On November 6, San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy delivered the MacTaggart Lecture at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. In his talk, entitled “Rekindle the Fire,” Bishop McElroy discusses his experience attending the recent Pan-Amazon Regional Synod in Rome and citing Pope Francis, noted that the “synodal pathway” offered an opportunity to “rekindle and renew” the Catholic Church in the United States.
During the month of October, I had the great privilege of participating in the Synod on the Amazon in Rome. It was a gathering overflowing with the Spirit of God that constituted a dramatic, prayerful effort to address a central question: How can the Church in the Amazon ever more effectively proclaim the salvation of Jesus Christ in its fullness, so that all men and women of the region, especially indigenous peoples, might find in the Church a true sacrament of God’s love and the pursuit of justice for the poor and for the Earth?
In order to begin to answer this question, the Church in the region had engaged during the previous two years in a massive process of discernment reaching into the depths of the Catholic communities in the villages and the forests, in the cities and among the landless communities of itinerants. Through conversations with catechists and liturgical leaders, with village congregations and with the urban parish communities, with bishops and priests and local parish leaders, most of whom are women, the Catholic community sought to identify the dreams and the hopes, the sufferings and the questions, the frustrations and the spiritual joy which the people of God find in the Church and need from the Church.
This process of consultation and discernment gave particular priority to hearing the voices of those who are usually excluded from meaningful participation, particularly the indigenous peoples of the region who have historically been the victims of discrimination within society and in the life of the Church….
I have been asked in this lecture so suggest how the Church in the United State might move forward from this most painful moment in its history. My suggestion would be to embrace the type of synodal pathway that the Church in the Amazon has been undergoing — one filled with deep and broad consultation, the willingness to accept arduous choices, the search for renewal and reform at every level, and unswerving faith in the constancy of God’s presence in the community.
….An authentic process of synodality must never be an elite process, for it represents the action of the whole people of God.
….It is my reluctant conclusion that the Church in the United States is now adrift on many levels, and that a fundamental moment of renewal is needed. A synodal pathway would be an opportunity to set that type of renewal in motion.
If the Church in the United States were to embark on such a synodal renewal, it would need to make hard choices. The Catholic community could not hold back from difficult and piercing questions or searing dialogues. It would have to include a process of consultation that reaches into the heart and the soul of the Catholic community at all levels, asking men and women how they have found salvation in Jesus Christ, what graces the Church has brought into their lives, how the Church has hurt them.
Two major elements of the culture of the Church in the United States are particularly burdensome today, and cause us to turn inward, rather than outward toward the evangelization of the world.
The first is the bunker mentality that suffuses the life of the Church, especially for those of us who are bishops or Catholic lay, priestly, and religious leaders in the United States. We are frequently paralyzed by the constancy and substance of attacks launched upon the community of faith which we love so deeply and to which we have given our lives. In great part this bunker mentality has arisen because of the pervasive failure of the Church and its leaders to recognize the enormity of the crime of clergy sexual abuse, particularly against minors. But this bunker mentality within the Church is also the result of secularizing trends in society that have led to drift and alienation from the Church, especially among the young, as well as the disaffection of mainstream Catholics from elements of Catholic teaching on sexuality and the moral life. There is a palpable sense of siege among the leadership of the Church in the United States. It saps our ability to engage constructively with the world, to find the energy and the hope-filled zeal to undertake new initiatives and our ability to clearly discern where the call of Christ is truly leading us.
Let us rekindle the fire.
The above comes from a story on sdcatholic.
The only fire rekindled by the Synod be the fires of hell.
Bishop, please be honest. Are any of the following part of your agenda: abandoning priestly celibacy, women deacons, women priests, women bishops, LGBTQ clergy, same-sex “couple” blessing, Holy Communion for couples having sex but not the sacrament of matrimony, introduction of Pachamamas and other non-Christian symbols (if not worship!) or other issues that haven’t yet been brought up? Your statement is so vague and PC that one cannot tell what you’re proposing. Honesty is not too much to ask of a leader, especially one in the Church. “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” Bishop, please, this is an honest, sincere question. If you really want true dialogue, you need to be clear and honest, as do those with whom you dialogue. Those of you in the San Diego Diocese, consider asking your shepherd.
I did not know that so many meaningless platitudes would fit into a few paragraphs.
I wholeheartedly agree with you James! I read through the whole thing and finally realized that they did not say anything. They like to expend a lot of effort to do nothing. It is no surprise that our religious leaders never fix any problems. Expect the sex abuse scandals to continue. Your comment was right on.
” Yes let us destroy and wipe out any remant of previous Catholic identity and patrimony when the Church was strong and vibrant and let us replace it with a pagain ideology where the name of Jesus Christ is not mentioned so no offended the indigenous people of the Amazon”
I completely agree with Anonymous Clergyman. McElroy is the person that Archbishop Viganò testified that had the San Diego See reserved by Pope Francis ahead of any terna. We have a bunker mentality because the Church is so important to US and the World.
I sometimes think a required seminary course is ‘Nothing Speak’ — how to say one thousand words without really saying anything meaningful.
