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church – a small community of volunteers

OK, don’t be shy. Take a guess who said the following? [ie. don’t research it! Some of you will know – don’t spoil it for the others by giving all the details; only add your “guess” in the comments if it is a guess; if you know, don’t spoil it for others 🙂 ]:

From today’s crisis, a Church will emerge tomorrow that will have lost a great deal. She will be small and, to a large extent, will have to start from the beginning. She will no longer be able to fill many of the buildings created in her period of great splendor. Because of the smaller number of her followers, she will lose many of her privileges in society. Contrary to what has happened until now, she will present herself much more as a community of volunteers… As a small community, she will demand much more from the initiative of each of her members and she will certainly also acknowledge new forms of ministry and will raise up to the priesthood proven Christians who have other jobs… There will be an interiorized Church, which neither takes advantage of its political mandate nor flirts with the left or the right. This will be achieved with effort because the process of crystallization and clarification will demand great exertion. It will make her poor and a Church of the little people… All this will require time. The process will be slow and painful.

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12 thoughts on “church – a small community of volunteers”

  1. Guess: Jim Wallis?

    But knowing this blog…I bet it is some ancient writer who is strangely speaking to our modern context. But, I couldn’t guess who.

  2. David |dah•veed|

    I am going to also say the Pope. I remember something about his predicting that his pontificate would leave a smaller, purer church.

    Just what we need, more Puritans!

  3. It was Joseph Ratzinger, now better known as Pope Benedict XVI, then aged 42 in 1969 on German radio. Well done to everyone who had a guess – take a bow 🙂

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