VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider
Francis at Santa Marta thunders again: those who commit this crime “irritate God and cause people to sin”, the way out is to “ask for forgiveness”
DOMENICO AGASSO JR
ROME
The day after stating that “the corruption of the powerful is paid by the poor”, Pope Francis again, “thundered” – what’s more, like other times over the last year – against this “scourge”, involving “several prelates” as well.
When a person “enters” the “road of corruption”, “take his own lives, usurps and sells himself”, he takes advantage of the innocent “with white gloves, without dirtying his hands” he said in the homily at Casa Santa Marta, as Vatican Radio reported.
“A corrupt person irritates God and makes people sin”. Not only that: a corrupt person “is one who kills, who steals”, if they do not ask for forgiveness, they are condemned with “the curse of God”, because “they exploit the innocent”. Pope Francis relaunches his complaint against corruption reflecting on today’s First Reading, the martyrdom of Naboth – narrated in the first Book of Kings – killed at the behest of the corrupt King Ahab who has taken possession of his vineyard. The prophet Elijah, noted the Pope, says that the corrupt Ahab “sold” himself. It’s as though “he is no longer person but a commodity”, “buy and sell”: “This is the definition: it is a commodity! Then what will the Lord do with the corrupt, whatever the type of corruption … Yesterday we said that there were three types, three groups: the corrupt politician, corrupt businessman and the corrupt clergy. All three hurt the innocent, the poor, because it is the poor who pay for the festivities of the corrupt! The bill goes to them. The Lord clearly says what must be done, “I will bring disaster upon you and I will cut you off. For Ahab I will wipe out every male, salve or free, in Israel”.
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