What starts out as something along the 'pious pattern' of most interviews with high-ranking prelates ends up being very direct
and provocative on the media-shaped culture of the day and its impact on Church affairs.
Cardinal Bergoglio on
careerism and vanity among men of the Church,
and the affliction of journalistic coprophilia
by ANDREA TORNIELLI
Translated from the Italian service of
fEBRUARY 29, 2012
A rare picture of Cardinal Bergoglio and Benedict XVI together.
VATICAN CITY - In the recent consistory, held in the midst of polemics over leaked confidential files from the Vatican Secretariat of State Benedict XVI had intended for the cardinals to discuss the New Evangelization.
And he called them back to the spirit of service and humility.
The Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jesuit Jorge Maria Bergoglio, whose family came from Turin, is one of the leading figures of the Latin American episcopate. In his diocese, the Church has for some time now gone out into the streets, the public squares, bus and train stations, in order to evangelize and administer the sacraments. Vatican Insider asked him for an interview, to comment on the work of the consistory and the words of the Holy Father.
What do you think of the Pope's decision to decree a Year of Faith and to insist on the New Evangelization?
Benedict XVI insist on priority for the renewal of the faith, and presents the faith as a gift to be handed on., a gift to offer, to be shared in an act of free giving.
It is not a possession but a mission. This priority indicated by the Pope has a dimension of remembrance. With the Year of Faith, we remember the gift we have received. It rests on three pillars: remembrance of having been chosen, the memory of the promise that has been made to us, and the Covenant that God made with us.
We are called to renew that Covenant. our belonging to the people who are faithful to God.
What does evangelization mean in a context like that of Latin America?
The context is that which emerged in the fifth conference of Latin American bishops in Aparecida in 2007, which called us to a continental mission. So the entire continent is in a state of mission. Programs are being carried out for this, but above all there is the paradigmatic aspect. all the ordinary activities of the Church are framed in this spirit of mission.
This implies a very strong tension between the center and the periphery, between the parish and the neighborhood. The Church must go out of itself towards the periphery. It must avoid the affliction of a self-referential Church - she becomes sick when that happens.
It is true that by going out into the street, as it is for a person,
we can meet with an accident. But of the Church remains closed in herself, self-referential, she ages. Between a Church exposed to risks which is out in the streets, and a Church afflicted with self-reference, we can only choose the first.
What has been your experience in Argentina, and particularly, in Buenos Aires?
We seek to reach out to those families who do not take part in parish life. Instead of being just a Church which receives those who come to us, we want to be the ones to go out towards the people, those who do not know the Church or who have stopped coming, who have gone away. in fact, or those who are simply indifferent.
We organize missions in the public squares, where people usually gather anyway - and we pray, we celebrate Mass. We offer Baptism which we administer after a suitable brief preparation. This is what we do in the parishes, in the entire diocese. We also seek to reach more people through digital communications and the Internet.
In addressing the consistory and later in his homily the next day, the Pope emphasized that the cardinalate is a service, and also that the Church is not built in isolation. What did you think of his words?
I was struck by the image evoked by the Pope, who spoke of James and John and the internal tensions among the first followers of Jesus over who among them should be first. This indicates that certain attitudes, certain discussions, have always been present in the Church, from her very beginnings, And this should not scandalize us.
The cardinalate is a service, not an honorific to boast about. Vanity, being vain about oneself, is an attitude of the worldly spirit, which is the worst sin in the Church. This is an affirmation that we find in the final pages of Henri de Lubac's
Méditation sur l’Église.
Spiritual worldliness is religious anthropocentrism which has gnostic aspects. Careerism, the search for self-advancement, is very much po\art of that worldliness. I often say, to exemplify the fact of vanity: "Look at the turkey - how beautiful it is when you see it from the front. But if you take a few steps and look at it from behind, you see the reality". So whoever yields to self-referential vanity fundamentally hides a deep misery.
[Mons. Vigano and so many other self-promoting prelates, are you reading this?]
What must the authentic service of a cardinal consist of?
Cardinals are not the agents of an NGO
[non-governmental organization. perhaps one of the most unwieldy constructions - not just verbally but even conceptually - ever devised by the United Nations]. They are servants of the Lord, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who creates the distinctions among the various charisms, but leads them all to unity within the Church.
The cardinal should enter into this dynamic of the differences between charisms, and at the same time, look at their unity, knowing that the author of the differences as well as the unity is the same Holy Spirit. And I think a cardinal who does not get into this dynamic is not the kind of cardinal that Benedict XVI means.
This consistory took place during a difficult time. of great tension because of the documents leaked from the Vatican. How do the Pope's words help to deal with this reality?
The words of Benedict XVI help us to live through this reality from the perspective of conversion, changing heart. I was glad that the consistory was held on the threshold of Lent. It is an invitation to look at the Church who is both holy and sinful, to look at her shortcomings and sins, without losing sight of the holiness of so many men and women who are within the Church even today.
I should not be scandalized because the Church is my mother: I should look at her failings and faults as I look at my mother's failings and faults. And when I think of the Church, I remember above all the beautiful and good things she has done, not so much her failings and defects. We defend our mother with a heart full of love more than with words. And so I ask whether those who get too much into these 'scandals' have any love for the Church at all.
Can you tell me how the Roman Curia is perceived from the outside?
As far as I am concerned, I see and experience it as an organ of service, an organ that helps and serves me. Sometimes, one gets news that's not good, often amplified and even manipulated for scandal's sake.
Newsmen often run the risk of becoming afflicted with coprophilia [a morbid fondness for excrement], and thus encouraging coprophagia [literally, eating crap, excuse the language!] and that's a sin that afflicts many men and women today. Which is, to prefer to concentrate on the bad things and not the good. -
[Thank God! Cardinal Bergoglio has hit upon the precise term for the worse-than-muckrakers, without the vulgarity of describing their muck as 'crap'!]
The Roman Curia has its faults, but it seems to me that only the bad is underscored, while ignoring the holiness of so many consecrated persons and laymen who work there.
Wise words from a man whom at least 20-30 cardinal-electors in the 2005 Conclave voted for as the 'non-conservative' alternative to Joseph Ratzinger.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 02/03/2012 15:23]