Ave Maria!
The brown Franciscans have a new Minster General and he is an American born in Indianapolis, IN which is the same diocese that AirMaria HQ is now located. May God be with him and may God bless all our brother Franciscans.
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
ROME (CNS) — The new minister general of the Order of Friars Minor said the Franciscans are united, energized and challenged by the ministry of the new pope, whose name honors their founder, St. Francis of Assisi.
Pope Francis “has energized us, but he also has challenged us just by who he is,” said U.S. Franciscan Father Michael Perry, who was elected May 22. The pope’s “authenticity is challenging us to rediscover our own authenticity, and calling us to simplify our lives and to speak less and demonstrate more who we are.”
It’s not a matter of promoting the Franciscan “brand,” Father Perry said, but of demonstrating that “simplicity of life means greater life for all people, it means greater access to all that people need to have dignity and survive on this small, tiny planet we have. It means respecting creation so that we do not destroy the environment in which we live.”
Father Perry said he was at the Franciscan headquarters March 13, watching television coverage of the announcement of the new pope.
“When I heard the name that he chose, I physically started shaking,” he said, “because this man has taken the name of the person we hold as a model who calls us to live faithfully the Gospel. And I started thinking how short we fall sometimes in living the Gospel.”
Many Franciscans quickly went on the Internet and began doing research on the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio to find out if what he was saying and doing was “something being invented to make everything look good,” Father Perry said. What they found was that “in fact, this man has lived for a very long time what he is calling all of us to take on.”
via CNS STORY: New leader of Friars Minor says pope has energized Franciscans.
Here is a video:
A great article and video, but I do wish that more care is taken on how we talk about the environment. It is an important issue but it is often exaggerated to the point that it is a quasi religion today. I certainly am not worried about the “survival” of the planet. I think our main concern as Catholics is that we strive to keep the planet a good place to live and thrive for future generations, all part of good Christian stewardship. Any thoughts?
You are correct to caution people regarding the ‘quasi religion’ of environmentalism. I would like to share an article called “Faith Encounters the Ecological Crisis” A Different Spirit, which references this type of apostacy within the Church. Find the article at http://www.catholicmediacoalition.org .
Ave Maria!
Thanks for the comment, Mary. I was not able to read your whole article, but what I read sounds good.
Certainly I want to take this opportunity to emphasize that I do not know much about Fr. Perry’s position. Probably he was using these terms in the loose sense that they are so often used. The Church and the popes have placed the environment high on their lists of this worldly concerns because it is, indeed, important. We just need to be careful that we don’t get into the many exaggerations that the movement often finds itself in.
Athough late, I would like to say my opinion too. I agree with the father! I think he has expressed very well the point.
I would just to add something that I see many franciscans, I mean people who follow the spirituality of St. Francis misrepresent it owing the influence of the ecologists, that by their turn had misrepresented St. Francis’ spirituality before.
Of course St. Francis had a great love for the creation, the animals, birds, see the Canticle of the Creatures, but that love was misunderstood. I would say St. Francis’ love for the creation was paganized by the ecologists and by other modern people with pagan mentality. It was a inversion that had happened with the Christians when they gave a correct sense of love for the creation, purifing all kind of idolatry. Nowadays we the ecological movement has a kind of idolatry for the creation.
I’m not talking about the new minister, but we can’t deny that he repeats a little bit that ecological thought that the media uses to spread.