VATICAN CITY
Reuters
BY PHILIP PULLELLA
VATICAN CITY Fri Jan 3, 2014
(Reuters) – Pope Francis has told Roman Catholic priests to leave their comfort zone and get out among people on the margins of society or else risk becoming “abstract ideologists”.
The Italian Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica published an exclusive text on Friday of a three-hour, closed-door meeting the Argentinian-born pontiff had in late November with heads of orders of priests from around the world.
Francis said priests had to have “real contact with the poor” and the marginalized.
“This is really very important to me: the need to become acquainted with reality by experience, to spend time walking on the periphery in order really to become acquainted with the reality and life-experiences of people,” he told them.
“If this does not happen we then run the risk of being abstract ideologists or fundamentalists, which is not healthy.”
Since his election in 2013 as the first non-European pope in 1,300 years, Francis has been prodding priests, nuns and bishops to think less about their careers in the Church and to listen more to the needs of ordinary Catholics, especially the poor.
Taking over an institution reeling from child sex abuse, financial and other scandals and losing members to other religions, Francis has tried to refocus on the basic Christian teachings of compassion, simplicity and humility.
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