Climate change, call for pastoral dialogue are pope’s focus in DC

The takeaway from Pope Francis’ meeting with President Obama at the White House this morning:

— The pope offered a generic endorsement of the U.S. bishops’ campaign for “religious liberty.” Without getting into specifics, the pope seemed to indicate that he had the bishops’ backs on issues of disagreement with the Obama administration, including alleged discrimination over some health care provisions and gender policies.

— The pope weighed in on the challenge of climate change, and in the process endorsed Obama’s recently proposed “Clean Power Plan,” which has drawn criticism from political opponents.

–The pope applauded, indirectly, the recent U.S.-Cuban diplomatic agreement, saying we need more international efforts to mend “broken relationships.”

The pope introduced himself as a “son of an immigrant family,” and in general lauded the founding principles of the United States and gently challenged Americans to live up to them.

Next stop was with U.S. bishops at the Washington cathedral, and here the pope had much more to say, and with a certain eloquence. Again, he framed his remarks with a long list of positives, including the “remarkable growth” of the church in the United States, the commitment to pro-life causes (he specifically mentioned victims of abortion), the church-run school system and its outreach to immigrants.

His words on sexual abuse by clerics – he avoided the term “sexual abuse,” referring instead to “dark moments in recent history” – praised the bishops, saying they had shown courage and made sacrifices in attempting to regain authority and trust, bring healing to the victims and make sure “such crimes will never be repeated.” His words were met with applause; there was not a hint of papal criticism on this score.

When it came to the bishops’ overall mission, Pope Francis made several important points:

— First, he said he was speaking not “with my voice alone, but in continuity with the words of my predecessors.” It might seem unnecessary to say, but evidently the pope wanted to make it explicit.

— While stating he did not come to “lecture” or judge the bishops, the pope outlined key principles that he considered “helpful for our mission.” The first was that bishops are above all shepherds, and their main task is to reach out to people.

“It is not about preaching complicated doctrines, but joyfully proclaiming Christ who died and rose for our sake. The ‘style’ of our mission should make our hearers feel that the message we preach is meant ‘for us,’” he said.

He said bishops also need to “flee the temptation of narcissism, which blinds the eyes of the shepherd, makes his voice unrecognizable and his actions fruitless.”

— It helps if bishops are farsighted and shrewd, the pope said. But they also must not invest too heavily in worldly battles, he added.

“Woe to us, however, if we make of the cross a banner of worldly struggles and fail to realize that the price of lasting victory is allowing ourselves to be wounded and consumed,” he said.

The bishops should avoid the temptations of licking one’s wounds, thinking back on bygone times and devising “harsh responses to fierce opposition,” he said.

— The church’s mission, he said, is to promote a culture of encounter. Its method is dialogue, and authentic dialogue reaches out beyond the church’s boundaries, toward those who disagree with the church on some issues.

The bishops should recognize that the power of love “counts more than their positions, distant as they may be from what we hold as true and certain.”

“Harsh and divisive language does not befit the tongue of a pastor, it has no place in his heart; although it may momentarily seem to win the day, only the enduring allure of goodness and love remains truly convincing.”

— The bishops’ service to unity is also essential, especially in a world broken by divisions, the pope said. He said the United States’ vast material, spiritual, cultural and technological resources “impose specific moral responsibilities” in today’s world.

“The innocent victim of abortion, children who die of hunger or from bombings, immigrants who drown in the search for a better tomorrow, the elderly or the sick who are considered a burden, the victims of terrorism, wars, violence and drug trafficking, the environment devastated by man’s predatory relationship with nature – at stake in all of this is the gift of God, of which we are noble stewards but not masters. It is wrong, then, to look the other way or to remain silent.”

The pope closed by asking bishops to be pastors who are close to their people, and to train their priests to do the same. He also encouraged them to continue their ministry to immigrants, especially during an influx of Latin Americans, saying that “no American institution does more for immigrants than your Christian communities."

At final Mass in Cuba, pope calls for ‘revolution of tenderness’

On the final day of his visit to Cuba, Pope Francis continued to promote his vision of a church that gets out of the sacristy and into people’s lives.

Celebrating Mass today at Cuba’s popular Shrine of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre in Santiago, the pope said Mary offered a perfect example of faith in action, a response to God’s call to move out of one’s comfort zone.

“God’s presence in our lives never leaves us tranquil: it always pushes to do something. When God comes, he always calls us out of our house,” the pope said.

“We are asked to live the revolution of tenderness as Mary, our Mother of Charity, did. We are invited to ‘leave home’ and to open our eyes and hearts to others,” he said. “Our revolution comes about through tenderness, through the joy which always becomes closeness and compassion, and leads us to get involved in, and to serve, the life of others.”

Faith calls Christians to visit the sick, the imprisoned and the suffering, as well as to “laugh with those who laugh, and rejoice with our neighbors who rejoice,” the pope said. The church needs to go forth from its chapels and sacristies “to build bridges, to break down walls, to sow seeds of reconciliation.”

