From August 2-6, 2023, Pope Francis was in Portugal for the World Youth Day (WYD). It was an unforgettable time, filled with inspiring words and enthusiastic crowds. When the pope returned to the Vatican, he left behind an absolutely extraordinary wave of joy, faith and hope. But he also left behind some questions that require further investigation.
Everyone has a place in the Church
One of the issues to be explored is the pope’s insistence that the Church is for everyone, that everyone has a place in it. On the day of his arrival, during Vespers at the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, Francis said, “On the boat of the Church, there has to be room for everyone: all the baptized are called on board to lower the nets, becoming personally involved in the preaching of the Gospel. Do not forget this word: everyone, everyone, everyone! Whenever I have to speak about opening apostolic perspectives, I am deeply touched by that Gospel passage in which the wedding feast of the son is ready, but people do not come. So, what does the Lord, the master of the feast, say? ‘Go out to the highways and byways and bring everyone, everyone: the sick, the healthy, young and old, the righteous and sinners. Everyone!’ Do not make the Church a customs station, selecting who can enter or not. All, with their past lives, their sins, as they are, before God, as they are, as in life. All people. Let us not have customs houses in the Church. Everyone!”[1]
The next day, in the welcoming ceremony held in Parque Eduardo VII, the pope insisted on the same idea: “Friends, I want to be clear with you, for you are allergic to falsity and empty words: in the Church, there is room for everyone. Everyone. In the Church, no one is left out or left over. There is room for everyone. Just the way we are. […] ‘Father, but I am a wretch, is there room for me?’ There is room for everyone! All together now, everyone, repeat with me in your own language: Everyone, everyone, everyone. I can’t hear you: again! Everyone. Everyone. Everyone.”[2]
This teaching of Pope Francis is not new. In 2013, the first year of his pontificate, the pope wrote in the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (EG), “Frequently, we act as arbiters of grace rather than its facilitators. But the Church is not a tollhouse; it is the house of the Father, where there is a place for everyone, with all their problems” (EG 47).
That God wants to welcome everyone is a truth of faith. No Christian can question the universal and unconditional acceptance by the heart of God without first tearing out many pages of the Gospel. Indeed, the Gospel message could not be clearer: God places no conditions on his welcome. Consider, for example, the case of Zacchaeus. Jesus places absolutely no preconditions on staying at his house. It is only later, following his encounter with Jesus, that Zacchaeus decides to make the necessary changes in his life. Then Jesus confirms his decision and rejoices, “Today salvation has come for this house!”(Luke 19:9).
Relativism?
The insistence on a Church open to all soon raised a fundamental question: What does this mean in pastoral practice? Does it mean that Communion should be given to all people, even if they are in an irregular marriage situation? That the Church should accept homosexual unions just as it does heterosexual ones? In a relativistic Western world, the Church seemed to be the last bastion of a certain set of values and distinctions, but has relativism now finally entered the Catholic Church as well? Concerns of this kind arose quickly in the minds of some Catholics. Are we now on the same level as the rest of society for whom everything is OK? Is everything the same? Where have the demands of the Gospel gone?
Two clarifications
First, when the pope speaks of welcoming “everyone,” he is not only referring to those who have remarried civilly after the failure of a sacramental marriage, or to homosexual persons. The pope’s concern is much broader: “everyone” means the poor, those who are aware of their sinfulness, the healthy and the sick, and all those who, for whatever reason, do not feel worthy to enter a church.
There is one more important clarification to be made, and the pope made it on the plane back to Rome during his regular press conference. It is one thing that everyone has to be welcomed into the Church; it is another thing how each community welcomes each person. The pope says that the Church must welcome, but he does not explain how it is to be done on a case-by-case basis.