Mike M., I think we need a collaborative synodal pathway to address the indigenous leaderlessness of landless climate change. We need a paradigm shift to bring about the best practices of consultation, discernment and meaningful participation. We need to embark on thinking outside the box of our core values in order to move our community forward from the Church’s “most painful moment in its history.” This requires a marginalization of a process of consultation freeing us from elite trigger words and creating safe spaces. We need to expand from the narrowness of doctrine and Christocentric phobias. This will require all (who agree with us, at least) to engage all of our energies and giftedness in a spirit of Amazonian inclusion, since this is, of course, the Church’s “most painful moment in history,” with the exception of brilliant, tolerant episcopal leadership. Is there some part of that that you don’t understand?
You have a job waiting at the Chancery. :)
However, you didn’t incorporate the word “woundedness”. Be more careful next time.
Multiplicity of words, changing meaning, equivocating higher value with a lesser, euphemisms, slogans, are effective ways of changing peoples’ minds; effective propaganda climate, politics, science, medicine, and religion. Hold to the Catholic faith, constant doctrine, obedience to conscience, CCC 1776 “Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.” Avoid novelties in the church.
OK, what the heck? Apparently, if we Catholics could only shift our focus to the Amazon we’d magically set our faith renewal in motion, or something like that, and so on, or whatever. Aren’t we all inspired and fired up with that optimistic lecture, so wondrously filled with obscure references to morality and bunker mentality and arduous choices? What do the indigenous peoples of the Amazon have to do with the Church leadership’s “palpable sense of siege” that seems to sap their ability to engage constructively with the rest of the developed world? My guess is that the leadership has found a way to deal with their paralysis by further confusing the laity with lectures filled with dissimulation and ambiguity.
Anonymous Clergyman — How I wish that you would use your real name here. How I hope and pray that you will find strength in our Lord to help us lay folks in these perilous and needful times. Personally, I believe that the time is now very short and the great chastisement is now inevitable.
Time for repentance, prayer and acts of reparation.
This novelty for the U.S.church will filter down to parishes. Laity must care for their souls in prayer, fasting, sacraments, confession, mercy, led by the Holy Spirit, even if not “receiving” novel teachings, just like novelty promoters say, “I have not received this teaching, therefore I follow my conscience.” Priests won’t go against bishops’ corporate styles which can detract from salvation to favor current novelties; but we need to preach salvation from sin for eternal life, offer word, sacrament, real evangelization of Jesus crucified, resurrected for us, who changes us, giving eternal life to our souls who will find Jesus in His church.
Spoken like a true liberal politician!
Lord, give us a true Catholic shepherd.
So many comments from people who completely misunderstood this article. Please click the link. Let go of all prior judgement about the bishop and the US Church and the Amazon synod. Read for understanding. Once you have read and re-read the linked piece, write a thoughtful and charitable response and send it to this bishop or your own. If you don’t understand something, ask for clarification. Post here, if you like, your own ideas on how to help the Church in US and the World. I would be interested in reading them.
@ Anonymous: Please do not speak to us as a parent to a toddler. I read the link in full and, instead of the words filling me with hope for my beloved faith, I am left feeling empty and bewildered at the mixed message and the thinly veiled accusatory tone of this bishop toward the laity. Our Church is under siege, not by the laity, but by the leadership, and this forum is an outlet for us to express these frustrations in public.
Silent Observer , amen ! it is not thinly veiled it is out int he open , the hope for the church is in the laity , be strong , you are not alone , be a happy warrior.
Anonymous , words mean things , that is why we have a language , let go of our prior judgement ? No ! our experiences inform our ability to understand and discern truth and moral guidance , it should be a clear and direct message to the faithful .Read for understanding , ok I like others already do that , your entry for example I understood it and did not have to reread it , why was this lecture not the same ?. A thoughtful and charitable response, how about a clear direct honest response, things are not going well in the church and this man given his past is not a good choice to lead us out of this crisis. Clarification ? no not needed it was clear in it’s tone, how to help the church and the world ? the church should stop any SJW activity and focus on teaching the the faith in the traditional form , kick out the james martin and others of his ilk, be honest and respect the laity , be responsible stewards of the faith and church resources .
To put it all in plain English. What a multitude of words to say a whole lot of nothing, and to think of the paper wasted. Pachamama is crying.
Give me that Old Time Religion with fire and brimstone. At least I understood that. Thank you Fr. Perozich for making sense in far fewer words. If it filters down, please send it back up — in smoke.
I meant if the novelty filters down, please send it back up — in smoke.
This reminds me of what happened in the public schools in California, which once were some of the finest in the world.. They threw out tried and true methods in many cases and put in novelty after novelty after novelty until “Johnny” could no longer read at grade level. Most often it was just to keep the federal dollars rolling. Sorry to be so pessimistic, but I have seen my state destroyed in so many ways it hard to take.
Jesus did not use a bunch of meaningless jargon that no one understood. Jesus spoke clearly, like one time when he said “Get behind me, Satan.”
“Let us rekindle the fire.”
I’d rather fire the rekindlers.
Cruz Luze — Amen to that! Hahaha.