This, of course, has been a strong theme of Francis’ pontificate from Day 1.

In Cuba, the pope seemed much more intent on rallying Christians to live their faith fully than critiquing the government on religious freedom issues. We’ll see if that changes in his final encounter before boarding a plane for Washington this afternoon.

UPDATE: Weakening of family ties leads to broken societies, pope tells Cubans

Pope Francis ended his trip to Cuba with a reflection on the state of the family, warning that the weakening of traditional family bonds leads to societies that are divided, broken or “rigidly uniform.”

The pope spoke at an encounter in Santiago with thousands of Cuban families, who packed the city’s cathedral. He moved slowly but smiled as he greeted the crowd on the fourth day of a 10-day trip that would take him to the United States later in the day.

The pope, who will preside over a World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia and a second session of the Synod of Bishops on the family in October, said it is in the home where people learn to get along, to help each other and to forgive. The shared experiences and spaces of family life are essential for healthy societies, he said.

“In many cultures today, these spaces are shrinking, these experiences of family are disappearing, and everything is slowly breaking up, growing apart. We have fewer moments in common, to stay together, to stay at home as a family,” he said.

“As a result, we don’t know how to be patient, we don’t know how to ask permission or forgiveness, or even to say ‘thank you,’ because our homes are growing empty. Empty of relationships, empty of contacts, empty of encounters.”

The pope said this leads to a weakening of the networks that sustain society.

“The family saves us from two present-day phenomena: fragmentation (division) and uniformity. In both cases, people turn into isolated individuals, easy to manipulate and to rule. Societies which are divided, broken, separated or rigidly uniform are a result of the breakup of family bonds,” he said.

After the meeting, the pope gave an impromptu blessing to a cheering crowd gathered outside the cathedral, telling them: “Thank you. You make me feel like I’m at home.”

Poverty and mercy: key themes in Cuba

In Cuba, Pope Francis has not said much about church-state political questions. Instead he is diving deeply into his call for a church that is poor, merciful and forgiving.

His talks Sunday and Monday have been fascinating, and at times pure Francis – his off-the-cuff riff on “poverty” in an encounter with church ministry personnel was classic.

But if the pope uses the same language when he comes to the United States, he’s likely to need an official explainer. I’m not sure most people will understand what he means by evangelical poverty and the idea that “wealth makes people poor.”

“How many souls have been destroyed! Generous souls … that began well and then became attached to that rich worldliness, and ended up badly. In other words, mediocre. They ended up without love,” he told priests, nuns and seminarians Sunday evening.

“The spirit of poverty, the spirit of detachment, the spirit of leaving everything to follow Jesus. This leaving everything is not something I made up. It’s found various times in the Gospel. In the call of the first ones, who left their boat, their nets and followed him. Those who left everything to follow Jesus,” he said.

The church, too, has to resist the temptation to accumulate wealth. “Bad accountants are among the best blessings for the church, because they make it free, they make it poor,” he said.

He echoed that message when talking a little later with young people, saying youths today are “part of the throwaway culture.”

“All of us know that today, in this empire of the god money, things are thrown away and people are thrown away, children are thrown away, because they are unwanted, because they kill them before they are born, the elderly are thrown away — I’m speaking of the world in general — because they don’t produce anymore. In some countries, there is legal euthanasia, but in so many others there is a hidden, covered up euthanasia. Youth are thrown away because they are not given work.”

When it comes to the role of the church, the pope emphasized closeness to the people, especially those who are suffering and who need forgiveness. Priests in particular, he said, need to seek out the hungry, the imprisoned and the sick, and make the confessional a place of mercy.

When someone confesses their weaknesses, the pope told priests, “don’t yell at them, don’t punish them, don’t castigate them. If you have no sin, then you can throw the first stone.” He added: “Please, do not tire of forgiving. Be forgivers. Do not hide behind fear and rigidity.”

At a Mass Monday in Holguin, Cuba’s third-largest city, Pope Francis returned to the theme of mercy and its capacity to change people. He said Christ’s calling of St. Matthew, a tax collector who became his disciple, showed this transformative power.

“Matthew is no longer the same; he is changed inside,” he said. “He leaves behind his table, his money, his exclusion. Before, he had sat waiting to collect his taxes, to take from others; now, with Jesus he must get up and give, give himself to others.”

The church’s attention should be directed especially toward those who feel excluded or abandoned, the pope said.

“May we learn to see them as Jesus sees us. Let us share his tenderness and mercy with the sick, prisoners, the elderly and families in difficulty.”

In Havana, the pope also had some interesting words on the concept of church unity. They were part of the text he set aside in his meeting with priests and nuns, but the Vatican published them on its web site.

Unity is not uniformity, he said, and can never be imposed or forced by decree. On the contrary, it depends at times on open expression of disagreement.

“Conflicts and disagreements in the church are to be expected and, I would even say, needed. They are a sign that the church is alive and that the Spirit is still acting, still enlivening her. Woe to those communities without a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’! They are like married couples who no longer argue, because they have lost interest, they have lost their love.”