Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini believed the Catholic Church 200 years behind the times. The former archbishop of Milan and papal candidate said this in the final interview he gave before his death last Friday at the age of 85. In the interview Martini gave a scathing portrayal of a pompous and bureaucratic church failing to move with the times.
“Our culture has aged, our churches are big and empty and the church bureaucracy rises up, our rituals and our cassocks are pompous,” Martini said in the interview published in Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
“The Church must admit its mistakes and begin a radical change, starting from the pope and the bishops. The pedophilia scandals oblige us to take a journey of transformation,” he said.
Lyndsay Freer, a spokesperson for the Catholic Church in Auckland, said the Cardinal’s comments were challenging.
But she said the number of people going to church in New Zealand is actually increasing.
Ms Freer said many would agree with the Cardinal that there is room for improvement in how the Church applies its teaching.
Pope Benedict XVI sent a message, read at the funeral, praising Martini’s “great openness of spirit.”
The Director of the Press Office of the Holy See, Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, remembered his confrere as a man, “whose formation and personality were those of a Jesuit scholar of Sacred Scripture.” Fr. Lombardi went on to say, “The Word of God was the starting point and the foundation of his approach to every aspect of reality and all of his contributions.”
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