We are Jointly Responsible for the Church: Pope Francis to Cardinals

Francis said: “Today the Church is big, solid, and we occupy eminent positions in its hierarchy… There is some truth in this, but there is also much deception, whereby the Father of Lies seeks to make Christ’s followers first worldly, then innocuous.”

The Mass with the College of Cardinals was offered for the Church. Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, led the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Pope Francis preached at the Mass, in a cope.

In his homily, the pope decried a “cancer of spiritual worldliness.”

A minister of the Church, he said, is “one who experiences wonder before God’s plan and, in that spirit, passionately loves the Church and stands at the service of her mission wherever and however the Holy Spirit may choose.”

He said Catholics should marvel not only at God’s plan of salvation, but at the “even more amazing fact” that God calls them to participate in this plan.

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For Catholics, there is a “double mystery of our being blessed in Christ and of going forth with Christ into the world.”

“This wonder,” he said, addressing the new cardinals, “does not diminish with the passing of the years; it does not weaken with our increasing responsibilities in the Church. No, thanks be to God. It grows stronger and deeper.”

The Mass with new cardinals followed two days of closed-door meetings with the College of Cardinals to discuss Pope Francis’ reform of the Roman Curia, as laid out in the constitution Praedicate evangelium.

197 cardinals participated in the extraordinary consistory, the first of its kind in seven years.

In his homily, Pope Francis pointed to Saint Pope Paul VI and his 1964 encyclical on the Church, Ecclesiam Suam.

Saint Paul VI loved the Church with “a love which is first and foremost gratitude, grateful wonder at her mystery and at the gift of our being not only members of the Church, but involved in her life, sharing in and, indeed, jointly responsible for her,” he said.

“At the beginning of his programmatic encyclical Ecclesiam Suam, written during the [Second Vatican] Council,” Francis said, “the first thought that came to the pope’s mind was that ‘the Church needs to cultivate a deeper awareness of her identity… her origin and her mission.’”

“In this regard, he made explicit reference to the Letter to the Ephesians, to ‘the providential plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God… so that through the Church… it may be made known.’”

“This was the case with the Apostle Saint Paul, as we see from his letters. His apostolic zeal and the concern for the community was always accompanied, and indeed preceded, by words of blessing filled with wonder and gratitude: ‘Blessed be God…’” Pope Francis said.

“May it also be the case with us,” he concluded. “May it be the case with each of you, dear brother Cardinals. May the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, obtain this grace for each and every one of us.”

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Hannah Brockhaus is Catholic News Agency's senior Rome correspondent. She grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a degree in English from Truman State University in Missouri.