International Movement We are Church on the first 100 days of Pope Francis (21 June 2013)

Rome, Innsbruck, Munich, June 18,

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A 100 days since Pope Francis took office the International Movement We are Church (IMWAC) continues to hope for a transformation in the leadership of the Church. “We welcome all steps towards a greater faithfulness to the Gospel”, says We are Church.

We are Church calls on all Catholic communities to take a fresh and critical view of the organization leading them as well as of the system of medieval privileges still prevailing in it.

The deep crises of the Roman-Catholic Church are not over by far, but now we see at least a better opportunity for our Church, a world-wide community of 1.2 billion faithful, to find authentic and convincing ways to spread the Gospel of Jesus, says We are Church.

Francis, Bishop of Rome, has shown an approach that is not doctrinal, but pastoral for which the faithful have been longing for so long. We hope that his simple but strong gestures of a merciful and benevolent ministry will change the attitude of all clerics and those clinging to obsolete forms of religious practice.

The change in the style of leadership must be followed by substantial reforms in line with the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) to reverse the restoration to pre-Vatican II times of the last 50 years. Otherwise the frustration and further loss of credibility inside and outside the Roman Catholic Church will be enormous.

New forms of dialogue, decentralization and collegial management in line with the teachings of Vatican II and a new approach to the role of women in our Church are essential key issues to be confronted in this historic moment of time.

We are Church supports all steps to combat Eurocentrism and we wish to convert our church into a Church more in line with the Gospel: a Church at the periphery, a poor Church and a Church of the poor. Our Church must be dedicated to world-wide peace and ecology based on justice and human rights. To be credible it must respect and promote human rights also within the Church.

We know this will be a long process of transformation. We support this process and will continue to contribute our points of view based on sound theological research, and hope our contributions will be heeded more than before. We also recognize the important contributions of those prophetic theologians and pastoral workers who have been silenced during the last decades. They now must be completely rehabilitated.

However, we do not want to overestimate the positive signals set by Francis, or to underestimate the strong resistance coming from well-established curial, cultural and economic interests that have been so powerful in the Church for a long time. We are also aware of the strong external pressures being brought on Francis.

We call on Pope Francis to be strong and courageous and wish him the support he needs. We hope that in this pontificate a process of transformation will be initiated for the Roman-Catholic Church and for all of Christianity to find a new and more positive role in a rapidly changing global community of humankind.

We are Church is ready to support this new course towards a loving Church of the People of God.

See also

The Austrian Priests' Initiative statement  [English] [Portuguese]

[Spanish] [Portuguese]

PLEASE JOIN US IN OUR PLEA TO POPE FRANCIS URGING HIM TO INVITE ALL CATHOLICS GLOBALLY, IN UNITY WITH THE LOCAL CLERGY, TO ELECT OUR OWN BISHOPS.
Click here to sign our letter

Our mission is to gather all of this energy and focus our communal love for the Church and passion for reform on a single cause: urging Pope Francis and his council of eight cardinals to decentralize the Church and encourage the People of God in each diocese throughout the world to elect their own bishops. We think this step is essential before the Church can turn to more specific reform issues. Electing our own bishops will make for a new, more vibrant Church in which the people of God – led by the clerical, religious, and lay leaders – will have a voice in what Vatican II declared was our Church. 

Hans Küng writes in the NCR:

"Who could have imagined what has happened in the last weeks?

When I decided, months ago, to resign all of my official duties on the occasion of my 85th birthday, I assumed I would never see fulfilled my dream that -- after all the setbacks following the Second Vatican Council -- the Catholic church would once again experience the kind of rejuvenation that it did under Pope John XXIII.

Then my theological companion over so many decades, Joseph Ratzinger -- both of us are now 85 -- suddenly announced his resignation from the papal office effective at the end of February. And on March 19, St. Joseph’s feast day and my birthday, a new pope with the surprising and programmatic name Francis assumed this office.

Has Jorge Mario Bergoglio considered why no pope has dared to choose the name of Francis until now? At any rate, the Argentine was aware that with the name of Francis he was connecting himself with Francis of Assisi, the world-famous 13th-century downshifter who had been the fun-loving, worldly son of a rich textile merchant in Assisi, until at the age of 24, he gave up his family, wealth and career, even giving his splendid clothes back to his father.

