UNITED KINGDOM
Catholic Herald
By FR ALEXANDER LUCIE-SMITH on Monday, 7 October 2013
Paul Vallely has written an article for the Independent which requires a response.
First of all, the headline, which Mr Vallely did not write, but was written by someone working for the paper. ‘Vatican Spring’ suggests that the reform of the Roman Curia is akin to the overthrow of the tyrants who until recently held sway in the Middle East. Now, I myself have said that the Roman Curia is not fit for purpose, and needs reform: but this snide comparison between the Curia officials and, let us say, President Mubarak, is going a bit far. Not only does it malign some perfectly respectable people, it also belittles the sacrifices made by those who rebelled in the Middle East. The Vatican Spring/Arab Spring echo represents a cheap journalistic trick.
The tone of the article is unfortunate: take this quotation, which suggests that the Pope holds prayer, indeed the most ancient of Christian prayers, in contempt:
The local archbishop asked the Pope to say the Lord’s Prayer there, as St Francis had done eight centuries before. “The Our Father?” the Pope replied. “But I want to talk about what the Church today need to strip away to emulate the gesture Francis made.”
Here you have the perfectly false dichotomy, which the Pope certainly has never intended, between prayer and action. The Pope knows, as do we all, that the more one prays, the more one will change oneself and the world; but the mindset of the Independent seems to be that prayer is an excuse for inaction.
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