‘No true love without cross’
In his Angelus message last Sunday, Pope Francis said:
“Jesus says to his disciples: ‘Whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me’. This means following him along the path that he himself trod, without looking for shortcuts. There is no true love without the cross, that is, without a personal price to pay.
“And many mothers, many fathers who sacrifice many things for their child, and bear true sacrifices, crosses, but because they love them.
“And when borne with Jesus, the cross is not scary because he is always at our side to support us in the hour of the most difficult trial, to give us strength and courage.
“Nor is it necessary to get agitated to preserve one’s own life through fearful or egotistical behaviour.”
Fewer Catholics in Germany
A record number of German Catholics left the Church in 2019. The previous record number was 218,000 in 2014. The number for 2019 is higher: 272,771. In 2018, 216,000 Catholics cancelled their Church membership.
Archbishop Georg Bätzing, chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, said the drop in baptism and wedding ceremonies showed the “erosion of a personal attachment to the Church” particularly clearly.
The Protestant Church also had a disappointing year. In 2019, the number who left the German Protestant Church (EKD) was 270,000 people, an increase of 22 per cent on the year before.
Dignity of baptism
Cardinal Cristobal Lopez, Archbishop of Rabat, Morocco, said: “Women, like men, have to rediscover baptism and the dignity of being children of God that baptism gives. Our joy is not in being bishops or cardinals, ordained or not. Our joy must come from being children of God.”
(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)