Pope Francis Explains why he Restricted the Traditional 1962 Mass and that Condemning Abusers is Necessary - in Conversation with Jesuits in Hungary
During the second day of his apostolic trip to Hungary, on April 29, Pope Francis met with the country’s Jesuits.
The pope met with 32 Jesuits and answered their questions. Below the video are some key excerpts:
The first question was about youth ministry: how do we best engage with young people?
For me the key word is “testimony.” Without testimony, without witnessing, nothing can be done. You end up like that beautiful song by Mina: “parole, parole, parole…” (words, words, words). Without testimony nothing happens. And testimony means consistency of life.
I would like to ask a question on the topic of Christian love for those who have committed sexual abuse. The Gospel asks us to love, but how do we love at the same time people who have experienced abuse and their abusers? God loves everyone. He loves them, too. But what about us? Without ever covering anything up, of course, how do we love abusers? I would like to offer the compassion and love that the Gospel asks for everyone, even the enemy. But how is this possible?
It is not easy at all. Today we understand that the reality of abuse is very broad: there is sexual abuse, psychological abuse, economic abuse, migrant abuse. You refer to sexual abuse. How do we approach, how do we talk to the abusers for whom we feel revulsion? Yes, they too are children of God. But how can you love them? It’s a powerful question. The abuser is to be condemned, indeed, but as a brother. Condemning him is to be understood as an act of charity. There is a logic, a form of loving the enemy that is also expressed in this way. And it is not easy to understand and to live out. The abuser is an enemy. Each of us feels this because we empathize with the suffering of the abused. When you hear what abuse leaves in the hearts of abused people, the impression you get is very powerful. Even talking to the abuser involves revulsion; it’s not easy. But they are God’s children too. They deserve punishment, but they also deserve pastoral care. How do we provide that? No, it is not easy. You are right.
The Second Vatican Council talks about the relationship between the Church and the modern world. How can we reconcile the Church and the reality that is already beyond the modern? How do we find God’s voice while loving our time?
I wouldn’t know how to answer that theoretically, but I certainly know that the Council is still being applied. It takes a century for a Council to be assimilated, they say. And I know the resistance to its decrees is terrible. There is incredible support for restorationism, what I call “indietrismo” (backwardness), as the Letter to the Hebrews (10:39) says: “But we do not belong to those who shrink back.” The flow of history and grace goes from the roots upward like the sap of a tree that bears fruit. But without this flow you remain a mummy. Going backwards does not preserve life, ever. You must change, as St. Vincent of Lérins wrote in his Commonitory when he remarked that even the dogma of the Christian religion progresses, consolidating over the years, developing with time, deepening with age. But this is a change from the bottom up. The danger today is indietrismo, the reaction against the modern. It is a nostalgic disease. This is why I decided now that permission (from a local bishop) to celebrate according to the Roman Missal of 1962 is mandatory for all newly consecrated priests. After all the necessary consultations, I decided this because I saw that the good pastoral measures put in place by John Paul II and Benedict XVI were being used in an ideological way, to go backward. It was necessary to stop this indietrismo, which was not in the pastoral vision of my predecessors.
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At the end, Francis stood up and said, “Thank you so much for this visit. We can pray to Our Lady and then I will give the blessing.” The pope received various gifts, which each person presented giving detailed explanations. Then Francis greeted individually those he had not greeted on entering and a group photo was taken.
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