On the heels of one controversial Vatican article alleging an “ecumenism of hate” between conservative Evangelicals and Catholics in America, another potential eyebrow-raiser emerged Saturday claiming that the “main obstacle” to implementing Pope Francis’s vision is “closure, if not hostility” from “a good part of the clergy, at levels both high and low.”
The term “high and low” suggests the author had in mind clergy ranging from senior bishops to ordinary parish priests.
“The clergy is holding the people back, who should instead be accompanied in this extraordinary moment,” said the article by Italian Father Giulio Cirignano, a native of Florence and a longtime Scripture scholar at the Theological Faculty of Central Italy.
The piece appeared in the weekend edition of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, under the headline of “The Conversion Asked by Pope Francis: Habit is not Fidelity.”
It comes a little over a week after the publication of an essay by Italian Jesuit Fr. Antonio Spadaro and Argentine Protestant Marcelo Figueroa, two close friends of Pope Francis, in the Jesuit-edited journal La Civilità Cattolica. In it, Spadaro and Figueroa described what they see was a “Manichean vision” underlying growing closeness in America between Evangelicals and “Catholic Integralists.”
“The main obstacle that stands in the way of the conversion that Pope Francis wants to bring to the Church is constituted, in some measure, by the attitude of a good part of the clergy, at levels high and low … an attitude, at times, of closure if not hostility,” Cirignano wrote.
Cirignano offered several factors to explain what he sees as “closure” and “hostility” from the clergy towards Pope Francis.
The “modest cultural level on the part of clergy, both at high and low levels,” he said, saying that both theological and Biblical preparation is often “scarce.”
An antiquated image of the priesthood, which, according to Cirignano, sees the priest as “the boss and patron of the community,” who, because of his celibate condition, is compensated with “totally individual responsibility,” a sort of “solitary protagonist.”
An old theology, associated with the Counter-Reformation, “lacking the resources of the Word, without a soul, that transformed the impassioned and mysterious adventure of believing into religion,” arguing that “the God of religion … is, for the most part, a projection of man, while “faith” is not in the first place “Man reaching for God, but the opposite.”
“When the priest is too marked by a religious mentality, and too little by a limpid faith, then everything becomes more complicated,” Cirignano wrote. “He risks remaining the victim of many things invented by man about God and his will.”
Full story at Crux.
The cult of personality surrounding this pope is creepy. That those sounding his praises are apparently blind to the destruction he’s wrought and continues to cause is depressing; they hail him as the savior.
Why don’t they all just forthrightly state that they want the Church to approve gay sex? That’s what all this is about. Stop talking and writing in code; stop with the studied ambiguity, such as in Amoris Laetitia. We know what the maggots in the Vatican all want. It’s never going to happen, though.
Did it mention any ‘Ob-Stackles’ arising from Church Funds used to support cocaine fueled homosex orgies in the Vatican – or is that too Un-Good to Judge?
a few months from now, the osservetore romano will run a headline something ‘angry, impatient pope threatens to bolt and just go Lutheran!’
Ha! “Modest theological and Biblical preparation.” This weird cast of characters in the Vatican seems to be sub-standard in these areas, and even more so in Church history and sacramental praxis. The typical new priests I meet coming from the local archdiocesan seminary seem to know more about Catholicism than many of the drones that have suddenly taken residence in Rome.
I have never seen a Pope who attacks his priests and bishops (and the faithful laity) as often and as viciously as this one does.
in the tradition of the church, the way doctrine made it into (or was kept in) practice was through the living teaching and enforcement through bishops, clergy saints and laypeople. the key enforcers,rottweilers, were the bishops and their theologians. the clergy are being pointed at in sharp words, but it’s really about doctrine. the approach of pointing at bad theology and bad priests is divisive. it will foment parishioners turning on ‘bad, old theology priests’ as they did in early vatican II implementation. at least in this outburst the fog has lifted and we see that division between ‘bad’ and ‘good’ theology. soon,probably, specifics will be given as to the bad old teachings.
drewelow, you make some good observations. Although doctrine, church teachings, should not change to meet the culture, there is always change in the winds. Today we live in a world that is moving at exponential speed. Culture is changing too fast. We have never seen anything like it in the history of the world. How the church confronts these rapid changes will do much to shape its survival. They say that the church makes quick decisions over a period of three centuries. Others take longer. Today, technology and knowledge doubles every two months or so. How we faced change in the past won’t work today. Its always good to think of modern change as a wave, vs. a line in the sand.. You never step in the same river twice!
Jesus Christ ensures the survival of the Church. So, this impetus to shift with the wind for “survival” sake is disingenuous and precisely that which leads to a Church with no Faith in Christ.
The Catholic Church does not need “conversion,” Pope Francis does!
Read “A.A. 1025” about the deliberate, planned strategy to infiltrate the Church with communism. It is all playing out now.
All smoke and mirrors with Cirignano. He fails to state precisely what chages need to be made. What does he mean by “modest cultural level?” Does that also refer to Christ himself?
The article in L’Osservatore Romano is a clear-eyed and candid admission that there is a major division in the Church. The division pits those who believe what the Church has traditionally thought and taught versus those who want to make fundamental changes along the line of the ” Anglican Communion.” I recall that Pope Benedict believed that the Church may well become more faithful while becoming much smaller. Father Cirignano’s comments seem to me to be making that case.
Will the leadership of the one holy apostolic Catholic Church in the future reside in Rome?
Cirignono says it’s an antiquated image, the priest as patron or protagonist. Perhaps he prefers the more in vogue “Partner” instead. And by extension he might have us see the Pope not as Pope, i.e., papa, father, but as “Comrade”.
Cirignono could well be on to something here. I see a pattern.
Bob One and his liberal word games: “Although doctrine, church teachings, should not change to meet the culture, there is always change in the winds. ” ie he wants to change doctrine to suit his wants. “Culture is changing too fast. We have never seen anything like it in the history of the world. ” Utter nonsense the fall of the Western Roman Empire launched western Europe in chaos and who was there to pick up the pieces the Holy Catholic Church, as it will once this corrupt culture crumbles to dust.