At that press conference, a German journalist questioned Pope Francis:: “Holy Father, you told us in Lisbon that there is room in the Church for ‘everyone, everyone, everyone.’ The Church is open for everyone, but at the same time not everyone has the same rights and opportunities, in the sense that, for example, women and homosexuals cannot receive all the sacraments.” In his response – which deserves to be read in full – the pope makes this clarification: “The Church is open to all, then there are rules that regulate life within the Church. And someone who is inside is so in accordance with the rules […]. Everyone. Then, each person in prayer, in interior dialogue, and in dialogue with pastoral workers, seeks the way to go forward.”[3]
Therefore, the pope did not say (and does not think) that this universal openness means, for example, that Communion should be given to everyone, or that from now on the Church will stop proposing the ideal of lifelong marriage, or that it will start talking about heterosexuality and homosexuality on an equal footing, as if at their basis there are two symmetrical types of human sexuality. Each person must seek “the way to go forward” according to the situation he or she is in, with the help of the Christian community. What the pope rejects is the idea that some people must first change in order to then be welcomed into the life of the Church: “There is a certain way of looking at things that fails to understand this membership in the Church as mother, but thinks of the Church as a kind of ‘business,’ where, in order to enter, you have to do things this way, and not that way.”[4] It is within the community – which welcomes everyone – that each of us “moves forward” and grows, step by step, as Christians.
A constitutive tension in the Church
In order to be faithful to its mission as “sacrament of salvation,” the Church must maintain a tension between two poles that are not opposites, but are very different: universal welcoming and the advocacy of some particular values. In the Church this tension exists at all levels, from the parish level to the more universal level of papal teaching. “Tension” is not the same as “problem,” although both realities need to be addressed. A “problem” is something that needs to be resolved in order to move forward. A “tension” is the creative relationship between distinct poles. If a guitar string breaks, it is a problem; if, on the other hand, it is taut, in tension, there is a challenge: one must learn to play it well in order for it to produce music.
Let us assume, for example, that someone with political ideas that are incompatible with the Gospel comes to a parish and it is known that he is affiliated with an extremist group. He starts coming to Mass, and then he comes every Sunday, and he says that he is finding a peace that he has never experienced before. Even the people around him say he appears changed. He volunteers at the parish community center and starts going every Thursday. Now he comes to talk to the pastor to tell him that he would like to read at Mass. How do you help him grow in Christian understanding of politics and come to realize that the ideals he supports are not compatible with the Gospel of Christ? How do we welcome this person? Will it be good for him and the community that he exercise the ministry of lector?
It is natural that in a situation like the one described above, discordant opinions will arise in the parish. Some parishioners will be against the integration of this person into the life of the parish (“For his own good, to see if he comes to his senses,” they will say). Others will probably say that “what matters is that this man is a child of God, whatever his political views; it doesn’t matter what he does in his private life.”
Situations like this – where there is distance between the objective ideals of Christianity and the reality of people’s lives – are “daily bread” in the life of a Christian community. We have suggested the example of someone with political ideas that are incompatible with the Gospel, but we can think of many other cases: a de facto couple; the owner of a restaurant known to treat employees badly; a woman who publicly defends abortion and claims to have already had one herself; those who conduct spiritualist sessions… The question is always the same: How do we welcome each person, while helping them to take steps of growth, to understand what they have not yet understood, to “move forward,” to use the pope’s words on the flight back to Rome?
Two false simplistic solutions
It is not always easy for communities, and for the Church in general, to live in this tension, which requires discernment of a sort which is sometimes not at all obvious. The temptation is to subordinate one of the poles in tension to the other and thus reduce the situation to a very “linear” conception. There are thus two false ways out:
1) Relativism. To make everyone feel good, we stop proposing ideals, following the worldly path of tolerance as the supreme value. In other words, “If it feels good, try it.”
2) Becoming a Sect. In order not to lose our ideals, we put a checkpoint on the door of the Church, declaring, “You may enter, whoever you are, as long as you change and conform to the ideals according to which we want to live in here.”
Why can we not accept either of these solutions? Because both are unfaithful to Christ. To be faithful to Christ, the Church must be a space of openness and unconditional welcome for all. She must be like a mother, welcoming all her children into her home, even those who do drugs or lead dissolute lives. But to be faithful to Christ, the Church must also propose the path that comes from the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount and which Jesus then made real and deepened with his preaching and lifestyle.
The Church cannot accept either false position, for it would no longer be the “body” of Christ, no longer the continuation of his presence and action in the world. Both solutions “decapitate” the Church, separating her from her head, who is Christ, and causing her to cease to be his “body.”
