From an interview with Malta’s Archbishop Charles Scicluna:
Society is becoming more liberal. Do you think the Church needs to adapt and move with the times?
Absolutely. The Church always needs to adapt to circumstances. There is a core message, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Church will be faithful to that core message if it adapts to circumstances and even adapts its language and the way it conveys its message.
Otherwise it will betray the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is a fresh, good message. So if we use something which is outdated or anachronistic, we have to ask: ‘Am I being true to the Gospel of Jesus Christ or is it only a nostalgia for some museum piece that I want to simply polish every now and then?’
One can easily imagine what Blessed Pope Pius IX may have said to that same question, given the still authoritative utterance from his Syllabus of Modern Errors, No. 80:
The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization. — Allocution “Jamdudum cernimus,” March 18, 1861.
That statement, by the way, is condemned as one of the modern errors.
Blessed Pius IX, portrait by George Peter Alexander Healy (source)
