Pope Francis published a letter yesterday addressed to all parish priests in the world with his advice for building a missionary Church in which all the baptised share in the mission of proclaiming the Gospel. Source: CNA.
“Parish communities increasingly need to become places from which the baptized set out as missionary disciples and to which they return, full of joy, in order to share the wonders worked by the Lord through their witness,” Pope Francis wrote in the letter.
The Pope presented the letter to 300 priests participating in the Synod on Synodality’s “World Meeting of Parish Priests” during an audience at the Vatican, saying that their meeting is “an opportunity to remember in my prayers all of the parish priests in the world to whom I address these words with great affection”.
“Before all else, I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation for the generous work that you do each day, sowing seeds of the Gospel in every kind of soil,” Pope Francis wrote.
“It is so obvious as to sound almost banal, but that does not make it less true: the Church could not go on without your dedication and your pastoral service,” he added.
In the letter, Pope Francis offered three suggestions to parish priests for building “a synodal and missionary Church.”
The first is for priests to live out their “specific ministerial charism in ever greater service to the varied gifts that the Spirit sows in the people of God.”
The second suggestion is to “learn to practice the art of communal discernment” by using the “conversation in the Spirit” practised during last October’s Synod on Synodality assembly.
Lastly, Pope Francis encouraged priests to base everything they do “in a spirit of sharing and fraternity” both among themselves and with their bishops.
The audience with the Pope concluded the four-day meeting, which began on at the Fraterna Domus retreat house in Sacrofano, Italy, just north of Rome.
FULL STORY
Pope Francis tells world’s parish priests: The Church could not go on without you (By Courtney Mares, CNA)
RELATED COVERAGE
Pope to parish priests: ‘The Church couldn’t go on without your dedication’ (Vatican News)
