Uncompromising Francis sets priorities

In deeply contrasting messages and homilies over the Christmas period, Pope Francis has given a powerful indication of what his primary concerns will be in 2015.

Delivering an uncompromising Christmas address to the Roman Curia three days before Christmas, he berated his audience with a list of no fewer than 15 spiritual “illnesses and temptations” of which he found some or all guilty.

Meanwhile in his Christmas Eve and Christmas Day homilies and in a letter to the persecuted Christians and other minorities in Iraq and Syria, he spoke for the victims of the world’s conflicts, the persecuted, and the abandoned, especially children and the elderly.

He told the curia officials that they “feel themselves ‘lords of the manor’ [padroni] – superior to everyone and everything”, forgetting that the spirit, which should animate them is one of humility and generosity. There were those he said were guilty of “Martha-ism”, that is “the sickness of those who immerse themselves in work,  neglecting ‘the better part’ of sitting at Jesus’ feet.” Others suffered from “Spiritual Alzheimer’s”, living “in a state of absolute dependence on [their] often imaginary views”.

The list continued with the ailments of “rivalry and vainglory”, “existential vainglory”, “chatter, grumbling and gossip”, which can lead to “cold-blooded murders of the reputations of colleagues and brethren”, “honouring people rather than God”, “indifference towards others”, “the illness of the funereal face”, the “ailment of accumulations”, and “the ailment of closed circles”. He concluded with the “disease of worldly profit and exhibitionism”. The speech was greeted with muted applause.

He no doubt had these words in mind when he spoke at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve of how the great light of the Nativity of Christ “was not seen by the arrogant, the proud, by those who made laws according to their own personal measures, who were closed off to others”.

On Christmas Day, Francis offered a heartfelt plea for “all those children who are killed and ill-treated ... infants killed in the womb ... buried in the egoism of a culture that does not love life”; of the children “displaced due to war and persecution, abused and taken advantage of before our very eyes and our complicit silence”; “Their impotent silence cries out under the sword of so many Herods!” he said. A Christmas letter to the Christians of the Middle East spoke of “the work of a new and disturbing terrorist organization” but did not mention the Islamic State by name.