Thread by @EdwardPentin

Pope Francis in new interview calls for “normal seminarians, with their problems, who play soccer, and who don’t go to the neighbourhoods to dogmatise.” He warns against people “trapped in a theology manual, unable to get into trouble and make theology move forward.” 1/5

He says any pastoral approach driven by ideology is “sick from the beginning,” and that “right wing ideologies are perhaps the most dangerous” for the young. “I fear intellectual youth groups, those who summon young people to reflect and then they fill them with weird ideas.” 2/5

He condemns members of restorationist movements as ideologues having “a lot of corruption” and says rigidity is like a shell that “hides a lot of rot.” In many dioceses, Francis adds, traditionalism has acted as a façade for “serious moral problems and vices, double lives.” 3/5

Rigidity in priests, Francis says, comes from fearfulness at “a time of insecurity we are experiencing” and says “that fear does not let them walk. We must remove this fear and help them,” and notes how more experienced pastors can “soften” young ideological clerics. 4/5

For more on his wide ranging interview with Spanish Catholic newspaper @Revista_VN @JLLiedl @NCRegister 5/5ncregister.com/cna/pope-franc…