The difficulty for the Church
At each historical moment, we tend more toward one or the other pole of this tension. At the stage we are at in the West, it is obvious that we lean much more (almost completely) toward relativism. It also seems very difficult to understand what sense it makes to speak of objective ideals. The very act of presenting an ideal might make anyone uncomfortable with anything other than that ideal, and we want everyone to be comfortable. In other words, our Western societies have great difficulty understanding that stating ideals is not the same as condemning people (although a tension is introduced in the process that relativism dissolves).
If for some reason a distinction is made, suggesting that not everything is equally acceptable, the accusation of “discrimination” is immediately triggered. If someone says, for example, that a homosexual relationship is not the same as a heterosexual relationship, he is immediately accused of discrimination, even if he approves of both relationships. If someone says that he believes it is better that the priesthood in the Catholic Church continue to be the prerogative of men, he is immediately accused of discrimination. If a pastor, in interviewing for a new parish secretary, asks if the candidate is Catholic, he can immediately be accused of discrimination and attract this retort, “Am I less qualified because I don’t go to Mass? Wouldn’t I be an equally competent secretary if I were not a Catholic?”
In the Church, the tension between acceptance and ideals is present in many situations. A good example is couples in an “irregular situation,” that is, those couples “remarried” civilly after the failure of a sacramental marriage. As Christians, we have the ideal of a lifelong relationship (“till death do us part”) and the people in question – in this specific respect – live in a situation that is different from the ideal. Today we understand much more clearly the complexity of the situations we face in life, and, moreover, we realize that it is up to God to make the final judgment. There are many people objectively in an “irregular” situation (that is, in a situation different from the “rule”). In fact, in some parts of the world, the vast majority of couples are not in their first relationship. How has the Church addressed this very important pastoral issue?
It would be easy for the Church to relativize the ideal and say, for example, “We used to support this, but times have changed….” Why does it not do this? For two reasons: first, because it was Christ who defined this ideal, and the Church cannot go against Christ; and second, because ideals remain valid even when we fail to realize them. Ideals have a pedagogical function (formative, especially for younger people), a protective one (they guard us from taking the easy way out when things are difficult) and a guiding one (like a lighthouse, they point in the direction of happiness with respect to where we are, wherever that may be).
How does the Church accommodate people and, at the same time, not relativize the ideal? It is not easy. On the one hand, the Church asks couples in a situation considered irregular not to approach Communion, thus helping, even if negatively, to keep the ideal alive in the community; on the other hand, it reaffirms that they must be welcomed and included in the Church.[5]
Pope Francis, in the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia (AL), clearly reaffirms that we cannot take anything away from the ideal: “In order to avoid any deviant interpretation, I would point out that in no way should the Church desist from proposing the full ideal of marriage, God’s plan in all its grandeur” (AL 307).[6]
In the famous Chapter VIII of AL, which has as its title “Accompanying, Discerning and Integrating Weakness,” absolutely nothing detracts from the ideal. The pope makes it clear that, “It is a matter of reaching out to everyone, of needing to help each person find his or her proper way of participating in the ecclesial community and thus to experience being touched by an ‘unmerited, unconditional and gratuitous’ mercy. No one can be condemned for ever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel!” (AL 297). And further on, “It is possible that, within an objective situation of sin […], a person can be living in God’s grace, can love and can also grow in the life of grace and charity, while receiving the Church’s help to this end” (AL 305). And in a footnote he adds, “In certain cases, this can include the help of the Sacraments” (ibid., note 351). In essence: a given person in an irregular situation can eventually be readmitted to communion by ecclesiastical authority, after a serious process of accompaniment and reconciliation.
Why did the pope talk more about the pole of welcome?
In his speeches at WYD in Lisbon, Pope Francis spoke mainly about the need for acceptance and did not emphasize as insistently that we have ideals and that, in the Church, not everything is of the same value. Why? A pope, whenever he speaks, is not required to highlight all elements. At WYD in Lisbon, Pope Francis wanted to emphasize that the doors of the Church are open to everyone. He was certainly aware that a WYD was a privileged opportunity to get his words across to people who do not usually attend the sacraments or read the documents of the Magisterium and perhaps think that there is no place for them in the Church.
Some may be sorry that the pope did not mention that then it remains to be seen how to accommodate each one, that “everyone” does not mean that everyone can receive Communion or that everyone can proclaim the readings in the Mass, and so on. In that case he would have gone into an unreasonable process of casuistry. This casuistry – the consideration of the best way to deal with each specific case – is up to the communities (the dioceses, the parishes, the movements, the different church groups), which will seek the most appropriate ways to welcome and help each person grow in his or her unique situation. This is a reflection that cannot and should not be made by a pope in the exercise of his universal magisterium.
