E-mail enviado ao Cardeal Marx, em 15 de Setembro de 2013, pelo NSI-Portugal

E-mail enviado ao Cardeal Marx, em 15 de Setembro de 2013, pelo NSI-Portugal, integrado numa iniciativa do IMWAC e de diversos movimentos católicos reformistas europeus.

O Cardeal Marx pertence ao grupo dos 8 Cardeais que irá apresentar ao Papa Francisco o projecto de reforma, tendo no seu âmbito a Europa.

Dear Cardinal Marx,

The 'We are Church' Movement in Portugal is very hopeful about the will being expressed by Pope Francis and other Church authorities to move forward with a profound reform of the Curia in order that our Church should better follow the challenge that Jesus laid before all humanity - to love others as we love ourselves, and to love God above everything else.  

We feel that your 2013 October Meeting is of the utmost importance to the future of the Roman Catholic Church and will be a first step in the structural reform of the whole Roman Catholic Church.

We sincerely hope that the Reform commission will listen to and work with bishops’ conferences across the world, as well as with religious orders and, of course, with the great majority of the members of the Church, that is to say the women, men and children who every day give witness to their Christian faith.

It is important that the much needed reform not only increases the efficacy of the Curia but helps the spirit of transparency; so that collegial plurality and democratic structures in the institutional Church have a chance to develop (e.g. ‘separation of powers’: independence of legislature, executive and judiciary). Women, who constitute more than half of the church members, are hardly ever represented or involved in decision making. New structures of communication and leadership have to be developed. They should correspond with the demands of the Gospel and meet the requirements of a worldwide net of communities of the faithful in different cultural settings.

The We Are Church movement believes that key decisions must be about:

1.     Decentralization of decision-making in the church and the giving of more rights  and responsibility to  the Church at local levels

2.     Representation in Rome of all churches in the world

3.     Emancipation of women at all levels

4.     Collegial responsibility and the abandonment of absolutist and        monarchical structures

5.     The implementation of human rights in the Church

6.     A code of behaviour, including accountability of church leaders to the people of God. 

Thanking you very much for all your efforts, please be assured we will keep you in our prayers,

We are Church Group - Portugal