VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter
Joshua J. McElwee | Dec. 22, 2016
ROME
Pope Francis on Thursday lashed out against high-level Catholic prelates who have been opposing his efforts to reform the Vatican’s central bureaucracy, using an annual pre-Christmas meeting to say that while some cardinals and archbishops offer questions in a spirit of goodwill others practice a “malevolent resistance.”
Such sinister opposition, the pontiff said, “sprouts from twisted minds and presents itself when the devil inspires bad intentions.”
The pope also said it “finds refuge in tradition, in appearances, in formality, in the known, or in the desire to make everything personal without distinguishing between act, actor, and action.”
Francis was speaking Thursday in an annual meeting that under previous pontiffs had simply been a polite encounter to exchange greetings before the holidays.
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