The joy of welcoming anyone who knocks on the door, for whatever reason
A few days ago some boys, playing near our parish church, kicked a ball onto the church roof. They came knocking on the presbytery door. They were not boys from the catechism group or altar servers, but ones who hang out in the little garden next to the church, where it is known that products that are not entirely legal are sold and consumed. Some older parishioners are afraid to cross that garden, although we have never had cause to complain, except that the music of these boys is sometimes too loud. And now they had come knocking on the door. The first reaction of some of us was one of indignation, “It’s almost time for Mass and we have to set out to find the highest ladder to go get the ball back! Couldn’t they go and play soccer somewhere else?” Others were glad for the opportunity to have contact with them, “Hi, what are your names? Are you afraid of heights? Let’s go up and see where the ball is hiding! Come on, let’s do it!”
Behind these two reactions lie two different ways of understanding the Church. The Church of which Pope Francis speaks is the Church that is happy when someone knocks on its door, for whatever reason. It is the Church that is happy to see a homeless man come to Mass, even if his stench announces that he has not washed in a long time, or a woman known for the foolishness of her actions and comments. The other way of understanding the Church values above all its correctness (the smooth functioning, orthodoxy of views expressed, perfect adherence to liturgical rules, cleanliness). These two forms are not opposed and not mutually exclusive, but they emphasize different values.
Often people knock on our doors who would like to be godparents at the baptism of an infant, but who are not in the ideal condition to carry out this task: for example, they are not confirmed or live in an irregular marriage situation or do not regularly go to Mass on Sundays. The main question will not be at all the practical decision whether or not to accept them as godparents (we will try in each situation to determine the best course to follow); but the main question comes first: are we happy that they knocked on the door? What good growth process can begin for them with this first meeting with us? What emerges for them from this contact with us?
This fundamental attitude of wanting to welcome everyone seems the most appropriate for Christ’s Church. With good will and a little creativity, we will look for the best in each case. Perhaps they may not be able to be baptismal godparents, but ultimately we will still find a way to involve them in the celebration. Or maybe they are excited to take some practical steps of growth in the faith later on, after that baptism, and on the basis of that promise we can accept them as godparents, even though we know that later on they may not fulfill what they promised. But, in any case, they will have good memories of the way they were received and, who knows, one day – at another stage of their lives – they will come back to begin this journey.
It seems, therefore, that a first pastoral implication of the Gospel teaching highlighted by the pope is the joy of welcoming anyone who knocks at the door, no matter their situation. We must then ask ourselves honestly: do we feel annoyed by any stranger who disturbs our routine, or do we feel happy to welcome him or her in the name of Jesus? Do we see ourselves as custodians of an exclusive club, particularly competent in selecting who is “eligible” and who is not, or do we see ourselves as representatives of the One who welcomed thieves and prostitutes with open arms without asking them for anything?
Availability for personal accompaniment
A second consequence of being a Church that is not relativist, but where “everyone” is welcome is that communities must know how to accompany individuals in their growth processes. Nowadays, in the West, each case is unique. We must have criteria, but it is not possible for everything to be laid down in the regulations of the parish secretary’s office with detailed precision. In this, too, the Church must be a mother, knowing how to welcome and accompany each person in the specificity of his or her particular situation. Any mother or father knows that what goes well in raising one child may not work as well in raising another. For example, one may need firmer rules and the other more expressions of tenderness.
This personal accompaniment requires availability of time. It is incompatible with hasty pastors who rush to celebrate one Mass and then rush off to celebrate another in another church. Perhaps personal accompaniment does not always have to be done by priests (there are lay people capable of doing this very well), but the pastor of the community will always be prepared to leave his car and his office to approach each parishioner and meet him or her personally. And certainly, if he has eight parishes to run, goodwill will not suffice: he will not be able to do that.
