News and Media Releases

(Let's renew our Church ... with Francis) 

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Die KirchenVolksBewegung Wir sind Kirche begrüßt und unterstützt den pastoralen und Menschen zugewandten Kurs von Papst Franziskus. Doch mit seinem Aufsehen erregenden Stil ist die Kirchenkrise noch lange nicht überwunden. Gerade im Vatikan gibt es starke Widerstände gegen die Reformansätze des Papstes.

Franziskus praktiziert einen spirituellen Leitungsstil. Er selbst gibt ein Vorbild des „Guten Hir- ten“. Doch wird er eine Reform der römischen Kurie durchsetzen können? Wie wird er langfristig das Staatssekretariat oder die Glaubenskongregation besetzen? Welche lehramtlichen Entscheidun- gen wird er z.B. in der Frauenfrage oder gegenüber den US-amerikanischen Ordensfrauen treffen? Welche Akzente wird er zur Überwindung der „Gotteskrise“ und in der Christologie setzen?

Vor Franziskus und uns liegt noch ein langer Weg, die römisch-katholische Kirche wieder auf Reformkurs zu bringen im Sinne des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils. Deshalb: Unterstützen Sie den Erneuerungskurs von Papst Franziskus – und weiterhin auch die KirchenVolksBewegung. Wir sind Kirche hat einige zentrale Aussagen von Franziskus sowie über ihn zusammengestellt. Der neue Kirchenkurs muss möglichst bald in den Bistümern und Gemeinden spürbar werden!

First impressions of the encyclical "Lumen Fidei"

06/07/2013

Prof. Leonardo Boff

La Encíclica Lumen Fidei viene con la autoría del Papa Francisco, pero es sabido que fue escrita por el Papa anterior, ahora emérito, Benedicto XVI. Confiesa claramente el Papa Francisco: «Asumo tu precioso trabajo,  limitándome a añadir al texto alguna contribución». Y así debe ser, de lo contrario, no tendría la nota del magisterio papal. Sería simplemente un texto teológico de alguien que un día fue el Papa.

Benedicto XVI quería escribir una trilogía sobre las virtudes cardinales. Escribió sobre la esperanza y el amor. Pero le faltaba la fe, lo que hace ahora con los pequeños complementos  del Papa Francisco.

La Encíclica no trae ninguna novedad sensacional que llame la atención de la comunidad teológica, del conjunto de los fieles o del público en general. Es un texto de alta teología, con un estilo recargado y lleno de citas bíblicas y de los Santos Padres. Curiosamente cita autores de la cultura occidental como Dante, Buber, Dostoievski, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Romano Guardini y al poeta Thomas Eliot. Se puede ver claramente la mano del Papa Benedicto XVI, sobre todo en discusiones refinadas de difícil compresión hasta para los teólogos, manejando  expresiones griegas y hebreas, como suele hacer un doctor y maestro.

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