We have been discussing Archbishop Rino Fisichella’s statement as well over the past few pages of this thread.
Here is the
statement of the bishops of Recinde and Olinda in Portuguese regarding the statement of the bishop in Osservatore.
Here is the
English version, you may have to scroll down a bit.
Thanks so much for posting this…this is very, very thought-provoking. How wonderful to hear of the efforts of the family’s parish priest, the timeline of the events leading up to the excommunication (which seems to have been a last resort), and the charitable, but firm, response of the bishops to Archbishop Fisichella…
Very interesting, indeed.
I agree so strongly with Radias16 that the Church needs better PR – good apologists who are in the public eye. We may be getting there – the Church started its own Youtube channel, for instance – and as for myself, I think that those on the front lines of the battle are campus ministers and student Catholic groups, since that’s where tomorrow’s generation is. One of the things that bothers me – and it’s related to the PR thing – is the fact that the Church has absolutely no strategy for reaching young people apart from hoping they’ll have the dedication to go to Church despite the fact that they look around themselves and see that church attendance nationwide is falling. But anyway, that’s another topic.
I just remember when my dad stopped going to Church and refused to talk about it…finally one day I got him to tell me his reasons why. “Because I just don’t think it’s true that the pope can do nothing wrong – that’s silly! And the idea that the Church decides who goes to Heaven? What chance do I have to become a saint, no one’s ever even heard of me!” And I had to explain to him that papal infallibility and the sanctification process didn’t mean at all what he thought they did! There is such a lack of catechesis out there, and nowadays the problem is compounded by the fact that people think in terms of news stories with readily identifiable good guys (usually Democrats) and bad guys (Republicans and the religious right); and for skeptical modern audiences, when the Pope says condoms are bad and the bishop in Brazil “excommunicates” this woman, there’s only a preciously short window of time in which Catholics could rush in and explain what the deal is before people make up their minds and put it down as one more reason to hate the Church.
Even among Catholics, we have a problem. In my experience, priests in their Sunday homilies do a great job explicating the Bible readings and hammering in the things we all already know – that Jesus died for us, etc etc. – but they avoid “controversial issues” or current events, never address the Church’s public image…I mean, have any of you heard your priests talking about this Brazilian abortion issue at Mass? Perhaps you have, but I have not. And if not, then where are we supposed to go to hear the Church defending itself, calmly and rationally? The media is certainly not going to do it for us…
Anyway, just some scattered thoughts…maybe I will start a new thread.
Peace,
+AMDG+