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PAGE 2—The Southern Cross, October 18, 1984
Pope, Mother Teresa Address Priests' Retreat
ARRIVAL IN SAN JUAN - Pope John Paul II
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Carlos Romero Barcelo, right. (NC photo from
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BY SISTER MARY ANN WALSH
VATICAN CITY (NC) - Pope John Paul II stressed the
importance of the priest’s ministry in the sacrament of
penance and in spiritual direction during an Oct. 9 Mass
which concluded a worldwide retreat for priests at the
Vatican.
The retreat, which began Oct. 5 under the sponsorship
of the International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Office
in Rome, also featured a speech by Mother Teresa and a
stand-up comedy routine by an Indian bishop.
Pope John Paul told the priests they were called to be
teachers in the faith of each individual they served,
particularly through the use of penance and spiritual
direction.
"‘The care of the community,” said the pope, “does not
dispense from committed attention for individuals,
according to their spiritual needs and the specific vocation
of each one of them,”
He also told the priests to educate the faithful to a
“sense of the church.” He said this sense is shown in “love
for the doctrine of the church, respect for pastors, in
docility and obedience to their directives, in openness of.
mind and heart toward all the members of the church,
including other movements and ecclesiastical associations
and in a missionary and ecumenical spirit.”
But the pope cautioned those making the
charismatic-sponsored retreat “to avoid the danger of
radicalizing one’s own experience as if it were the only
one or the most beautiful one” and told them to be open
to all aspects of the church.
The pope spoke during the homily of a Mass, celebrated
in St. Peter’s Basilica, which began with a procession of
6,000 priests crossing St. Peter’s Square. During the
Offertory procession, clergy from different parts of the
world presented the pope with several gifts, including gold
coins which they said were “to represent the spirit of
poverty and detachment from material possessions in the
life of the priest.”
Many of the priests attending the retreat were aided by
a $1 million donation from a Dutch businessman who is
active in charismatic renewal. The conferences, which
mostly dealt with the theme of holiness, were delivered in
seven languages: French, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese,
Dutch, English and Spanish.
Nearly 1,000 of the participating priests came from the
United States.
The priests responded enthusiastically to the Oct. 9
speech by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, India. She stressed
that “the world needs holy priests” and asked those
present to “consecrate families to the Sacred Heart.” At a
press conference afterwards, when asked for a message to
the world’s priests, Mother Teresa said, “Be holy, like
Jesus.” She said the laity will understand what holiness
means through their priests’ example.
An Oct. 7 stand-up comedy routine by Bishop Valerian
D.Souza of Poona, India, also was well-received by the
priests. The bishop’s act also featured attempts at guitar
playing.
Later that day, the priests heard Cardinal Silvio Oddi,
head of the Vatican Congregation for Clergy, address
them on priestly celibacy.
“It is a sad and serious error to insinuate that a priest
requires love of another mortal to achieve maturity,” he
said.
The priest, he added, “is wedded to the church and
does not require a personal relationship to complete his
personality.”
He further stated that celibacy precludes homosexual
involvement, and he said that “the word love is debased
when applied to such unnatual conduct.”
Cardinal Oddi also told the priests to “avoid lazy
general absolution, except if you have inside word that
the world is coming to an end.”
Prior to the retreat, Redemptorist Father Thomas
Forrest said in a press statement that the event was being
held to spark “a trend for holiness among priests.”
“The trend for the Hula-Hoop, the Rubik’s Cube, blue
jeans and the Lady Di look can sweep the world,” said
Father Forrest. “What we need now on a far higher level is
a trend among priests back to the image of holiness.”
The image, said Father Forrest, comes not from “pious
posturing, but the real thing: a real life of prayer, a real
hatred of sin and all the harm it causes and a real laying
down of our lives for the poor and needy, coupled with
the crucifixion of being brother to the annoyingly sinful.”
After the retreat, the priests in attendance signed a
letter to the pope in which they promised to “seek
holiness with all our energy and make it the first goal of
our lives.”
The retreat was held in Vatican City in an effort to gain
greater acceptance from the “official church” for
charismatic renewal, a spokesman for the charismatic
renewal office said prior to the retreat.