ROME
Crux
Elise Harris November 20, 2016
CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY
ROME – When Pope Francis spoke out sharply against the “virus of polarization,” three new American cardinals saw a chance for a serious examination of conscience.
“I thought it was very timely, what the Holy Father said,” Cardinal Joseph Tobin told journalists November 19.
He said that for him, the first thing to do in response is “to examine ourselves in the Church, to see whether we have unconsciously appropriated this virus” or somehow justified it “when it actually serves to divide.”
To do this, he said, could likely be considered “a resistance to the acts of the Holy Spirit.”
Tobin was among 17 priests and bishops who came to St. Peter’s Basilica from around the world to receive a red hat from Pope Francis Saturday during a special consistory set to coincide with the end of the Jubilee of Mercy.
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