This post is essentially a commentary on Robert Mickens’ article concerning the particular message given by the Holy Father to the Cardinals and Bishops stationed at the Vatican:

https://international.la-croix.com/news/letter-from-rome/pope-gives-arrogant-vatican-aides-another-lump-of-coal-this-christmas/15419?utm_source=NewsLetter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=20211224_mailjet

The “spiritual worldliness” that Pope Francis spoke of in his Christmas address to the College of Cardinals & Bishops is a reference to the Phariseeism that Jesus strongly rebuked during His earthly sojourn’s encounters with religious officialdom.

This tarnished or tainted approach to religiosity that was the object of frequent critique by Our Lord comes in many forms in today’s Church climate and is sadly influential on many levels right from that of the episcopate to that of the local parish.

And the question may be asked, what exactly is the taint or tarnish that so blemishes the approach of many to religiosity?

It is none other than fallen pride, the type of pride that is the exact inverse to the holy pride that St Paul speaks of in his apostolic letters to the nascent Church.

And that fallen pride/Pride of the Fall is essentially the vice of haughtiness that came into the human race as a result of the Fall from Grace of our first parents Adam and Eve, when they disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden by listening to the advice of the Serpent instead of faithfully adhering to what God had told them about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

The Pharisees & Sadducees of Jesus day fell prey to such a temptation precisely because as Pope Francis said, “Unlike all other temptations, (it) is hard to unmask, for it is concealed by everything that usually reassures us: our role, the liturgy, doctrine and religious devotion”. And it was this concealment that the devil made use of when he tempted our first parents in the Garden. He cunningly blinded their conscience by using a form of legitimization that sufficed to (unjustly) bolster his arguments of enticing the couple to disobey their Maker. For instance, he used the claimed aftereffect of eating the fruit to make it sound more appealling than God’s advice to refrain from eating it. The Pharisees and other religious leaders during Jesus time followed suit in that they acted exclusively in their own interests and those of other power brokers with whom they consorted, at the expense of the wellbeing of the entire people of Israel, whom their original vocational role had obligated them to humbly serve out of a sacred duty of care in view of honouring and upholding God’s covenant. And so, they fell to the schemes of arrogant men from whom they could get a financial cut and maintain the imposition of burdensome expectations & rigid conformities which they set upon the flock and this roused God’s anger at such corruption and His sympathy for the pains undergone by those who suffered as a consequence of the heartless attitudes held in the main, by the leadership.

Fr Gabriele Amorth observed that it is a spiritual tragedy in this day & age to see such schemes of arrogant men come in the form of favouritism and preferential treatment practiced by some Bishops & Cardinals whereby you get those instances of such clergy (who also happen to be members of the editorial staff of the L’Osservitore Romano for example), tending towards in spite of their sacred duty to demonstrate good will to all, habitually publishing articles in that and like publications only on the precondition that the author/s of those articles happen to be personally known and esteemed by these clerics rather than simply publish whatever is of sound reporting and analysis regardless of who wrote it.* It is a fact that this kind of “preferential treatment” is common amongst the go-getters of the secular world but to see such unChrist-like ways as occupying space within the Church, be it amongst the clergy, laity or somewhere inbetween, it is nothing short of a hypocritical disgrace for as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 10, vs. 34-36:

Peter proceeded to speak to those gathered in the house of Cornelius, saying: “In truth, I see that God shows no partiality. Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him.”

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Reference:

* Amorth, G., and Fezzi, E., Fr Amorth: My Battle Against Satan, 2018, Sophia Institute Press, Manchester, NH.

Key Words: Spiritual Worldliness, Preferential Treatment, Pride of the Fall, Phariseeism