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Leave your comfort zone and serve the poor, Pope tells priests

by Reuters
Friday, 3 January 2014 15:50 GMT

* Priests must not see Church as safe haven, says Pope

* Francis wants to reform Church, refocus on basic teachings

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY, Jan 3 (Reuters) - Pope Francis has told Roman Catholic priests to leave their comfort zone and get out among people on the margins of society or else risk becoming "abstract ideologists".

The Italian Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica published an exclusive text on Friday of a three-hour, closed-door meeting the Argentinian-born pontiff had in late November with heads of orders of priests from around the world.

Francis said priests had to have "real contact with the poor" and the marginalised.

"This is really very important to me: the need to become acquainted with reality by experience, to spend time walking on the periphery in order really to become acquainted with the reality and life-experiences of people," he told them.

"If this does not happen we then run the risk of being abstract ideologists or fundamentalists, which is not healthy."

Since his election in 2013 as the first non-European pope in 1,300 years, Francis has been prodding priests, nuns and bishops to think less about their careers in the Church and to listen more to the needs of ordinary Catholics, especially the poor.

Taking over an institution reeling from child sex abuse, financial and other scandals and losing members to other religions, Francis has tried to refocus on the basic Christian teachings of compassion, simplicity and humility.

The leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics has also set a new tone in the Vatican, rejecting the lush papal residence his predecessors used and opting for a small suite in a Vatican guest house, where he eats in the common dining hall.

"SLUM BISHOP"

His conversation with the members of the Union of Superiors General is important because they will transmit his wishes directly to priests in their religious orders around the world.

Civilta Cattolica is the same periodical that ran a landmark interview with Francis in September in which he said the Church must shake off an obsession with teachings on abortion, contraception and homosexuality and become more merciful.

Francis, who was known as the "slum bishop" in Argentina because of his work among the poor, said reaching out to those on the margins of society was "the most concrete way of imitating Jesus".

His own first visits after moving to the Vatican were to a jail for juveniles and to the southern Italian island of Lampedusa to pay tribute to impoverished immigrants who have died trying to get to Europe.

In his meeting with the religious leaders, Francis said men should not enter the priesthood to seek a comfortable life or to rise up the clerical career ladder.

"The ghost to fight against is the image of religious life understood as an escape or hiding place in face of an 'external' difficult and complex world," he told them.

Francis has said several times since his election that he feels the Vatican is too self-centred and needs to change.

A committee of eight cardinals from around the world that he has appointed to advise him on how to reform the central Vatican administration, know as the Curia, is due to submit its recommendations in February. (Editing by Gareth Jones)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.


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