Pope Francis has rejected the resignation presented to him by the Munich Cardinal Reinhard Marx
.
"This is my answer, dear brother - he wrote to him this morning in a letter -. Continue as you propose but as Archbishop of Munich and Freising. And if you are tempted to think that, in confirming your mission and not accepting yours renounce, this Bishop of Rome (your brother who loves you) does not understand you, think about what Peter felt before the Lord when, in his own way, he presented his renunciation: 'Stay away from me that I am a sinner', and listen to the answer: 'Feed my sheep'. With brotherly affection ".
In the letter written in Spanish, the Pope first of all thanks Marx for his "courage"
. "You tell me that you are going through a moment of crisis - he later says -, and not only you but also the Church in Germany is experiencing it. The whole Church is in crisis due to the problem of abuses; even more, the Church today cannot take a step forward without taking on this crisis. According to the Pontiff, "the politics of the ostrich no, leads to nothing, and the crisis must be assumed by our Easter faith". "Sociologisms, psychologisms are useless - he continues -. Assuming that the crisis, personally and as a community, is the only fruitful way because a crisis does not come out alone but in community and we must also take into account that from a crisis one comes out better or worse, but never the same ".
"I agree with you in defining a catastrophe the sad story of sexual abuse and the way of dealing with it that the Church has taken until recently", adds Francis. "We must take responsibility for history, both personally and as a community. We cannot remain indifferent to this crime - he adds -. Hiring it means putting ourselves in crisis. Not everyone wants to accept this reality, but it is the only way, why do" resolutions' to change life without 'putting meat on the grill' leads nowhere ".
"Therefore, in my opinion - explains the Pope -, every Bishop of the Church must assume him and ask himself: 'what should I do in the face of this catastrophe?'. The 'mea culpa' in the face of so many historical errors of the past we have done more than once faced with many situations, even if we personally did not participate in that historical juncture. And this same attitude is what we are asked of today. We are asked to reform, which - in this case - does not consist of words but of attitudes that have the courage to put themselves in crisis, to assume reality whatever the consequence ".
"You say well in your letter - Francis acknowledges - that burying the past does not lead us to anything. Silences, omissions, giving too much weight to the prestige of the institutions only leads to personal and historical failure, and leads us to live with the weight to 'have skeletons in the closet', as they say ". "It is urgent to 'give air' to this reality of abuses and how the Church has proceeded - he warns -, and to let the Spirit lead us to the desert of desolation, to the cross and to the resurrection". "It is the way of the Spirit that we must follow - he continues -, and the starting point is humble confession: we were wrong, we sinned. The polls and the power of the institutions will not save us. The prestige of our Church will not save us. tends to hide his sins;neither the power of money nor the opinion of the media will save us (we often depend too much on it) ".
"As a Church we must ask for the grace of shame, and that the Lord save us from being the shameless prostitute of Ezekiel 16", says the Pontiff who concludes: "I like how you finish the letter: 'I will continue with pleasure to be a priest and bishop of this Church and I will continue to commit myself on a pastoral level as long as I consider it sensible and opportune. I would like to dedicate the next years of my service more intensely to pastoral care and work for a spiritual renewal of the Church, as you tirelessly ask '".
