Brotherhood: The Responsibility of Bishops Today

Extract

The central commission of the national conference of bishops of Brasil feels obliged to clarify certain issues in public and to explain to the faithful how it conceives the mission of the hierarchy.

It should not be a matter of surprise that many of our brother bishops should have expressed themselves in public in these times, whether individually or together. It is today’s conditions that make it far more necessary than formerly for authority to be exercised in constant communication with members of society. . . .

Our very first reponsibility, we hold, is the furthering of brotherhood among men, as consecrated by sharing in Christ. We are in the service of love, in its fullest meaning, and that not only on behalf of members of the Church, but of all men.

It is our duty to explain our mission better. This mission is ignored by some, misunderstood by others, and deliberately falsified by certain groups who claim to be serving the Church whilst in fact furthering their own interests. Neither misunderstanding nor falsehood will make us desist from the job that is ours by divine commission and that has marked the presence of the Church in our history. . . .

We repudiate the Marxist claim that religion despoils man by consoling him with a future happiness that will compensate for frustrations inevitable on earth. And to affirm that the religious mission of the bishops must be confined to what is called the ‘spiritual life’ is in effect to accept the Marxist conception of religion.