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GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): Pope Francis took church leaders and Catholics around the world by surprise today when he used an annual Christmas event in Rome to sharply rebuke and audience of top church officials for their shortcomings.
The cardinals, bishops and priests of the Curia, who run the Holy See, sat mostly silent and unsmiling as the Pope delivered a scalding review of their behavior.
POPE FRANCIS, Leader of Catholic Church (through interpreter): Let’s start with the sickness of feeling immortal, immune or, even more, indispensable and therefore of neglecting the necessary routine checkups.
GWEN IFILL: Francis said the Vatican officials have a spiritual Alzheimer’s that makes them forget their real purpose, and he listed 15 illnesses, or sins, from vanity to gossip-mongering to materialism.
POPE FRANCIS (through interpreter): There is also the sickness of the stony mind and spirit, of those who along the way lose their inner serenity, their vivacity and their audacity and end up hiding behind papers, becoming machines for practices, and not men of God.
GWEN IFILL: The first non-European pope in 1,300 years has increasingly confronted the Italian-dominated Curia. Internal power struggles were widely blamed for Pope Benedict’s decision last year to resign.
For some insight on what led to the pope’s remarks today, I am joined by Kevin Eckstrom, editor in chief at Religion News Service.
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