In a general audience on Wednesday, the Pope spoke about the role of bishops and collegiality.

He departed from his script to say: "The bishop is not an honorary role, it is a service."

"A worldly mentality speaks of a man who has an ‘ecclesiastical career and has become a bishop'.

"There should be no place for such a mentality in the Church. The bishop serves; it is not a position of honour, to boast about."

The Pope added: "It is sad when we see a man who seeks this office and does all he can to get it and when he gets it does not serve, instead goes around like a peacock and lives only for his vanity."

One does not ask for the office, the Pope said, rather one accepts it in obedience, not to become higher, but to lower oneself, as Jesus did on the cross.

Francis also said that bishops were called "to express one single college, gathered around the Pope, who is the guardian and guarantor of this profound communion that was so dear to Jesus and His apostles themselves".

Pope Francis called the hierarchical Church, "our holy mother".

And in the presence and ministry of bishops, priests and deacons, the true maternal face of the hierarchical Church is recognised, he said.

The Pope concluded by calling upon the faithful, beginning with the clergy, to be united with, and pray for, their bishops.

"There is no healthy Church if the faithful priests, deacons are not united around their bishop," he said.

"This Church not united around their bishop is a sick Church."

Meanwhile, a document authorised by the Pope has decreed that non-cardinal heads of Vatican departments and officials automatically lose office when they reach 75.

It states that cardinals who lead a curial department and diocesan bishops must offer their resignation on turning 75.

It also points out that the Pope may ask a bishop to resign after a "fraternal dialogue".

Sources

• The Tablet
• Catholic World News
• The Tablet
• Image: The Record

We might talk about the ‘me' generation, the addiction to selfies, or the overbearing politician in any of these terms.

But this ignores their important differences, and threatens to flatten out all the interesting contours of the landscape of the self.

The English poet John Milton offer a useful starting point for discussing these notions.

He thought, rightly, that a ‘pious and just honouring of ourselves' was essential to us - ‘the fountainhead whence every laudable and worthy enterprise issues forth'.

Writing in an essay on church government in 1642, he called for sufficient self-respect or self-confidence to fit us for the undertakings that enrich our lives or those of others.

Too little of it, and we would shrink away from things that we might well need to do.

Too much, and we start doing things that we are not actually fit to undertake.

Milton was talking of modest self-confidence, enough to give us courage to face problems and tackle difficulties.

Today we might think of it as having appropriate self-esteem, and it ought to be one aim of a good education.

But here we need to add an Aristotelian caveat.

The root idea behind the concept of esteem is that of an estimate.

In nearly all contexts it is better not to estimate things too highly or too lowly, and it is the same with estimates of the self.

If I estimate myself too highly in most respects, I am likely to head for a fall: literally if, for example, I think I am a better climber or horse-rider than I am, but metaphorically in almost any other respect. Continue reading

Sources

• Aeon Magazine
• Image: Yves Herman/Reuters / Aeon