On the day before he left for his visit to Latin America, Pope Francis told members of the charismatic Renewal in the Holy Spirit movement in Rome that a time limit should be established for roles in the Church. “It would be opportune for all roles of service in the Church to have a time limit – there are no lifelong leaders in the Church,” he told thousands of members of the movement in St Peter’s Square on Saturday.
“There exists a great temptation for leaders to believe themselves indispensable, step by step to head towards authoritarianism, to personality cults, and not to allow the communities renewed in the Holy Spirit to thrive… We must be very clear that only the Holy Spirit is indispensable in the Church and Jesus is the only Lord. There are no others,” Francis told the gathering meeting for its 38th National Convocation.
Another strong sign of the Spirit in Charismatic Renewal is the search for unity in the Body of Christ, Francis said. “You, as Charismatics, have the special grace of praying and working for Christian unity, so that the current of grace flows through all Christian Churches,” he emphasised.
Another form of unity was “the unity of the blood of martyrs, that makes us one… the ecumenism of blood”. “We know that those who kill Christians in hatred of Jesus Christ, before killing, do not ask: 'But are you a Lutheran, Orthodox, Evangelical, Baptist, Methodist?' They say, 'You are Christian', and behead them,” Francis said.
The Pope concluded there was “unity in work with the poor and the needy”. “Those brothers and sisters who live on the streets: they too have the Spirit within,” he pointed out.
The encounter was attended by Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches; Cardinal Kurt Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, along with the Orthodox and Catholic oriental Patriarchs, Anglican and Lutheran bishops, and Pentecostal pastors.
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