A fresh breeze blows

Fresh from the Bishops’ Synod in Rome, Gozo Bishop Mario Grech tells Kurt Sansone why the Church has to walk side by side with divorcees. Bishop Mario Grech sits in the lobby of a Sliema hotel after attending the launch of the Church’s internet news portal. The Church could not afford to be absent from the web, he had just told his audience. His words echoed a message that came out of the Bishops’ Synod in Rome last month, which Mgr Grech also addressed. But now, in a less formal setting, he sits in front of a journalist trying to understand the synod’s call for a ‘new evangelisation’. Mgr Grech smiles at the mere suggestion that his words on divorcees at the synod provided a significant opening for Catholics who have drifted away from the Church. In what many observers of the domestic Church felt was a break from the past, Mgr Grech called for a Church that “accompanied” divorcees in a journey of faith. The Church must show them love and not condemn them, he told the gathering of bishops. It was a message reflected in Pope Benedict XVI’s homily in the mass that closed the synod last week. The Pontiff urged for the return of “lukewarm” Catholics. In the hotel lobby full of people...