“Breathe fresh air into the whole Church”: Vatican Cardinal to Benins’ Pastoral Agents

Focusing on the Listening and Dialogue department of DPIHD, the Czechian member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) called for courage to seek the way forward to “dramatic challenges” in their day-to-day encounters as Pastoral Agents.

“It's important to embrace with love and lucidity the dramatic challenges you face every day, recognizing your vocation to a mission that is not just local, but universal,” he said.

This means, the Cardinal added, “not feeling trapped by problems that are too big and ecclesial or personal dynamics that are too small.”

He went on to reference to the October 2020 Encyclical Letter on human fraternity and social friendship, Fratelli Tutti, saying, “We must consider what is global, what preserves us from parochialism. When the house is no longer a home, but a prison, a dungeon, what is global saves us because it is like the final cause that leads us to wholeness.”

“We must carefully take into account what is local, because it has something that what is global does not: the fact of being the yeast, of enriching, of setting in motion the mechanisms of subsidiarity,” the 77-year-old Cardinal, who was Ordained Bishop in October 2019 further said.

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He underscored the need the need to apply the May 2015 Encyclical Letter on care for our common home, Laudato Si', and added, “Caring for our common home, in particular, suggests a profound relationship between us, open to the future.” 

Cardinal Czerny, who was scheduled to address a Round Table gathering on the “Green Church Program”, an initiative of Benin’s Cotonou Archdiocese that “aims to bring about an ecological conversion among the faithful of the Catholic Church”, emphasized the urgent need to “save the planet from disaster.”

“Our humanity is at stake, in its relationship with God and creatures, but also in its internal relationships of brotherhood, justice and peace,” he lamented.

The Vatican-based Cardinal continued, “The Church's evangelizing mission is at stake. Under no circumstances can we separate heaven and earth, we who, in the Holy Spirit, confess God as Father and Creator and the incarnation of His Son in man Jesus Christ.”

“Let us listen in particular to the cry of our sister and mother earth,” Cardinal Czerny said on January 19 during his address to officials of Benin’s Catholic Bishops' Commissions for Social, Pastoral Care and Religious Congregations working in the social field.