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God Does Not Want ‘a World Governed by Religious Laws,’ Pope Tells Canadian Clergy

To address this, the church must have “pastoral creativity,” the pope said. Francis offered suggestions for clergy on how to embrace this transformation. He called on the church to preach the gospel in a way that reveals “the freedom that sets others free, the compassion that asks for nothing in return, the mercy that silently speaks of Christ.”

To be credible, he continued, the church must act as a witness. “We must begin with ourselves: bishops and priests,” he said, “who should not feel themselves superior to our brothers and sisters in the people of God. Pastoral workers, who should not understand service as power.”

Fraternity is the final element needed for the church’s transformation, he said, to create “a welcoming community” that is “capable of listening, entering into dialogue and promoting quality relationships.”

On Thursday morning, Pope Francis said Mass before 2,000 faithful at the National Shrine of St. Anne de Beaupré, where his predecessor St. John Paul II met with Indigenous peoples for the first time during his apostolic visit to Quebec City in 1984.

Francis encouraged Catholics to embark on a “a journey from failure to hope,” referring to the atrocities committed toward the Indigenous peoples of Canada. “In confronting the scandal of evil and the body of Christ wounded in the flesh of our Indigenous brothers and sisters, we too have experienced deep dismay; we too feel the burden of failure,” he said.

“Nothing could be worse than fleeing in order to avoid it,” he said, while adding that only through faith and the gospel can one experience “the operative presence of God’s love and the potential for good even in apparently hopeless situations.”

Thousands of faithful gathered outside the shrine to catch a glimpse of Pope Francis. While many cheered him on as he circled the area aboard his popemobile, others held signs calling for the pope to take actions to accompany his words of remorse, including rescind the Doctrine of Discovery, a centuries-old papal mandate that allowed Western nations to colonize and spread Christianity in the New World.

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