Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Francis Uses Christmas Speech to Criticize Vatican Bureaucracy





Pope Francis issued a harsh critique of the Vatican bureaucracy that served him during his Christmas greeting on Monday to cardinals, bishops and priests.


ROME — Pope Francis excoriated the Vatican bureaucracy in his traditional Christmas address on Monday, saying that some of the cardinals, bishops and priests who run the Roman Catholic Church suffer from a “spiritual Alzheimer’s.”

In his annual speech, Francis warned against what he called a lust for power, hypocritical double lives and the lack of spiritual empathy among some men of God. He listed the 15 “ailments and temptations” that weaken their service to the Lord, inviting them to a “true self-examination” ahead of Christmas.

In strong yet colorful language, Francis criticized the Curia, the administration that runs the Holy See, for a narcissistic “pathology of power” and “existential schizophrenia.”
He suggested that his prelates pay an “ordinary visit to the cemeteries,” and encouraged them to examine and improve themselves.


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