Posted on 08/17/2013 2:06:44 AM PDT by NYer
The Church's most prominent outreach today, the New Evangelization, aims at reviving the spiritual lives of those who have drifted from Christ. While these people may have been baptized and perhaps catechized, while they may attend Church semi-regularly, they have never been truly evangelized. They have never experienced a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ or real transformation through his Church.
A couple weeks ago, Pope Francis delivered a powerful message to the Brazilian bishops in the midst of his World Youth Day celebrations. Unfortunately, it didn't get nearly the attention it deserved.
Speaking on the New Evangelization, and using the Emmaus Journey as a framework, the Pope encouraged his listeners to reflect on why people reject the Church today—why, like the Emmaus disciples, they decide to walk the other way. To bring people back to Christ and his Church, we must understand why they leave in the first place.
To that end, Pope Francis offered ten specific reasons:
1. The Church no longer offers anything meaningful or important.
2. The Church appears too weak.
3. The Church appears too distant from their needs.
4. The Church appears too poor to respond to their concerns.
5. The Church appears too cold.
6. The Church appears too caught up with itself.
7. The Church appears to be a prisoner of its own rigid formulas.
8. The world seems to have made the Church a relic of the past.
9. The Church appears unfit to answer the world's new questions.
10. The Church speaks to people in their infancy but not when they come of age.
Read the excerpt below for more context:
"The two disciples have left Jerusalem. They are leaving behind the 'nakedness' of God. They are scandalized by the failure of the Messiah in whom they had hoped and who now appeared utterly vanquished, humiliated, even after the third day.
Here we have to face the difficult mystery of those people who leave the Church, who, under the illusion of alternative ideas, now think that the Church—their Jerusalem—can no longer offer them anything meaningful and important. So they set off on the road alone, with their disappointment. Perhaps the Church appeared too weak, perhaps too distant from their needs, perhaps too poor to respond to their concerns, perhaps too cold, perhaps too caught up with itself, perhaps a prisoner of its own rigid formulas, perhaps the world seems to have made the Church a relic of the past, unfit for new questions; perhaps the Church could speak to people in their infancy but not to those come of age.
It is a fact that nowadays there are many people like the two disciples of Emmaus; not only those looking for answers in the new religious groups that are sprouting up, but also those who already seem godless, both in theory and in practice.
Faced with this situation, what are we to do?
We need a Church unafraid of going forth into their night. We need a Church capable of meeting them on their way. We need a Church capable of entering into their conversation. We need a Church able to dialogue with those disciples who, having left Jerusalem behind, are wandering aimlessly, alone, with their own disappointment, disillusioned by a Christianity now considered barren, fruitless soil, incapable of generating meaning.”
(HT: Thomas Doran at Catholic World Report)
Yes, and? Your point being? Are you saying that Jesus’s rebuke of Peter meant that he was lying when he said he founded the Church on Peter?
“That’s understandable for a catholic. Too much emphasis on Mary and not on JESUS. Get to KNOW HIM and you will never be confused nor open to deception AGAIN.”
So you’re saying that Luther was wrong to mutilate the book of Daniel?
No jcb, I’m saying that even though you claim He founded the gathering on Peter, he did not. You can believe whatever you choose to believe.
Indeed, thus i stated that the later flows from the former, and indeed "The Gospel is doctrine and it is the failure of the RCC to preach The Gospel that leads so many RC's to Evangelical churches where The Gospel is preached everyday." Though this is not as widespread or in the depth it should be, or once was.
Relative few of which are in Rome, or liberal Prot churches, at least in the West.
There was no infallible indisputable decree on the canon by Rome till the year Luther died, and whether Luther believed only the Scriptures could be used in knowing God’s will is the issue, while the means by which writings are established as Scripture is another.
Is a assuredly infallible magisterium necessary for this, and does being the steward of Divine revelation, and inheritor of promises of God's presence and preservation, and having historical descent, require or render such to be that infallible interpreter to whom all must submit?
Actually, Rome has been sending the signal that the Roman Catholic Church is NOT the one true church for much much longer than that.
“It is odd that non Catholics care about the Catholic church. It is like looking into the window at our shop every day when you pass by.”
It’s more like pulling over to look at a car wreck.
You got ahold of some misinformation in my opinion.
Care to source that? Did it come from a website, a tract?
“He founded the gathering on Peter, he did not”
The Book of Matthew says he did. Are you saying the Book of Matthew lies?
“There was no infallible indisputable decree on the canon”
Then why is the canon at Trent *exactly* identical to the Vulgate? Coincidence?
Amen!
One of the signs that we are winding down and the end is coming is the falling away we are seeing. I can't help but wonder out of the dwindling numbers attending a church how many truly know and believe The Gospel.
hrist founded the Catholic Church on the apostles on Easter Day. Read your Bible. He also ordained all of the apostles as the first Bishops that day.
I see my mistake == you were responding to someone else. Please forgive me.
“The Book of Matthew says he did. Are you saying the Book of Matthew lies?”
It does not.
I did not.
?
Why CHOOSE???
However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?
Luke 18:8
Revolting cat!’s One reason why people DO NOT reject the Church:
(1) Religious threads on Free Republic.
Spoken like a true heretic!
Return to the Mother Church and all will be forgiven.
(Nothing in the list seemed to address an arrogant hautiness; did it...)
Oh.. Please!!
Let ME help!!
Pope Stephen VI (896–897), who had his predecessor Pope Formosus exhumed, tried, de-fingered, briefly reburied, and thrown in the Tiber.[1]
Pope John XII (955–964), who gave land to a mistress, murdered several people, and was killed by a man who caught him in bed with his wife.
Pope Benedict IX (1032–1044, 1045, 1047–1048), who "sold" the Papacy
Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303), who is lampooned in Dante's Divine Comedy
Pope Urban VI (1378–1389), who complained that he did not hear enough screaming when Cardinals who had conspired against him were tortured.[2]
Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503), a Borgia, who was guilty of nepotism and whose unattended corpse swelled until it could barely fit in a coffin.[3]
Pope Leo X (1513–1521), a spendthrift member of the Medici family who once spent 1/7 of his predecessors' reserves on a single ceremony[4]
Pope Clement VII (1523–1534), also a Medici, whose power-politicking with France, Spain, and Germany got Rome sacked.
Dang!
That's too bad!
Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
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