Gulf Pine Catholic
•
October 10, 2014
19
Yamane found that most of the people he studied
ended up becoming Catholic not because they were
impressed by the Catholic intellectual tradition, or by
studying the history of the church. Rather, they were
led to Catholicism by what Yamane calls “mundane
mechanisms like family and co-workers.” Indeed,
most new Catholics in America “are products of their
circumstances, not religious seekers or even consum-
ers shopping for faith.”
Yamane wrote
“Becoming Catholic”
as a sociolo-
gist, but his style is accessible to any interested reader
and might well be required reading for anyone active
in a parish RCIA program.
“Becoming Catholic”
is
informative concerning the RCIA. But any Catholic
can benefit from reading it because it encourages a
renewed appreciation and sense of gratitude for being
Catholic.
Finley is the author of more than 30 books on
Catholic themes, including a bestseller, “The Rosary
Handbook: A Guide for Newcomers, Old-Timers, and
Those In Between.”
B
ook
-C
atholic
From page 18
Opening family synod, pope warns bishops of
hypocrisy, pride and greed
BY FRANCIS X. ROCCA
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) --
Opening a two-week Synod of
Bishops on the family, Pope
Francis warned participants
against the temptations of hypoc-
risy, pride and greed, urging them
instead to serve the church with
“freedom, creativity and hard
work.”
“We can thwart God’s dream
if we fail to let ourselves be
guided by the Holy Spirit,” the
pope said Oct. 5, during Mass in
St. Peter’s Basilica. “The Spirit
gives us that wisdom which sur-
passes knowledge, and enables
us to work generously with
authentic freedom and humble
creativity.”
Pope Francis’ homily drew on
the day’s reading from the Gospel
of Matthew (21:33-43), in which
Jesus describes the people of
God as a vineyard, farmed by
tenants who betray its owner and
seek to take it over for themselves.
Addressing his words to the 184 bishops and 69 oth-
ers who would take part in the synod, the pope said
Jesus aimed his parable at the “chief priests and the
elders of the people, in other words the experts, the
managers,” whose job it was to “nurture, tend and pro-
tect” God’s people.
“But Jesus tells us that those farmers took over the
vineyard. Out of greed and pride they want to do with
it as they will, and so they prevent God from realizing
his dream for the people he has chosen,” the pope said.
“We are all sinners, and we too can be tempted to
take over the vineyard, because of that greed which is
always present in us human beings. God’s dream
always clashes with the hypocrisy of some of his ser-
vants,” the pope said.
The synod is slated to discuss a range of “pastoral
challenges of the family” in preparation for a larger
world synod in October 2015, which will make recom-
mendations to the pope.
“Synod assemblies are not meant to discuss beauti-
ful and clever ideas, or to see who is more intelligent.
They are meant to better nurture
and tend the Lord’s vineyard, to
help realize his dream, his loving
plan for his people,” Pope
Francis said. “In this case the
Lord is asking us to care for the
family, which has been from the
beginning an integral part of his
loving plan for humanity.”
One of the most discussed
topics at the 2014 synod prom-
ises to be a controversial pro-
posal by German Cardinal Walter
Kasper that would make it easier
for divorced and civilly remar-
ried Catholics to receive
Communion. Pope Francis has
said the predicament of such
Catholics exemplifies a general
need for mercy in the church
today.
The pope alluded to that need
for mercy when he said that “evil
pastors lay intolerable burdens
on the shoulders of others, which
they themselves do not lift a fin-
ger to move,” a paraphrase of
Jesus’ words against the hypoc-
risy of scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23: 4.
Prior to celebrating Mass, Pope Francis stopped
briefly in the basilica to venerate the relics of St.
Therese of Lisieux and her parents, Blessed Zelie and
Louis Martin, which will be in the Basilica of St. Mary
Major for the duration of the synod. St. Therese’s par-
ents, who were beatified in 2008, practiced continence
for the first year of their marriage but later had nine
children, five of whom lived to adulthood and became
nuns.
A Swiss Guard salutes as Pope Francis leaves the opening session of the extraordinary Synod of
Bishops on the family at the Vatican Oct. 6.
CNS photo Paul Haring
Look for more coverage
of the Synod of Bishops
on the family in the
October 24 edition of the
Gulf Pine Catholic.
