PAPAL PLANE – Returning from Lisbon on Sunday, Pope Francis insisted that maintaining the Church’s traditional teachings on ordination and marriage is not a sign of closed-mindedness. In an airborne news conference the pontiff also touched on his reasons for opting not to mention Ukraine out loud while in the famed Marian shrine of Fátima on Saturday, addressed clerical abuse scandals in Portugal, mental health struggles among young people and his own physical condition. He insisted that despite a grueling foreign trip this week, partly spent in a wheelchair, “my health is good.”
Asked why all Catholics may not receive all the Church’s sacraments, Pope Francis said “The Church is open to everyone, then there is legislation that regulates life inside of the Church.” According to the Church’s legislation certain groups cannot have access to the sacraments, he said, referring to women’s ordination and same-sex marriage, but insisted that “this doesn’t mean that it is closed.”
“Each one encounters God on their own path in the Church, and the Church is a mother; she guides each one on their path. Because of this, I don’t like to say, ‘Everyone come, but you [stay] over there,’” he said, saying everyone is welcome. Each person in prayer and in internal and pastoral dialogue “looks for a way to go forward,” Pope Francis said, reiterating that everyone is welcome.
“Another thing is ministry of the Church, and the way of bringing a flock forward. One thing is patience in ministry, accompanying people step by step in their path of maturation,” he said. “Each one of us has this experience that the mother church has accompanied us in our own path of maturation.” Pope Francis said he doesn’t like to reduce ecclesial life to only certain ideas, because “this doesn’t help. The Church is mother, she accepts everyone … without publicity.”
“Who among us has not made a moral mistake in our lives? Everyone … each one of us has our own falls and mistakes. Life is like this; the Church awaits everyone, with mercy, it is mother,” he said.
The issues of the potential for women’s ordination and the place of people who identify as belonging to the LGBTQ+ community have long been hot-button topics for the Church. A recently-concluded controversial German synodal process favoring women’s ordination and blessings for same-sex couples has met pushback from the Vatican over the past 18 months and is a source of ongoing tension within the German church.
The issues will also be discussed in October during Pope Francis’s Synod of Bishops on Synodality. During WYD a group of LGBTQ+ Catholics celebrated a special Mass for their community but complained that the planned venue cancelled on them on the last minute amid pushback, forcing them to scramble to find a new location, which they said is part of the discrimination they face.
During his inflight press conference, Pope Francis was also asked why he did not speak about Ukraine or deliver a much-anticipated call for peace in the country during his visit to the Marian shrine of Fátima on Saturday. He told journalists that he prayed for peace in front of the Madonna, saying that “We must continue this prayer for peace. In the First World War she asked this, and this time I asked for it; I prayed. I didn’t do publicity,” he said.
Responding to a question about his own health given concern over his eyesight and his gruelling schedule in Portugal after recent abdominal surgery, the Pope said that his health is good. “They took my stitches out, I have a normal life,” he said, referring to the incision point for his abdominal surgery. He said he has to wear a special compress for 2-3 months “to avoid another surgery” and ensure that the muscles heal properly, “but I am good.”
Concern first arose over the Pope’s eyesight on Friday morning when he read the first few paragraphs of a prepared speech to charity workers before setting it aside, saying he had trouble reading due to the lighting. He then tossed aside several other speeches, including his highly anticipated message in Fátima. The 86-year-old pontiff has had two hospital stays this year and also suffers from chronic sciatica and knee pain which for over a year has often confined him to a wheelchair. Last year he had surgery to repair cataracts.
In reference to concerns about his vision, Pope Francis said he cut the speech with charity workers because “there was a light in front and I couldn’t see.” He said his reason for cutting the other speeches he made was because when he speaks, “I try to communicate,” and even tell jokes. “For long speeches, I had the essence of the message, but I took those moments to communicate,” he said, saying that young people don’t have a long attention span, and that if he asked the crowd a question, he could tell from “the echo” whether “I was going in the right direction.”
Pope Francis referred to a lengthy chapter on giving homilies in his 2013 apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, in which he gave advice to pastors on how to form a good homily. “Homilies are often a torture… the Church must convert itself in this aspect of the homily,” he said, saying they should be short and clear with their message.
The Pope touched briefly on his decision to visit Marseille in late September for a conference on the Mediterranean, making a pastoral visit to a city, but not a formal visit to France. He said he is going to Marseille because “I am concerned about the Mediterranean” and that what happens to migrants along their voyage “is criminal.”
Pope Francis also addressed mental-health issues such as depression and suicidal thoughts among young people, which he referenced in his speeches during WYD and which youth themselves addressed in meditations they wrote for Friday night’s Via Crucis. He said one young person he met during WYD had asked him for his thoughts on suicide, and that the youth confided that a year prior, they had been contemplating whether or not to take their own life.
“Many young people are anguished, psychologically,” he said, noting that many young people feel pressure to succeed but “aren’t able to graduate or find that job and they kill themselves because they feel a great sense of shame. It’s a problem.”
Pope Francis also spoke about Portugal’s clerical abuse scandals and the backlash the Church has faced following the publication of an independent report in February which found that some 5,000 children had been abused, going back decades. On his first night in Lisbon, the Pope met privately with a group of 13 survivors and representatives of organizations that assist them.
In this meeting, “I could touch this plague, and it’s a tremendous plague,” he said, saying the Church must mature in its response. However, he said that steps had been taken and pointed to the 2019 Vatican summit on child protection that drew the participation of the presidents of all bishops’ conferences around the world, as well as a slew of experts and survivors.
“It’s serious, we must talk about it. In the Church there’s a phrase we use a lot: zero tolerance,” he said, saying pastors “must take charge of this… with seriousness. It must be taken seriously.” He lamented the growth of online sexual exploitation, noting that paedophiles can livestream a child being abused online. This must be addressed, he said, saying questions must be answered such as, “who films it? Where is it done?”
Again referring to his meeting with survivors on Wednesday, he said that “speaking with people who have been abused is a very painful experience,” but it helps him know what to do. Pope Francis said the Church must work so that all forms of abuse are stopped, noting that sexual abuse “is not the only kind; there are also other forms, the abuse of child labour, abuse of women.”
“There is a culture of abuse which humanity must revise and must convert,” he said. “But things are going well.”
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