By Alexander Tschugguel, (München, 18. Januar, Acies Ordinata)
“The Church must never become an NGO. Churches and parishes must go out into the public square if we are not to end up as an NGO”.
These are the words of Pope Francis on World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro in 2013 - part of the famous speech in which he also exhorted young Catholics to “create a stir”.
The strategy to prevent the Church from becoming an NGO appears to include the projects discussed during last year’s Amazon Synod. NGOs are generally defined as large, internationally active, mostly left-wing associations like Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Open Society, Gaia-Amazonas Foundation or other organisations that advocate a leftist-liberal interpretation of human rights, no barriers to mass migration or the struggle against “man-made climate change”.
From today’s perspective, it is difficult to say whether there was actually, back in 2013, any threat of a development in the Church that could have made the Church …More