After conservative attack, pope calls on synod to set aside politics

Pope Francis called on Catholic leaders on Wednesday to set aside politics and work to make the Church more welcoming for all, as he opened a global meeting that conservative critics say risks “poisoning” the faith.
Delivering a homily in St Peter’s Square at the start of the first global gathering of Church leaders, or synod, for four years, the pope said bishops should avoid “human strategies, political calculations or ideological battles”.
“We are not here to carry out a parliamentary meeting or a plan of reformation,” he said in the homily of the Mass, which the Vatican said was attended by a crowd of 25,000.
The synod was not an attempt to “depart from the sacred patrimony of the truth received from the Fathers”, he said. But the Church must avoid becoming either “a rigid Church, which arms itself against the world and looks backward” or “a lukewarm Church, which surrenders to the fashions of the world”.
Church doors must be “open to all, all, all”, he added.