AUSTRALIA
news.com.au
[with video]
FROM his comments about “spiritual Alzheimer’s” to his appearance on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, it’s been a big year for Pope Francis.
As the world prepares to celebrate Christmas, we look back on some of the most awesome things the ever-smiling Pope Francis did in 2014:
He blasted the Vatican bureaucracy
Proving he’s not afraid to take on the big guns in the lead-up, Pope Francis issued a blistering critique of the Vatican bureaucracy that serves him, denouncing how some people lust for power at all costs, live hypocritical double lives and suffer from “spiritual Alzheimer’s” that has made them forget they’re supposed to be joyful men of God.
Francis’s Christmas greeting to the cardinals, bishops and priests who run the Holy See was no joyful exchange of holiday good wishes. Rather, it was a sobering catalogue of 15 sins of the Curia that Francis said he hoped would be atoned for and cured in the new year.
He had some zingers: How the “terrorism of gossip” can “kill the reputation of our colleagues and brothers in cold blood.” How cliques can “enslave their members and become a cancer that threatens the harmony of the body” and eventually kill it by “friendly fire.” About how some suffer from a “pathology of power” that makes them seek power at all costs, even if it means defaming or discrediting others publicly. …
He promised to take a strong stance against abuse scandals
In April, Pope Francis asked for forgiveness for the “evil” damage to children caused by sexual abusers in the clergy. In his strongest statement on the subject yet, he described the abuse as a “moral damage carried out by men of the Church”, and said “sanctions” would be imposed.
The statement, made in a meeting with a child rights group, didn’t hold back.
Pope Francis pleaded for forgiveness for the “evil” of priests who sexually abused children, and promised to take an even stronger stand than before against Catholic abuse scandals.
“I feel compelled to personally take on all the evil that some priests — quite a few in number, (although) obviously not compared to the number of all priests — to personally ask for forgiveness for the damage they have done for having sexually abused children,” he said.
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