The unity of the Church’s bishops is fundamental in correcting past wrongs and in confronting challenges today, Pope Francis told Jesuits during his visit to Canada. Source: CNS.
Meeting with a group of Jesuits in Canada on July 29, the Pope said his visit was made possible by the unity of the country’s bishops in seeking reconciliation with Indigenous peoples who experienced abuse or attempts at forced assimilation at Church-run residential schools.
“When an episcopate is united, then it can deal with the challenges that arise,” the Pope told his Jesuit confreres. “If everything is going well, it is not because of my visit. I am just the icing on the cake. It is the bishops who have done everything with their unity.”
The Pope met with 15 Jesuits from Canada during his July 24-29 visit to the country. As has become the practice when the Pope meets Jesuits during a foreign trip, a transcript of his remarks was released later by the Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica.
According to the transcript of the meeting, published yesterday, the Pope said that while he witnessed the “familiarity between the bishops and Indigenous peoples”, there are still “some who work against healing and reconciliation”.
“Even last night,” the Pope recalled, “I saw a small traditionalist group protesting and saying that the Church is something else; but that is the way things are. I only know that one of the worst enemies against the unity of the Church and of the episcopates is ideology.”
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Church unity threatened by ideology, Pope tells Jesuits in Canada (By Junno Aroco Esteves, CNS)
