Pope Francis has condemned the Catholic Church’s “sin” in the Middle East – of “incoherence” between life and faith which sees some clergy profess poverty while living in wealth.
Speaking off-the-cuff during a meeting with a coalition of funding agencies coordinated by the Congregation for Eastern Churches, the Pope said that, while the sin of war has caused great suffering to Christians in the region, “there is also our sin in the Middle East: the sin of incoherence between life and faith”.
He said: “There are perhaps – not many – some priest[s], bishop[s], religious congregation who professes poverty yet lives like a rich person...I would like these religious men and women, Christians, some bishop or some religious congregation to strip themselves more [of riches] for their brothers and their sisters.”
Pope Francis was speaking on 22 June at a gathering of members of a Vatican coordinating body, known by its Italian acronym ROACO, which functions under the umbrella of the Congregation for Eastern Churches. The body unites funding agencies – including the US-based Catholic Near East Welfare Association – to provide financial help to the faithful in the Middle East.
The Pope said that the Middle East is at a “crossroad of difficult situations” and that Christians are at risk of being driven out of the region, though he was careful not to say that this was anyone’s intention.
He said: “A Middle East without Christians would not be a Middle East. Today, the Middle East suffers, it weeps. The world powers look at it not with much concern for their culture, their faith, the life of those people, but they look at it to get a piece and have greater dominance.”
Pope Francis said that despite the major problems in the region, “the Lord does not abandon us, and that is why I say that the Middle East is a hope”.
The comments emerged as the Pope was revealed to have made a surprise visit to a disability centre in Rome on Sunday, in which he met with every one of the 200 people present.
During a two hour tour of the Durante e dopo di Noi (“during and after us”) Casa OSA, which works with families of those with severe disabilities, Pope Francis said that he was grateful for a “family day”, adding that those present should “believe in dreams and in the beauty of life in union with the Lord”.
The centre helps around 50,000 people across Italy.
Also yesterday, in his Angelus address in St Peter’s Square, Pope Francis stressed the importance of being “silent in the face of the mystery of God and to contemplate in humility and silence his work”.
Speaking on the Feast Day of the Nativity of St John the Baptist, he reminded the faithful that the Baptist’s parents, Elizabeth and Zechariah, assumed that having a child would be impossible because of their advanced age.
“These elderly parents had dreamed and even prepared that day, but now they no longer expected it: they felt excluded, humiliated, disappointed: they had no children,” the Pope said.
“But God does not depend on our logic and our limited human capacities…We must learn to trust and to be silent in the face of the mystery of God and to contemplate in humility and silence his work, which is revealed in history and which so often exceeds our imagination.”
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