ROME (CNS): Catholics in the United States must work and pray for a healing of the Church “so that we may once again evangelise, not apologise”, said US Archbishop John P. Foley.
The archbishop, who is president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, made the comments during a homily on January 10 at a Mass with alumni of North American College, the US seminary in Rome.
The Gospel reading at the Mass at Casa Santa Maria, the college’s residence for priests studying in Rome, included the prayer of the leper, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean”.
“After a tragic year for the Church in the United States, that prayer of the leper seeking physical healing could well be for us a prayer both corporate and personal,” the archbishop said.
The entire Church community needs healing, he said, but each Catholic and each Catholic priest also must ask for God’s help to be better Christians and better witnesses of the love of God.
