The magazine “Vida Nueva” recently interviewed our brother Sergio Silva sscc, from the Province of Chile. Sergio is a Doctor of Theology from the University of Regensburg, Germany. He studied Civil Engineering before entering the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts, where he was ordained a priest 52 years ago. He has been a professor at the Faculty of Theology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (Pontifical Catholic University of Chile) for 45 years and was its Dean on two different occasions.
Sergio is working on the beatification process of another brother of the congregation of the Sacred Hearts, Fr Esteban Gumucio sscc, for which he spent two years in Rome. On his return to Chile, he settled in Valparaíso, a city where his congregation arrived in May 1834, and from there he responded to Vida Nueva.
QUESTION: What is your opinion of the current situation facing the church in Chile?
Sergio: Terrible. But you have to distinguish. The official part of the hierarchy, bishops and clergy, very bad, with little openness. The pontificate of John Paul II did enormous damage not only to the Chilean church, but to many others, especially with its episcopal appointments. They put people in positions without their own personality, mere executioners, who did everything by looking towards the Nuncio. You cannot be a bishop in this way. This is not how the Church is governed. I was impressed seeing the episcopal declarations during the time of dictatorship in Chile: their strength, their clarity, their concern for the concrete reality of the poor, the persecuted, and those who are in difficult situations. That was lost in the Chilean church. That is the lack of prophetic voice that the Pope reproaches the Bishops for in the document he read to the Chilean bishops in Rome in May 2018. I see the hierarchy with an almost total loss of a prophetic voice.
Question: And the laity?
Sergio: It is a faithful people. Older, but faithful. There are almost no youth, except for some small, scarce groups that have no strength. There is no powerful youth movement. It is true that the youth is complex and we understand them little. But they are not there.
Question: What are, in your opinion, the main challenges?
Sergio: For the Chilean Church, conversion on two levels: personally, with more work on docility to the Spirit, because the Spirit is the one who must lead the Church, if we let it. We need to be converted to be more and more docile to the Spirit of God in us.
Question: And the other level?
Sergio: The conversion of structures. I think that, in this, Pope Francis is right. The church has to convert and move away from the current structures that have Jesus locked up, without being able to get out. They have Jesus locked up in things that don't work, that don't mean anything. On the contrary, they are counterproductive. In this, Casaldáliga (Pedro Casaláliga CMF, was a Catalan born Bishop in Brazil) was a prophet of ‘ecclesiastical deconstruction’. I think there is a lot to do here. Evangelii Gaudium is clear: it says everything needs to be revised. Everything. Nothing can go unchecked. You have to be bold to review and change everything that needs to be changed.
Question: What needs urgently to be change?
Sergio: One of the main changes required is the formation of clergy. The seminaries have done and are doing a lot of damage: this formation of the clergy separated from the real world, apart from it, inevitably creates the feeling of being special, different, that I have the truth. When I arrive at the parish, I do then what I want, because what I want, is what God wants. This generates tremendous abuses of conscience and power that, at times, can also lead to sexual abuse. The big problem is the abuse of power and conscience. I have the truth and I impose it on you, because you don't have it. This must be radically changed, and that cannot be done by maintaining the seminaries. I think this requires a very radical revision and daring to change.
Question: Only the formation of the clergy?
Sergio: Formation is a priority for everyone in the Church. It is essential to learn, above all, to dialogue. In Chile we are in a situation where it is practically impossible to dialogue. Dialogue supposes, in each one of the dialogue participants, the humility of knowing that I do not have the whole truth; and, also, the humility of saying what I see. It needs to be said with passion because that is what I see, but also realising that I do not see the whole picture. We need to be always ready for someone else to show me something that I have not seen, and even help me change. Sometimes one becomes obsessed with one thing that we see, but don't see the rest of the situation that if we did could make us change our opinion completely. So there is also a fundamental theme of service and it is an urgent need: to learn to dialogue.
Question: What other challenge do we have as Church?
Sergio: To learn from Jesus, from the pastoral action of Jesus. I am becoming more and more convinced that Jesus did not intend to convert anyone, only to share life with people and with them solve their fundamental needs; making them see that God wants to reign in them. What are our fundamental needs today? It is there we have to be, serving. It was what Jesus did: where there were sick people, He healed them. Where there was hunger, He multiplied the bread. Wherever the marginalized were, he welcomed them; he gave them back their dignity. Sinners, tax collectors, women, children. All of them were marginalised. What Jesus did was solve these people’s needs. It is very interesting to see what the miracles of Jesus are like, called 'forces' in the synoptic Gospels and 'signs' or 'works' in John. They are the healing force of God that is working through Him.
Question: Was Jesus a miracle worker?
Sergio: The word miracle is our invention. It appears when Jesus gets angry, "you don't believe unless you see miracles" and he says, "Be careful because false prophets are going to come and perform miracles. Don't believe them.' When Jesus performs his ‘miracles’ he always incorporates people, there is never anything that he does on his own as if he were a fairy godmother. If there is no faith, he cannot do them, as happened in Nazareth where he could not perform miracles due to a lack of faith; because the people did not co-operate. Only when people collaborate does that current of God's saving power take place, that passes through Jesus and reaches people; if not, it can’t. The text says 'could not', it does not say 'did not want'. It was not anger that caused this because they did not have faith, no, he couldn't.
Question: Is there only that healing force?
Sergio: We have to rediscover Jesus as a model of ‘good shepherd’. What Jesus does, in addition to solving needs, is to create parables, not only spoken, but also to create spaces for a new life. What does the Kingdom of God look like? And tell stories. But also, what does it look like? It is similar to what I do, Jesus would say, with this group of 12, with these women who accompany me, what I do welcoming children, having lunch with sinners. This is what the Kingdom of God looks like. He creates living parables. How do we create living parables in our action in this world? Francis says that everyone fits in the Church! So, let's open the space: how can a freemason, an atheist, a drug dealer fit in? How can the young people, those in canonically irregular situations fit in? It doesn’t occur to us because we defend what is ours, we maintain our system, we make people adapt to what we propose. In this way we get nowhere!
Question: Is the Church in Chile managing to overcome the crisis of abuse?
Sergio: The issue of abuse is the outside, the tip of the iceberg. It can be overcome on the outside, with protocols, preventions. This must be done, yes, but if we do not change the formation, if we do not rediscover Jesus as the model of good shepherd, then the issue of abuse will not be improved. In short: respond to the real challenges; open ourselves to the Spirit; and change everything that needs to be changed.
08/19/2020