It is astonishing how, from the first minute of his election, Pope Francis chose a new style: unlike his predecessor, no miter with gold and jewels, no ermine-trimmed cape, no made-to-measure red shoes and headwear, no magnificent throne."

Read the essay on NCR website

We thank We Are Church (Ireland) for hosting this talk.  They have just revised their website which is well worth a visit.

A report from one of our members on the inspiring talk by Sr. Florence Deacon, President of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR)  on Monday 13th May at the Jesuit Conference Centre, Milltown Park, Dublin.

The cars and the people kept coming, until the Conference Hall in Milltown Institute was filled to over-flowing.  Over three hundred people listened as for about 45 minutes, Sr. Florence spoke on: ’50 years since Vatican II; on fire with, or trying to tame, the Spirit?’

She traced her own faith-journey from understanding ‘Church’ as ‘building’, to her present-day understanding of Church as all the People of God, bishops, priests and people together forming the one Body of Christ. She emphasised how all the baptised are called to read the signs of the times, listening to one another in respectful dialogue. Many times she quoted Pope Francis similarly calling for listening and respect, and reminded us of his question in a recent homily, whether we have domesticated the Spirit. She pointed out how already he has exemplified many of the qualities which the LCWR had named before the conclave, as desirable in the new pope.  She invited all to keep him in prayer that he may have the courage to make necessary changes.

Speaking of the doctrinal assessment of the LCWR, she explained how it is based on a flawed understanding of the role of this organisation.  She stressed that the LCWR wishes for open and honest dialogue with Vatican authorities, which “can only take place outside the glare of the media”.  This was why she was willing in this talk to deal only with points which were already public and why she did not comment on the most recent talks in Rome between the LCWR and the Vatican.

Sr. Florence’s talk was followed by time for questions.  In response to a question why the LCWR did not take a stronger stance, publicly, in relation to the Vatican authorities, she shared her experience of how respectful dialogue was a more helpful process than confrontation.  The query whether she could confirm that the investigation of women religious in the US was at the instigation of a few American bishops including one currently based in Rome, elicited the diplomatic response that ‘There is speculation about that’.

However, even more than her words, it was the integrity, courage and Gospel-based witness of Sr. Florence which spoke most strongly through her input. It evoked a response of heart-felt solidarity and support from the gathering.

She – and We Are Church Ireland – invites all to continue to pray for the Sisters in the LCWR.  The Executive meets at the end of this month with the three bishops charged with the ‘renewal’ of the LCWR.  It is clear that the dialogue they hope for will require much patience, prayer and the wisdom of the Spirit.  Hopefully It is a God-incidence that her talk happened in these days before Pentecost!

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From 'Another Voice'

Professor Hans Küng — now 85 like his former professorial colleague Joseph Ratzinger — offers some reflections about church reform and Francis the new Bishop of Rome.

“What is to be done if our expectations of reform are dashed? The time is past when Pope and bishops could rely on the obedience of the faithful. A certain mysticism of obedience was also introduced by the eleventh-century Gregorian Reform: obeying God means obeying the Church and that means obeying the Pope and vice versa.

“Since that time, it has been drummed into Catholics that the obedience of all Christians to the Pope is a cardinal virtue; commanding and enforcing obedience – by whatever means – has become the Roman style. But the medieval equation of ‘obedience to God = to the Church = to the Pope’ patently contradicts the word of Peter and the other apostles before the High Council in Jerusalem: ‘a person must obey God rather than any human authority.’

“We should then in no way fall into resigned acceptance. Instead, faced with a lack of impulse towards reform from the hierarchy, we must take the offensive, pressing for reform from the bottom up.

“If Pope Francis tackles reforms, he will find he has the wide approval of people far beyond the Catholic Church.

“However, if he allows things to continue as they are, without clearing the log-jam of reforms now in progress, such as that of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, then the call of ‘Time for outrage! Indignez-vous!’ will ring out more and more in the Catholic Church, provoking reforms from the bottom up.

“These would be implemented without the approval of the hierarchy and frequently even in spite of the hierarchy’s attempts at circumvention. In the worst case – as I wrote before the recent papal election – the Catholic Church will experience a new Ice Age instead of a spring and will run the risk of dwindling into a barely relevant large sect.”

More information here:

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/article/164164