Solidarity inspired by the Pope

Pope Francis’ words and gestures reap visible fruits. That encouragement to the Church to “go to the existential peripheries”, whichever they are, pronounced on the occasion of the Pentecost 2013 and repeated on several occasions, has not remained a catch phrase for the Catholics of the Dutch diocese of Roermond. Encouraged by the bishop, Msgr. Frans Wiertz, in several places those words fostered new diaconal initiatives, and people who had drawn away from the Church, but who were “impressed by the Pope’s words and actions” draw near, said Hub Vossen, from the diocesan service “Church and Society”. “The charisma of the Pope encourages the faithful to put their talents to the service of the environment in which they live”. Outward Churches. Several associations and charities active in the diocese of Roermond have been revitalized by Bergoglio “in fascinating and surprising ways”, Vossen said. Having verified that in some parishes “nothing happened”, Msgr. Frans Wiertz through the message of the Advent 2013 suggested that local Communities gave birth to “groups of Pope Francis” to “seek to identify social and spiritual needs in their environment and live human closeness”. Bishop Wiertz wrote in the letter of December 8: “Our task as Catholic believers is to be sincerely close to all those that are not reached by the excellent professional care of official public bodies”. And paraphrasing the words of Pope Francis he added: “The Church should close itself within safe walls, isolated from the ‘evil world’; it should, on request of its Lord, seek every wounded person, in the urgent situation that she or he is going through”. In fact, Vossen went on, parishes register “small steps of a Church that positively and explicitly adopts an outward approach”. “Living together”. To guide people wishing to give their support, the diocesan service “Church and society” has compiled a handbook titled “Living together: the most natural thing in the world” with “twenty surprising small diaconal projects” Vossen said. “There is also the possibility to contribute to pre-existing initiatives, but it should be also possible to adopt a critical view of the activities developed in recent years by diaconal and religious movements”. The criteria should be the following: “Do we have parishes and deaconal groups with sufficiently attentive ears and eyes to grasp the present social developments and the needs of the present times?” Vossen pointed out that “the new volunteers have provided us with a different perspective of the church and society”. Minors at risk, lonely old people. This is translating into a set of innovative initiatives adopted by local communities (for further information www.bisdom-roermond.nl), which provide a significant contribution to the social cohesion of a neighbourhood, country or city. In Heerlen, for example, a new diaconal group drew up the “social map of the local district which disconcertingly showed that in a given area 89% of the children lived a situation of disadvantage. Though exploratory talks the group is working on a project on child poverty”. Another example: five towns in the northern area of Limburg, the region that comprises the diocese of Roermond, have been united under the same administration. Social cohesion in those villages is slowly disappearing: the first sign is that associations are disappearing for lack of members while old people’s solitude increases. Mobility is a major problem for them, they find it hard to access structures providing the services no longer available in their hamlet. Several organizations launched a program for visits to the elderly while support and counselling services have been set up in the hospital compound. Gospel and concreteness. A large deconsecrated church in Weert belonging to the Franciscan order, closed and deconsecrated a few years ago, on April was solemnly renamed “Pope Francis Home”. It will become a structure at the service of the city and of its social, educational and cultural needs. These activities are not isolated, they are connected to social and charitable initiatives of the Church already implemented. “It’s important for activities to be complementary, conceived to render justice to vulnerable human beings”, Vossen said. “Whether or not they are called ‘Pope Francis Groups’ is not important. What’s important is that evangelical values are lived concretely”.