UNITED KINGDOM
Independent
Pope Francis has his feet on the ground but he may be too late to save the Church from the damage of sex abuse scandals
Peter Popham
Pope Francis continues to hit the nail on the head. “I ask you,” he told Davos this week, in a message read out at the opening ceremony, “to ensure that humanity is served by wealth and not ruled by it … The growth of equality means something more than economic growth.”
That sums up his gift in a nutshell. He doesn’t hector these billionaires, doesn’t tell them to put on sackcloth and ashes. He acknowledges their power. He accentuates the positive, while leaving no one in doubt about the negative. And he does all that in simple words, in the right forum, at the right moment.
It is a gift he has, one which his predecessor so plainly lacked. We have seen it over and over again in the past year.
In the Sistine Chapel, at a mass baptism, he said: “If [your babies] are hungry, mothers, feed them, without thinking twice, because they are the most important people here.” Bared breasts? Beneath Michelangelo’s mighty ceiling? Babies the most important people, in the presence of the Pope? Yes, yes, and again, yes; this is a Pope with his feet on the ground, who sees the vanity of the high prelates he represents and does everything to debunk it.
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