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Archbishop Lori: Bishops must focus on poor, not seek personal gain

Junno Arocho Esteves | Catholic News Service

Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori was the celebrant and homilist at Mass Dec. 2 at the tomb of St. Peter. PAUL HARING | CNS

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Bishop Michael F. Burbidge (center) joins his fellow bishops for Mass in the grotto of St. Peter’s Basilica Dec. 2. PAUL HARING | CNS

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Bishop Michael F. Burbidge (right) and Bishop Emeritus Paul S. Loverde leave the tomb of St. Peter Dec. 2. PAUL HARING | CNS

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VATICAN CITY — The example of St. Peter and the teaching of his
successor encourage bishops to serve their flocks “willingly and
generously,” said Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori.

Archbishop Lori, who was appointed earlier this year to
investigate allegations of sexual and financial improprieties made against Bishop
Michael J. Bransfield, former bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, W.V.,
said Pope Francis also “warns us against using our ministry for financial
gain or personal comfort.”

It is “a warning that resonates loud and clear among
us,” he said. “Thus Peter, and his successor, Francis, call us to
simplicity of life, a pastoral poverty that enables us to keep the poor always
in focus.”

 

Archbishop Lori was the celebrant and homilist at a Mass celebrated Dec. 2 at the tomb of St. Peter with the bishops of the District of Columbia, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, West Virginia and the Archdiocese for the Military Services.

The bishops, including Bishop Michael F. Burbidge and Bishop Emeritus Paul S. Loverde, were in Rome for their visits “ad limina apostolorum” — to the threshold of the apostles — to report on the status of their dioceses.

In his homily in the grotto of St. Peter’s Basilica, Archbishop
Lori reflected on the Gospel reading in which Jesus asks his disciples what
people are saying about him and who he is.

Jesus, he said, engages “in a bit of popular polling”
at first before putting “his followers on the spot.”

St. Peter’s response that Jesus was “the son of the living
God” was not only correct, but a revelation from God and a response that
made him “the unshakeable rock upon whom (Christ) built his church,”
the archbishop explained.

“In these days, when we are buffeted by challenges on every
side, in these days, when many say that the bottom is dropping out of our
church,” he said, “our hearts should rejoice, and our spines should
be stiffened. And in this place, we hear anew the solid promise of Jesus: that
the forces of sin and death will not prevail against his church.”

Through his promise, Archbishop Lori added, Jesus does not ask
bishops “to be optimists but rather witnesses of hope, ministers of word
and sacrament and charity who put our absolute trust in him.”

Like St. Peter, who despite his failings led the nascent church
until his martyrdom, bishops must understand that their mission is one of service
and “not to hoard our authority over others nor to think too highly of
ourselves and the positions we find ourselves in.”

Instead, bishops must exercise their ministry “in
partnership with priests, deacons, religious and lay women and men, working to become
what Francis calls a synodal church, a church that listens and learns,” he
said.

Archbishop Lori prayed that the bishops would be “rooted and
grounded in love, in comprehending and proclaiming the height and depth and
length and breadth of Christ’s love for the glory of God, for the good of the
church and for the salvation of souls.”

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