Pope Francis gestures before boarding his plane as he departs from Manila on Monday, Jan. 19, 2015. Pope Francis flew out of this Catholic bastion in Asia on Monday after a weeklong trip that included a visit to Sri Lanka and drew what Filipino officials says was a record crowd of 6 million faithful in a Manila park where he celebrated Mass. AP PHOTO/AARON FAVILA
VATICAN CITY—Saying corruption is a global scourge that’s affecting even the Church, Pope Francis on Monday called on Catholics to combat the problem by banishing “worldliness” and living simple lifestyles.
The Church is not just a nongovernment organization (NGO), he said. “When a part of the Church becomes worldly, it becomes an NGO and ceases to be Church,” he said.
“Corruption is the order of the day in today’s world, and the corrupt attitude easily and immediately finds a nest in institutions,” he told the international media aboard the Philippine Airlines flight taking him home to Rome after highly successful apostolic visits to Sri Lanka and the Philippines.
“Whether we be priests or the laity, we scandalize because the way of Jesus is difficult,” he added. “We must ask pardon for those Catholics who scandalize with their corruption,” he said. “It’s a wound in the Church.”
He cited his experience in 1994 as bishop when “two officials of a government ministry” offered him money to aid the poor people. “I was listening because when the offer is very big, even the saint is challenged,” he said.
But told that once the deposit was made in his account, he should give half of it to the officials, he balked.
“And I immediately thought whether to insult him or kick him where the sunlight doesn’t shine or I play the fool,” the Pope said, making the press laugh.
He said he could not accept the money because he was running only a vicariate that had no bank account. He referred them to the archdiocese that could issue them an official receipt once the donation was made. “And they left,” he said.
Speaking in Italian, he said “institutions have branches,” so the bureaucratic setup bred corruption because there were many “many chiefs and vice chiefs.”
The Argentinean Pope said he asked once a Cabinet minister perceived to be clean how much government assistance would really reach the “interior,” and the reply was “35 percent.”
“That was in 2001 in my homeland,” he said. “Today, corruption is a worldwide problem.”
He agreed that corruption even affects the Church. He considered even Catholics working in government and secular professions as part of the Church who cause “scandal” because of their corrupt ways.
‘Really ugly’
“We Christians cause scandal,” he said.
He agreed that corruption may have reached ecclesiastical service and religious life.
“Do we consecrated bishops, priests, sisters, laity truly believe that the gravest sin and the greatest threat is wordliness? It’s really ugly when you see a consecrated man, a man of the Church, a sister, who is worldly,” he said. “It’s ugly. This is not the way of Jesus.”
Sinners and corrupt
The Pope distinguished between sinners and corrupt people.
The Church, he said, has “many saints, saints who are sinners but not corrupt.”
“We must also look at the other side of the Church that is holy,” he added.
The Pope thanked Filipino journalist Jhemmylrut Teng (aka “Carla Lim”) of TV5 for “having the courage to ask the question” about Church corruption.
Throwaway culture
He called corruption a form of state terrorism and linked it to his favorite concept of the “throwaway culture.”
Taking note of a journalist’s observation of the large presence of street children in Manila and of Tamil slums in Colombo, he said poor people “are the victims of the throwaway culture.”
“This is true today: They don’t just discard the paper and what’s left over,” he said. “We throw away people. And discrimination is a form of throwing away.”
“State terrorism,” he added, “this throwing away is terrorism exactly.”