"There are those who say 'I am very Catholic, I always go to Mass, I belong to this and that association'," the head of the 1.2 billion-member Roman Catholic Church said, according to a Vatican Radio transcript.
He said that some of these people should also say "'my life is not Christian, I don't pay my employees proper salaries, I exploit people, I do dirty business, I launder money, (I lead) a double life'."
"There are many Catholics who are like this and they cause scandal," he said. "How many times have we all heard people say 'if that person is a Catholic, it is better to be an atheist'." [Homily at Santa Marta, translated by Reuters]
No, no: it's always better to be a baptized person, cleansed by the Holy Ghost in baptism -- it always objectively allows the baptized soul to open itself up more easily than the non-baptized to the calls of the Holy Trinity to penance and conversion. That is the whole point of the yearly exercise of Lent to start next week: it is to recognize our many failures, and join the darkness of our souls to be washed away by the Supreme redeeming Action of God-Incarnate who died on the Cross.
Parce nobis, Domine! - You know why you inflicted Francis upon your Church: parce nobis!
