“Far from having disappeared, it would be absurd to say so, faith in Christ continues to be a reference for the Church,” the friar said in a launch of his book in which he spoke on the theme “The Crisis in the Catholic Church: Lack of Faith, Ideologies, and Worldliness.”
“But the decisive question is whether faith in Christ is your central, main, determining reference,” he said. “It is not a question of the Church affirming the centrality of Christ only in formal and theoretical terms but of affirming it existentially and operationally, as being the beating heart of all its life and action,” the friar said.
“Doctrinally affirming the primacy of Christ in the Church costs little,” he said.
“Affirming, however, in an existential way, that Christ is the absolute center of the Church, costs, and a lot: It costs the heart and the soul, when it does not cost tears and perhaps blood,” he said.
In his book, Clodovis talks about how he collaborated with proponents of liberation theology during the pontificates of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.
For him, it is necessary that liberation theology be rethought with Christ at the center, not the poor, in order to be “timely, useful, and necessary,” as St. John Paul II said in his letter to the Brazilian bishops in 1986.
This story was first published by ACI Digital, CNA’s Portuguese-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Marcelo Musa Cavallari is ACI Digital’s editor-in-chief.
