Pope Francis dedicated his homily specifically to bishops and priests at his Mass in Casa Santa Marta. He asked them to be close to those who are entrusted to them. <\/p>\n
POPE FRANCIS<\/strong> The pope additionally had a special recommendation for the bishops: always be close to their priests, so that they feel like they have a father. <\/p>\n EXTRACTS FROM PAPAL HOMILY<\/strong><\/p>\n (Source: Vatican News)<\/p>\n \u201cWhen a minister \u2013 a priest, a deacon, a bishop \u2013 gives too much value to money he attaches himself to the root of all evils. A bishop is a man who is close to God. Peter tells us that our duty \u2013 that is the duty of the apostles \u2013 is \u201cto pray and proclaim the Word.<\/p>\n Thus, the bishop\u2019s first task is to pray: it gives us strength and awakens within us the awareness of this gift of the ordained ministry that must never be neglected. It is sad when a bishop forgets about his priests. It is sad to hear a priest complain he is unable to get in touch with his bishop or make an appointment to see him in a brief space of time.<\/p>\n \u201cA priest has the right to know that he has a father. Do not forget about your people, do not forget about your roots! As a bishop and as a priest, you must always be close to the people of God.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen a bishop breaks away from the people of God he ends up following ideologies that have nothing to do with the ministry: 'he is not a minister, he is not a servant. He has forgotten the free gift that he received.'\u201d<\/p>\n The Pope concluded urging all ordained ministers not to forget the four ways in which they must nurture \u201ccloseness\u201d: closeness to God, prayer, closeness of the bishop to his priests; closeness of priests to each other; closeness to the people of God.<\/p>\n He asked those present to pray for their priests and bishops\u201d, he said, \u201cSo we may safeguard the gift that has been given to us - with this closeness\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" September 20, 2019. He asked bishops to be close to their priests so priests feel that they have a father.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":20223,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[195],"tags":[],"acf":{"video":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/XHpDvstFgWE","video_descarga":"http:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bstamarta2009eng.mp4","international_url":"http:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bstamarta2009int.mp4","type":"bn","newsletter":"si"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47625"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWhen a bishop breaks away of the people of God, he can find himself in an atmosphere of ideologies that have nothing to do with his ministry. Then he is not a minister, nor a servant. He has forgotten the free gift that he received. <\/em><\/p>\n