In an extensive interview held over three sessions during August, Pope Francis has set the church on a new course towards reform. He calls for a recognition that the first reform required must be one of attitude; a moving away from judgement and exclusion, towards compassion and inclusiveness. In this it would seem he is intentionally setting about the task of creating the environment in which real change can happen, which he feels, must be allowed time. In one sense, nothing has changed. In another, everything has. What is different now is the possibility of reform, when before there was none. Its not even that all of what Pope Francis is saying is necessarily new. The importance lies in who is saying it, and in the context.
Read the complete interview here:- http://www.americamagazine.org/pope-interview
What do you think? Why not cut and paste you favorite quote from the interview as a comment.
Five things we learned about Pope Francis from his blockbuster interview by David Gibson RNS ( www.religionnews.com )
Thinking with the church, therefore, is my way of being a part of this people. And all the faithful, considered as a whole, are infallible in matters of belief, and the people display this infallibilitas in credendo, this infallibility in believing, through a supernatural sense of the faith of all the people walking together. This is what I understand today as the ‘thinking with the church’ of which St. Ignatius speaks. When the dialogue among the people and the bishops and the pope goes down this road and is genuine, then it is assisted by the Holy Spirit. So this thinking with the church does not concern theologians only.
There are so many, but I think I would pick this one:-
“I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs or anything else — God is in this person’s life.”
In terms of evangelisation, this must level the playing field. Its a two way process. That knowledge should keep us humble.