EVANGELII GAUDIUM - page 29

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like to hear. Yet the principal aim of these par-
ticipatory processes should not be ecclesiastical
organization but rather the missionary aspiration
of reaching everyone.
32. Since I am called to put into practice what
I ask of others, I too must think about a conver-
sion of the papacy. It is my duty, as the Bishop of
Rome, to be open to suggestions which can help
make the exercise of my ministry more faithful
to the meaning which Jesus Christ wished to give
it and to the present needs of evangelization.
Pope John Paul II asked for help in finding “a
way of exercising the primacy which, while in no
way renouncing what is essential to its mission, is
nonetheless open to a new situation”.35 We have
made little progress in this regard. The papacy
and the central structures of the universal Church
also need to hear the call to pastoral conversion.
The Second Vatican Council stated that, like the
ancient patriarchal Churches, episcopal confer-
ences are in a position “to contribute in many
and fruitful ways to the concrete realization of
the collegial spirit”.36 Yet this desire has not been
fully realized, since a juridical status of episcopal
conferences which would see them as subjects of
specific attributions, including genuine doctrinal
authority, has not yet been sufficiently elaborat-
35 Encyclical Letter Ut Unum Sint (25 May 1995), 95: AAS
87 (1995), 977-978.
36 Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic
Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium , 23.