By clericalising the Church, the hypocrites of
today drive God’s people away from salvation, Bergoglio reminds priests... and he and dubs them as followers of the hypocritical gnosticism of the Pharisees
This story is almost two years old but still relevant.
An unmarried woman with a baby had to embark on a depressing pilgrimage around Buenos Aires city to find a place where she could have her baby baptised. She was turned away by priests.
The Archbishop of the region questioned, “why a poor girl, who has resisted the temptation to have an abortion and stood up at great cost to herself for the right to life should be persecuted in such a way.”
Speaking at a convention of priests to discuss urban pastoral care, the Archbishop reminded the priests that the young woman was requesting baptism for her child, not herself, and that they have no right to deny a sacrament in that manner.
“I say this with sadness and if it sounds like a complaint or an offensive comment please forgive me: in our ecclesiastical region there are presbyteries that will not baptise children whose mothers are not married, because they have been conceived outside holy wedlock,” a Vatican insider quoted the Archbishop as saying.
The Archbishop said he was making a call to end what he called sacramental blackmail.
He went on to speak about the hijacking of a sacrament, calling it an expression of a rigorous and “hypocritical neo-clericalism”, which uses the sacraments as tools to affirm its own supremacy.
He was critical of priests for what he described as rubbing the fragility and the wounds of people in their faces by hosing down their hopes and expectations, simply because they do not fit squarely into parish requirements or live up to someone else’s moral expectation.
He said that apart from being misleading, such pastoral models distort and reject the dynamic of Jesus Christ’s incarnation, which he pointed out cannot be reduced to a doctrinal slogan or used to serve the power hungry.
The Archbishop was none other than Jorge Mario Bergoglio – currently Pope Francis. This happened months before he was selected the successor to Bendict XVI
“Jesus did not preach his own politics — he accompanied others,” Archbishop Bergoglio then said. “The conversions he inspired took place precisely because of his willingness to accompany, which makes us all brothers and children and not members of a non-government organisation or proselytes of some multinational company.”
He described the Church as being involved in a dynamic of closeness and liberation that finds an objective and lasting expression in the gift of the sacraments. “But,” he added, by clericalising the Church, the hypocrites of today drive God’s people away from salvation.”
He called them followers of the hypocritical Gnosticism of the Pharisees, which Jesus, who “appeared among the people, the publicans and the sinners,” always turned his back on.
Archbishop Bergoglio’s explosive comments did not come out of nowhere, but rather express a long held concern in Buenos Aires. The archdiocese has been taking stock of the insights of Father Rafael Tello, a theologian of the poor and of popular worship who passed away in 2002.
It has been suggesting approaches to facilitate the baptism of children, young people and adults who, for various reasons, have never been baptised.
The Archbishop was quite clear that this does not mean that any condition can be added to the existing principle contained in the Code of Canon Law, which states that it is the parents who request that their children be baptised.
The aim is to ensure that no parent, starting with those whose family situation is irregular, leaves their parish because for some reason, someone took it upon themselves to deny baptism to the said parent’s children
This story is almost two years old but still relevant.
An unmarried woman with a baby had to embark on a depressing pilgrimage around Buenos Aires city to find a place where she could have her baby baptised. She was turned away by priests.
The Archbishop of the region questioned, “why a poor girl, who has resisted the temptation to have an abortion and stood up at great cost to herself for the right to life should be persecuted in such a way.”
Speaking at a convention of priests to discuss urban pastoral care, the Archbishop reminded the priests that the young woman was requesting baptism for her child, not herself, and that they have no right to deny a sacrament in that manner.
“I say this with sadness and if it sounds like a complaint or an offensive comment please forgive me: in our ecclesiastical region there are presbyteries that will not baptise children whose mothers are not married, because they have been conceived outside holy wedlock,” a Vatican insider quoted the Archbishop as saying.
The Archbishop said he was making a call to end what he called sacramental blackmail.
He went on to speak about the hijacking of a sacrament, calling it an expression of a rigorous and “hypocritical neo-clericalism”, which uses the sacraments as tools to affirm its own supremacy.
He was critical of priests for what he described as rubbing the fragility and the wounds of people in their faces by hosing down their hopes and expectations, simply because they do not fit squarely into parish requirements or live up to someone else’s moral expectation.
He said that apart from being misleading, such pastoral models distort and reject the dynamic of Jesus Christ’s incarnation, which he pointed out cannot be reduced to a doctrinal slogan or used to serve the power hungry.
The Archbishop was none other than Jorge Mario Bergoglio – currently Pope Francis. This happened months before he was selected the successor to Bendict XVI
“Jesus did not preach his own politics — he accompanied others,” Archbishop Bergoglio then said. “The conversions he inspired took place precisely because of his willingness to accompany, which makes us all brothers and children and not members of a non-government organisation or proselytes of some multinational company.”
He described the Church as being involved in a dynamic of closeness and liberation that finds an objective and lasting expression in the gift of the sacraments. “But,” he added, by clericalising the Church, the hypocrites of today drive God’s people away from salvation.”
He called them followers of the hypocritical Gnosticism of the Pharisees, which Jesus, who “appeared among the people, the publicans and the sinners,” always turned his back on.
Archbishop Bergoglio’s explosive comments did not come out of nowhere, but rather express a long held concern in Buenos Aires. The archdiocese has been taking stock of the insights of Father Rafael Tello, a theologian of the poor and of popular worship who passed away in 2002.
It has been suggesting approaches to facilitate the baptism of children, young people and adults who, for various reasons, have never been baptised.
The Archbishop was quite clear that this does not mean that any condition can be added to the existing principle contained in the Code of Canon Law, which states that it is the parents who request that their children be baptised.
The aim is to ensure that no parent, starting with those whose family situation is irregular, leaves their parish because for some reason, someone took it upon themselves to deny baptism to the said parent’s children
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