Bishops have domesticated and tamed the Gospel, Broken Bay Bishop David Walker told the Bible Synod, so that it does not draw "a radical response" from the faithful". "After twelve years of Episcopal ministry, two issues preoccupy me in a special way," Bishop Walker said.
"Firstly that our Catholic faithful have not been given the opportunity to enter more deeply into the mystery of Our Risen Lord; and secondly the formation of priests who will enable them to do so.
"Holiness lies at the heart of our faith; the holiness of each believer should be of a high standard; bringing this about is an urgent pastoral task (John Pau II). Deep holiness and an intimacy with Scriptures go hand in hand.
"This intimacy is only acquired over time by regular meditative, prayerful reflection on the Scriptures," he said.
"We let the faithful down by not proclaiming the Gospel in a deep and radical way. We have domesticated it, tamed it, so that it does not draw them to a radical response.
Our priests today are probably better educated about the Scriptures than ever before. However, this has not resulted in a presbyterate whose heart is "a library of the Word" (Origen) or "dyed the colour of the Scriptures" (Cassian).
"Such an approach alone can lead to a head filled with the Scriptures but a heart bereft of them.
"We need to move the experience of the Scriptures from the head to the heart. This is the real basis of a ordained ministry. Faithfulness to the regular practice of a meditative, prayerful reading of the Scriptures, and the sharing of it, is a way to achieve this.
Faith and life gap
In other interventions, Naples Cardinal Crescenzio said that in order "to overcome the drama of the gap between faith and daily life and to ensure that the Word unleashes gestures and works of charity, we have to return to the source, that is, to charity."
"Only that, if lived and practiced, can solidify the ecclesial fabric and open the road to the reality of love. The numerous sick in body and spirit, the poor who crowd our city streets, the sites of suffering such as hospitals and prisons, represent more concrete evidence of fidelity to the Word and of our ability to mould our lives on that of the "living Gospel", that is more eloquent than so many words because it has become "flesh and blood".
The Apostolic Vicar of Istanbul, Archbishop Louis Pelatre, noted that a large part of the New Testament was written in what is now Turkey.
"The ministry of the Apostles throughout these regions poses the problem of the transmission of the message in the local languages," Archbishop Pelatre noted highlighting the challenge of translating into languages spoken by only small numbers of people.
"The Greek text that we received was preceded by oral tradition and already constitutes an effort of translation," he said.
"Throughout the world there are excellent commissions for translations of the Bible in the different international languages, but what about translations in the local languages that are only spoken by a small number of persons? This is a real problem in Turkey. We must thank our brothers from the Protestant Biblical societies who have done excellent work for a long time in this domain, but we must also deplore the fact that the Catholic Church is not sufficiently present and is lacking competent persons to take part in this effort for translations of suitable quality both in the Biblical languages and the local languages to establish the texts in a quality worthy of the Word of God that we would like to proclaim.
"Unfortunately, we can easily find the money to print beautiful books, but not enough to ensure the quality of content, which presupposes finding volunteers for this obscure and lengthy task, which is the first step in the evangelising action of the Church," Archbishop Pelatre lamented.
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(Source: CHN)