The Church must not be a “court” but a companion, asserted Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, at Cotonou in Benin, in words reported by the Italian Catholic agency SIR, on November 2, 2017.
The Archbishop is visiting the country on the occasion of the celebrations for the 20th anniversary of activity of the Section of the John Paul II Theological Institute for French-speaking Africa, affiliated to the Roman Institute for the Sciences of Marriage and the Family, of which Archbishop Paglia is the Grand Chancellor.
Addressing student priests and Religious, he stressed that the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia calls the Church to be “truly missionary, truly going forth,” to “make the whole pastoral a family pastoral and…and to put the whole Church in the perspective of the family.”
Among believers, he noted, some also see the Church “as a court of life and of men’s history. God wanted a courageous and determined Church in the protection of the weak, of those who live prisoners of their faults and desperate for having derailed from the path of their life. And the latter must be accompanied in full ecclesial integration,” he said.
For Archbishop Paglia, the Pope “doesn’t propose a new doctrine or new ecclesial rules” but “a new ecclesial style, based on the awareness of the diversity of situations.” It’s about being attentive “to concrete persons,” he stressed.
JF
