Reform within the worldwide church

                     

 

A wise thinker gave humanity a great truth: If you do not learn from your history, you are bound to repeat it! 

 

Every culture, every political system and every educational institution must be reformed. We can begin by meeting the specific needs of people at this point in history. For example, almost immediately with the settlers coming to Saskatchewan (the rural population was huge) the one-room school house system of education was established. Right from the very beginning our political and religious leaders knew they had to educate the population.

 

But that education system had to adapt and be reformed several times to meet the foundational need to educate the population. The reform never came easy and at times it was rather painful for families and government.

 

The Protestant reformation of the early 1500’s is the classic example of a period where the people of the Church were badly in need of reform and updating, but it only happened through the breakup of Western Christianity into the Protestant North and the Catholic South. But this breakup should never have happened!

 

Within Catholicism, the Second Vatican Council  (ended 1965) was an earth-shaking event. It laid out a path for many serious reforms within the Church. Fortunately, the people of the Church were hungry for reform and embraced the journey to reform and updating enthusiastically. 

 

Today we are in a season of reform. With the election of Pope Francis as leader the turn has been toward the poor of this world. People not only respect Pope Francis, they also like the man as a person. His personality is also carrying the sails on this boat toward reform.

 

Many people do not like Pope Francis but they are careful to mute their opposition to his call to the Church to turn toward the poor of this world. He is speaking to the top twenty percent of humanity (the First World) who are rich and consume more than their fair share of the earth’s resources. But he is also speaking to the growing strength of the Church in Africa and Asia which is growing more powerful. This is a call to keep them engaged in their concern for   the poor. 

 

Concern for the poor is the sign of credibility for the Church. We do not want to have only the leadership of the Church to be concerned for the poor in their own country. It is not enough to have the local parish to have a monthly collection of food for the food bank or have visitation volunteers for our nursing homes. This must also be the concern of each believer. In our homes and at coffee time our conversation must also exhibit a personal concern for the poor with their many faces. Each individual Christian must ask themelves how they are living out this concern for the poor with their many faces.

 

There is a dynamic shift within Christianity to have a clearer, more identifiable practice and teaching of our Christian faith. We want to have things nailed down! This is very inward looking and carries the danger of making the Church centered in on itself and avoid the difficulties of the world. A turn too much inward could mean avoiding the poor who are living very close to you!

 

In his very calm manner Pope Francis is challenging the Church to reach out to the poor and to make this their first priority of ministry. He is challenging to Church not to be inward looking but to reach out to the people on the margins of society.

 

Many people are going to drag their heels, but then who said that reform of the Church was ever easy?