The synodal process is “a wonderful process of discernment” rather than a “democracy”.
Auckland Bishop Stephen Lowe gave this explanation in an interview with Shine Today presenter Andrew Urquhart on October 29.
“Pope Francis is wanting the Church to be a more synodal Church. That doesn’t mean that we’re a democracy but . . . rather a recognition of our baptismal call that the Spirit works through each of us, and each of us is called to have that prophetic voice within the Church,” the bishop said.
“The idea of synod in a New Zealand context would be hui. We not only listen respectfully and spiritually with each other, but we’re also listening to the movement of the Spirit and the voice of the Spirit is who sets out the direction of our conversation.”
The interview lasted a little over 20 minutes and touched on Bishop Lowe’s vocation journey, the Church’s relationship with Maori, sexual abuse and his (Bishop Lowe’s) thoughts on the challenges the Church faces today.
“The big challenge I’d say is that, for so many people, faith has become irrelevant. We’ve got a spiritual crisis in our country, and in a lot of other countries of the so-called western or first world,” he said.
“A lot of people will say, ‘spirituality yes, but religion no’, but in the end what happens is they just create God in their own image and likeness.”
Bishop Lowe said we need to captivate people just as Christ captivated his first disciples. He added that Christians need to speak with one voice.
“The divisions amongst Christians don’t help us proclaim Christ and I think that’s a that’s a real challenge as well,” he said.
Bishop Lowe also spoke about the first time he heard the call to priesthood.
“When I moved to Timaru, I really got involved with the parish there. I’ve always been involved with the (other) parishes, but it was there that I really claimed my faith as my own,” he began.
“Just one night, I was at Mass and in the middle of the priest’s homily, I believe I saw Jesus coming on the clouds of heavens,” he said. “I’m a bit of a slouch . . . but I just sat bolt upright in my seat. People looked at me as if to say, ‘what’s wrong with you? The sermon is not that good’.”
He talked about the vision with his friends, but ignored it. However, he said things went wrong in his life, and the only thing working was prayer.
“One night, I prayed, ‘well, if it’s a priest you wanted me to be, give me a sign.’ So much for you should not put the Lord your God to the test. The next day, when I got home, the phone was ringing. It was the young priest from the parish saying, ‘oh, I’ve been trying to get hold of you for days. I’ll be coming around for coffee’,” the bishop recalled.
The priest then asked him (Bishop Lowe) if he wanted to be a priest.
“I suppose it was my Damascus experience,” Bishop Lowe reflected.
The bishop said that he loved being a parish priest and that every parish is a “gift”.
He said that, as St Therese of Lisieux’s vocation within a vocation was to be love in the midst of the Church, his is “to be a shepherd after the heart of Jesus”.
Touching on the Church’s relationship with Maori, Bishop Lowe said Bishop Jean-Baptiste Pompallier has a nuanced and different view of land and that he (Bishop Pompallier) understood that land was sacred to Maori.
But when other Catholic missionaries came, “they lost that sense and that connection with Maori, and it’s something that we’ve always got to continue to engage with”.
Bishop Lowe also talked frankly about sexual abuse in the Church.
He cited several issues as to why this had happened in the Church. The first was that young men trained as priests at a very young age, and were still effectively school students.
“They were removed from family, and it stunted their psychosexual development I think that’s one issue,” he said.
Another issue, he said, was the lack of understanding of paedophiles and ephebophiles.
“Within the Church, we believe in forgiveness and redemption, and again, that was all part of the . . . if you like . . . problem. But I think the sexual attraction of paedophiles and ephebophiles don’t change. It is fixed and it can’t be converted or cured. And we have to actually acknowledge that,” he said.
He said that, if he was given a chance to say his piece at the Royal Commission on Abuse in Care, he would have said, “we made some horrible mistakes. We didn’t recognise abuse happening, when we did, we didn’t act on it, and we have to acknowledge that. It’s out there and that we have to be attentive to it”.
Asked what kind of legacy he would like to leave when he gets to the end of his service as bishop, Bishop Lowe said he hopes that the spirituality of the diocese would have grown.
“It’s about the relationship with Christ and that’s what I hope for anyone I pass it to that that they’ll get to know and love Christ . . . That as I try to share my faith with them that they’ll share their faith with me and together we’ll grow in that faith,” he said.
The reality is the cross.
“Take up your cross daily and
follow me”.
The head of the Jesuits, Fr Peter Hans
Kolvenbach, SJ used to sleep on the floor with
the window open.
St Benedict Joseph Labre had a
journey of faith of extreme poverty,
and the Sulspicians in Canada are
formed under the tutelage of Fr Michel
Roderick in a seminary that evolved
from this.
Jesus was not born in a palace, but in
a stinky stable.
Whoever removes the cross and its interpretation
by the New Testament, in order to replace it, for
example with the social commitment of Jesus
to the oppressed as a new centre, no longer
stands in continuity with the apostolic faith.
… Hans Urs Von Balthasar
The cross is carried by 45,000,000 aborted
babes each year, globally. This is 30 times
the number murdered in the Armenian genocide,
only no-one calls it genocide.
Today’s priesthood have a unique moment to
witness to Christ, and raise matters such as
these, in a world governed by Secular Humanism,
and a global apostasy, that fuels abortion,
euthanasia, drugs, porn, and gay marriage.