BRITAIN-BISHOPS Sep-19-2010 (730 words) xxxi

 

Pope tells British bishops they must satisfy people's spiritual hunger

 

By Catholic News Service

 

BIRMINGHAM, England (CNS) -- Meeting Catholic bishops at the end of his visit to Great Britain, Pope Benedict XVI said he had spent four days witnessing signs of spiritual hunger that bishops have an obligation to help satisfy.

 

Pope Benedict urged Scottish, English and Welsh bishops to give people real spiritual nourishment, not just easy or popular answers to their questions and doubts.

 

"As you proclaim the coming of the kingdom -- with its promise of hope for the poor and the needy, the sick and the elderly, the unborn and the neglected -- be sure to present in its fullness the life-giving message of the Gospel, including those elements which call into question the widespread assumptions of today's culture," the pope told the bishops Sept. 19 during a meeting at Oscott College in Birmingham.

 

At the end of a trip that saw him become the first pope to visit the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury's residence and the first pope to pray in the Anglicans' Westminster Abbey, Pope Benedict also asked the bishops again to be generous in welcoming Anglicans who want to enter into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church.

 

The British bishops have been criticized by some conservative Catholic commentators for an apparently lukewarm reception of provisions Pope Benedict made last year that would allow for the establishment of special church jurisdictions for former Anglicans who want to maintain some of their Anglican heritage and practices.

 

The jurisdictions, known as ordinariates, have not yet been established anywhere in the world.

 

Some people involved in efforts to promote full Anglican-Roman Catholic unity said the pope's special provisions were essentially an admission that full unity was virtually impossible because of the ordination of women priests and bishops and positions on homosexuality in some parts of the Anglican Communion.

 

Speaking to the Catholic bishops, though, the pope said his provision "should be seen as a prophetic gesture that can contribute positively to the developing relations between Anglicans and Catholics" by promoting unity while accepting differences.

 

The Rev. David Richardson, director of the Anglican Center in Rome and the archbishop of Canterbury's representative to the Vatican, said the idea of the ordinariate was initially billed as a "pastoral provision" for disaffected Anglicans and appears to offer benefits to them, but "seems to contribute nothing to the full visible unity" of the Anglican and Roman Catholic communities as a whole.

 

Full unity can only be achieved through formal dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion as a whole, Rev. Richardson told Catholic News Service.

 

Pope Benedict also told the bishops that as they, like bishops in the United States, prepare to begin using a new English translation of the Mass, they should "seize the opportunity that the new translation offers for in-depth catechesis on the Eucharist and renewed devotion in the manner of its celebration."

 

As the bishops seek to evangelize "in a highly secular society," challenges come not only from widespread public opinion on ethical issues like biotechnology, abortion or homosexuality, he said, they also come from the current economic crisis and people's assumptions about wealth and poverty.

 

"The specter of unemployment is casting its shadow over many people's lives and the long-term cost of the ill-advised investment practices of recent times is becoming all too evident," he said.

 

As pastors of a Christian community, the pope said, the British bishops must encourage their flocks to be generous and stand in solidarity with the poor.

 

Pope Benedict told the bishops he knows that the "shameful" clerical sex abuse crisis "seriously undermines the moral credibility of church leaders."

 

"I have spoken on many occasions of the deep wounds that such behavior causes -- in the victims first and foremost -- but also in the relationships of trust that should exist between priests and people, between priests and their bishops, and between the church authorities and the public," he said.

 

The pope told the bishops they must continue their efforts to reach out to the victims, to carefully screen candidates for the priesthood and other church offices and "deal properly and transparently with allegations as they arise."

 

The child protection procedures developed by the Catholic Church in Great Britain over the past 10 years also should be shared with the wider community, the pope said, because children continue to be victims of abuse in a variety of settings.

 

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Contributing to this story was Cindy Wooden in London.

 

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