Priests can not forget their roots, pope says

“The world has not chosen a peaceful path”, Pope Francis said during a sermon on Thursday. He went on to say, “Transcendence is what is wanting – for me, the greatest crisis in education, in order that it be [truly, authentically] Christian, is this closure to transcendence”.

Steiner noted that the Pope’s visit to Kenya will be special in that the spiritual leader – head of the 1.2 billion-strong Catholic Church – will be speaking from Africa, a continent most affected by climate change.

Pope Francis’ sermon cast a shadow over the start of the holiday season at the Vatican, where an 82-foot Christmas tree was unveiled.

All over the world, individual Christians and the whole church must be seen as “the hospitality of a God who never shuts the door in your face with the excuse that you’re not part of the family”, he said during his weekly general audience November 18. “But we will not let ourselves be paralyzed by fear”.

In his Gospel St. Luke reports that, “when Jesus drew near” to Jerusalem, “he saw the city and wept over it, saying: ‘Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace!”

“If the door of God’s mercy is always open”, we must leave the doors of our institutions open so that “we can go out carrying God’s mercy”. This certainly leads us, first of all, to prayer.

“We are at a war with an invisible enemy, who looks like us and lives among us. The world has not understood the way of peace”.

The Pope will be in the country until Friday.

On the theme of evangelization, he said it is “essential” that the bishop “conscientiously perceives his task as teacher of the faith, of the traditional and lived faith in the living community of the universal Church”.

Francis resorted to humour to make a serious point that a few people that are drawn to a clerical career are fundamentally unstable – and that inevitably creates problems for the church if they are not weeded out.

“Fidelity to the Church and to the Magisterium does not contradict academic freedom, but requires a humble attitude of service to the gifts of God”, he reminded them. Sentire cum Ecclesia should distinguish, in a particular way, those that educate and form the new generations.

“I trust that you will give greater attention to this sacrament, which is so important for spiritual renewal, in diocesan and parochial pastoral planning during the Holy Year, as well as afterwards”.

He told the bishops to highlight the importance of Confession during the Year of Mercy, which can help “reform the Church”, and to stress the “intimate connection” between the Eucharist and the priesthood.