Pope calls on cardinals to ‘humility’ and ‘sobriety’ in his Christmas greetings

Pope Francis called on Thursday the Roman Curia (central government of the Church) to show “humility” and “sobriety” and to flee “worldliness” and “pride”. The pontiff has used his traditional Christmas greetings to reprimand his cardinals in the past.

In 2014, he had listed fifteen “diseases” affecting the Curia, ranging from “spiritual Alzheimer’s” to “mental fossilization”. For three years, the Argentine pontiff has adopted a more moderate tone for his annual meeting.

Here is the lesson of #Christmas: humility is the great condition of faith, of spiritual life, of holiness. May the Lord give it to us.

– Pope Francis (@Pontifex_fr) December 23, 2021

A transparent Church, “without favoritism or cronyism”

Christmas “is the time when each of us must have the courage […] to shed the clothes of his office, of social recognition, of the brilliance of the glory of this world, and to assume his own humility, ”said Jorge Bergoglio, 85, to the cardinals and bishops gathered in front of him. His speech lasted thirty minutes in total.

The Pope returned to the synod on the future of the Church, launched two months ago. Recalling that the Curia is not just a “logistical and bureaucratic instrument” but “the first body called to witness”, the Pope considered that “the organization that we must set up” should not follow “the model of the company ”but the“ evangelical model ”.

“This is why we, members of the Curia, we must be the first to engage in a conversion to sobriety”, he insisted, calling his audience to “live with transparency, without favoritism and without cronyism”. “We are all lepers seeking healing! Added Pope Francis. “The proud man locked up in his little world has no past or future, he no longer has any roots or buds, he lives with the bitter taste of sterile sadness. “