had also received, in June of this year, the president of the episcopal conference and during the long conversation he had encouraged him to go ahead but keeping in mind the theme of unity.
This morning Francis recalled the pillars on which ecclesial life is based: “listening to the teaching of the apostles, safeguarding mutual communion, the breaking of bread and prayer. Everything in the Church that arises from these ‘coordinates’ has no foundations, it is like a house built on sand. It is God who makes the Church, not the cry of works. It is the word of Jesus that fills our efforts with meaning. With humility the future of the world is built ”.
Francisco also confessed to feeling “sadness” when he sees “some community that thinks of building a church with rallies, like a political party: ‘But what will the majority and the minority think?’ I wonder: but where is the community love?” The Church it is not a majority or minority company. The Church does not grow by proselytizing. The Church grows by attraction. If the Holy Spirit is lacking, there is no synodality. There is a club, there is no Church. “
The German Church has embarked on a complex path to cope with the continued bleeding of the faithful. In 2019 alone, 272,771 people left the Catholic Church. Cardinal Marx, during the synod on the Family, when explaining the need to rethink the relationship between the base and the ecclesial institutions, had blurted out: “It will certainly not be Rome who will tell us what to do.”
The official figures of the hemorrhage were recently published by the Episcopal Conference. The decline in the faithful is increasing compared to the 216,078 people who left in 2018.
The total number of Catholics in Germany at the end of 2019 was 22.6 million, or 27.2% of the population, up from 23 million, or 27.7%, in 2018.
The statistics of the German bishops have also brought to the surface other negative aspects for the life of the Church. The number of Catholics who regularly attend Mass has fallen to the lowest level in history: 9.1% in 2019, compared to 9.3% in 2018, as well as church weddings (-10%), confirmations (-7%) and first communions (-3%). The number of Catholic baptisms also fell in 2019 to 159,043 in 2019 compared to 167,787 in 2018, as well as admissions (2,330 in 2019 compared to 2,442 in 2018) and readmissions (5,339 in 2019 compared to 6,303 in 2018) in church.
The Catholic Church was not the only one to suffer a massive exodus of the faithful. The same fate affects the Evangelical Church and the Lutherans. There is a process of “decline in the reception of the sacraments” and the erosion of the personal ties of the Church.
Last updated: 11:03
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