VATICAN CITY (AP) – Pope Francis urged Vatican bureaucrats on Monday to show more honesty, humility and sobriety as he issued a Christmas-time “catalog of virtues” for them to follow after having excoriated them last year for a host of sins.
A flu-stricken Francis referred repeatedly to scandals that have been convulsing the Vatican in recent months during his annual Christmas greeting to the Vatican administration, showing he was keenly aware of the impact they were having in the broader Catholic world.
At the start of his speech to the cardinals and bishops who run the Holy See, Francis joked that after last year’s public diagnosis of the “15 ailments of the Curia” he should have come up this year with the “Curial antibiotics” to treat them.
In a way he did, issuing a list of virtues he said should guide their work, including honesty, sobriety, respect and humility. While the speech was more encouraging than last year’s astonishing dressing down, it nevertheless implied that problems remained.
He reminded the prelates, for instance, they shouldn’t take bribes. He said an honest person “does not act virtuously only when he or she is being watched; honest persons have no fear of being caught since they never betray the trust of others.”