A pastoral offering that has ‘doors’
In addition to this personal welcome, a community, in its pastoral offerings, must offer definite suggestions to those who come from outside. A community cannot only provide services for those “on the inside” and for children: sacraments, rosaries, funerals, catechesis… In addition to these offerings, it is also necessary for there to be groups or activities more suitable for those who come “discovering,” so that they can take steps of growth, ask questions, compare opinions, learn the basics. To give some examples: walks with times of prayer; discussion groups on issues raised by people, in which the Christian view of life is explained; prayer initiation groups; basic catechetical formation modules. A pastoral ministry based mainly on the sacraments and activities for children is unlikely to be a Church with its doors open to all.
Experience shows that many of these pastoral initiatives, designed primarily for those on the “outside,” are also of great benefit to those on the “inside.” This may be due to two reasons. First, every believer is a seeker, open to “more”; and second, many of the people who attend our communities have never had any kind of formation after initial catechesis, and thus have many needs in common with those who are approaching the faith for the first time.
The formation of welcoming ministers
A Church for all presupposes the formation of ministers who know how to welcome, whether ordained or lay. The main characteristic of those who know how to welcome is humanity, the ability to meet sincerely, to look into each other’s eyes without barriers or marketing strategies. We all know what it means to be welcomed by someone, as well as what it feels like to be unwelcome and to feel like an intruder: it does not take many theology courses to understand this. Being welcoming is not the same as always smiling and patting yourself or others on the back, but rather being yourself and having an open heart toward others, whoever they may be. Everyone will have their own way of doing it; we do not all have to be the same. It is not for everyone to be very talkative or very funny, but we all have to have open hearts.
Sometimes in the Church we have so many rules, roles and rituals that human relationships take a back seat. We know that everything that exists in the Church should be for the good of people and for their salvation, but in practice it succeeds in being difficult not to begin to experience the community as a business and commit to its good maintenance. And, in the face of this desire for good maintenance, sometimes people are seen as obstacles. We must often listen again to those words of Jesus that remind us that he called us, like Peter, to be “fishers of people” and not organizers of files or events.
Probably the Church Pope Francis is talking about needs to rethink the formation that is currently offered in so many seminaries and religious institutes. It should be not only about theological, liturgical and canonical formation, but above all human formation. A priest must understand people, be able to enter into a personal relationship with them and then help them “move forward,” as Pope Francis again puts it, “with discernment.”
For this to happen, two things are essential. First, that every future priest knows himself and his affective world, and knows how to live freely with his own history and personal wounds. If he does not, it will be difficult to have healthy relationships with others: that priest will either be whingeing, submissive, divisive or, on the contrary, arrogant, unreachable, insensitive. The fact is that no one can embrace his emotional world if he is always silent about it and unable to talk about it in a natural way: for example, with his spiritual father. The second essential thing in a priest is that he be a “man of God” (which is much more than a religious official). A man of God is a seeker of the Mystery, who seeks God – in prayer and throughout the day – because he needs Him personally. This search and the thousands of crossroads already encountered along the way will enable the priest to better understand the crossroads of others, the subtle temptations that assail them, their sins, and even the ways out of impasses, which sometimes are not at all obvious.
All that we have said about the formation of priests we can also repeat about the formation of permanent deacons and lay ministers, from catechists to volunteers, the parish secretaries or leaders of adult Christian formation. In addition, of course, to other more doctrinal or “technical” training, everyone must be trained to welcome sincerely and warmly anyone who shows up. The first lesson in this human formation is simple: learn to smile and look someone in the eye, instead of talking to them while keeping your gaze fixed on the computer screen or on the papers crowding your desk.
Conclusion
Pope Francis’ insistence on welcoming “everyone, everyone, everyone” does not mean relativism with respect to ideals. These remain intact. The pope says the Church must know how to welcome everyone, but he does not say – nor can he say – how this will happen on a case-by-case basis. Local communities will have to find ways to help each person “move forward.” The choices are sometimes neither easy nor obvious. Those who want to avoid the need for discernment (to keep everything very “clear”) will be forced to choose either of the two false solutions we described above: relativism or becoming a sect. Both pervert the Church because they separate the “body of Christ” from its “head.”
For a community to welcome well, as Christ did, it must take care of its pastoral outreach and the training of its ministers. This clarification that the Church is for all should fill each of us with joy. How good it is that the Church is for all! It is good that it is not reserved only for those who already live according to the ideal. If it were, who would find a place in it? What would become of each of us?
Thanks to La Civiltà Cattolica.
