IMAGE: CNS/L’Osservatore Romano
By Junno Arocho Esteves
VATICAN
CITY (CNS) — For decades, the visits bishops are required to make to the Vatican were known for their formality
and routine style, but Pope Francis launched “a whole new style of ‘ad
limina’ visits,” a Chilean bishop said.
The bishops
were expecting “to have a long meeting with a speech and then individual
meetings,” as in the past, Auxiliary Bishop Fernando Ramos of Santiago,
secretary of the Chilean bishops’ conference, told Catholic News Service Feb.
24.
Instead,
the Vatican informed the prelates before their departure from Chile that they were going to have a group
meeting with the pope and the prefects of several Vatican congregations
and offices.
“We
were told that this was going to be a new way of doing things that was
beginning with us, that looks for a more fruitful, more incisive dialogue
between the representatives of the local churches and the pope with his main
collaborators,” Bishop Ramos said.
After spending three hours with the pope Feb. 20,
the Chilean bishops met again with Pope Francis Feb. 23. At the second meeting,
the pope and Chilean bishops were joined by several top officials, including: Cardinal Pietro
Parolin, Vatican secretary of state; Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the
Vatican Congregation for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for
Latin America; and Cardinal Gerhard Muller, prefect of the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith.
Also
present at the meeting
were: Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect for the Dicastery for Laity, Family and
Life; Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi, prefect of the Congregation for Catholic
Education; Cardinal Beniamino Stella, prefect of the Congregation for Clergy;
and Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of
Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
Bishop
Ramos told CNS that Cardinal Ouellet began the discussions, which focused on four
principal themes: communion and collegiality within the church; the mission of
the church in Chile; how to help clergy, religious men and women as well as the
laity “in their Christian lives and in their pastoral service”; and
pastoral guidelines for the future.
“It
wasn’t about speaking about little things or a little problem over here,” he said. “This
was more of a way of looking at everything together, for them to listen to our
opinions and (we to listen to theirs) on these principal themes.”
“It
was something completely different,” Bishop Juan Ignacio Gonzalez of San
Bernardo, member of the permanent committee of the Chilean bishops’ conference, told CNS.
“It
was truly something wonderful from the perspective of collegiality, of
synodality, of the
church walking together. This doesn’t just respond to the realities in Chile, it’s a whole new (approach)
that begins now.”
Bishop
Ramos told CNS that although the bishops knew about the meeting with the pope
and Vatican officials before they left Chile, they found out only when they
arrived in Rome that Pope Francis wanted to meet with them privately as well.
After
celebrating Mass at the tomb of St. Peter Feb. 20, the bishops were welcomed to the library in the Apostolic Palace
by the pope.
“As we
were seated around him,” Bishop Gonzalez said, “the pope — in his
Argentine manner of speaking — told us: ‘Well, the soccer ball is in the
center. Whoever wants to and is brave enough, give it a kick.” (The
Argentine phrase is: “El que quiera y que tiene la cara mas dura, que le
pegue una patada.”)
Bishop Ramos
added that several bishops would speak and the pope would respond. “It was
like talking after dinner while drinking some Bacardi, in a manner of
speaking,” he said.
Bishop
Gonzalez said at a certain point, a bishop said, “‘Holy Father, it’s a
little bit hot in here, can we open a window?’ The pope said, ‘Yes, of course’
and stood up. The bishop said, ‘No, no don’t worry, Holy Father, I’ll open it.”
Bishop
Ramos and Bishop Gonzalez said that the sincere discussion was “a turning
point” that led to a more open dialogue at their second meeting with the
pope and Vatican officials.
“It’s
like that Scripture reading. Paul, after preaching, went to Jerusalem to speak
with Peter and tell him what he had done. This is the same. We come to
Jerusalem to tell Peter this is what happened and he guides us to see what else
we can do,” Bishop Gonzalez said.
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