From his homily on
May 14th (emphasis mine):
“Let us think of that moment with the Magdalene, when she washed the feet of Jesus with nard, which was so expensive: it is a religious moment, a moment of gratitude, a moment of love. And he [Judas] stands apart and criticizes her bitterly: ‘But … this could be used for the poor!’.
This is the first reference that I personally found in the Gospel of poverty as an ideology.
The ideologue does not know what love is, because they do not know how to gift themselves”.
Pope Francis continued: Judas stood apart “in his solitude" and this attitude of selfishness grew to the point of his “betrayal of Jesus.” He said those who love “give their lives as a gift", the selfish instead “safeguards his life, grows in this selfishness and becomes a traitor, but is always alone.” However, those who “give their life for love, are never alone: they are always in the community, part of the family.” The Pope warned that those who “isolate their conscience in selfishness,” in the end “lose”. This is how Judas ended up, the Pope said, he “was an idolater, attached to money”
From his homily
yesterday (10/17) Again, emphasis mine:
“When we go down the path and find in front of us a closed Church, we feel strange because a closed Church is not understood,” the Pope said. “The Lord who is inside cannot come out.” This image of the closed Church, he explained, is given by Jesus in today’s Gospel. The Holy Father also explained why many Christians fall into this “attitude of ‘key in pocket’ and closed door.”
“Faith passes, so to speak, through an alembic (distillery) and becomes an ideology. And ideology does not convene. In ideology there is no Jesus: his tenderness, love, meekness. And ideologies are always rigid,” the Pope said.
“In every sense: rigid. And when a Christian becomes a disciple of ideology, they have lost the faith: they are no more a disciple of Jesus, they are a disciple of this attitude of thought, of this…” And for this reason Jesus says to them: ‘You have taken away the key of knowledge’. The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and also moralistic knowledge, because these closed the door with so many requirements.”
The Holy Father continued his homily saying that ideology within the Church only serves to alienate people. **“These Christian ideologies are a grave sickness!” **he exclaimed. However, he noted, this sickness is not something that is relatively new, but spoken of by the apostles, particularly St. John, during the time of the early Church.
**“Christians who lose the faith and prefer ideology become rigid, moralists, ethicists, but without goodness. **But this may be the question, no? Why does a Christian become that way? What happens in the heart of that Christian, that priest, of that bishop, of that Pope, that makes them that way. It is simply one thing: that Christian does not pray. And if there is no prayer, you will always close the door.”
Something to think about. Hard.
The reason why I posted the extract from his homily on the 14th of May was to show that he does not solely address this idea of ideology = bad to just those who are moralists, but to those who uphold anything (even care for the poor) above the adoration and worship of Christ. The worship of Christ must come first…then everything should flow out from that…
