Ask Father: Are you attached to money?

The Holy Father had to something interesting to say about the money-changers today.

"Pope Francis appealed for God to grant believers the courage to embrace Christian poverty, saying people cannot forgive a priest who is attached to money ...

Taking his inspiration from the day’s Gospel reading where Jesus drove out the traders from the temple, accusing them of transforming it into a den of thieves, the Pope’s homily was a reflection on the power and allure of money. He said Jesus’s action helps us to understand where the seed of the antichrist is contained, the seed of the enemy that ruins his Kingdom: attachment to money.

“Our Lord God, the house of our Lord God is a house of prayer. Our encounter with the Lord (is) with the God of love. And the money-lord that enters into the house of God, is constantly seeking to enter inside. And those people who were changing money or selling things, they were renting their places, right? – from the priests… the priests were renting out those places and then received money. This is the lord that can ruin our life and can lead us to end our life in a bad way, without happiness, without the joy of serving the true Lord who is the only one capable of giving us that true joy.”

Following the lord of money leads a priest to be the head of a firm or be a prince or we can go even higher…”

'May the Lord, give us the grace of the poverty of working people, those who work and earn a fair wage and who do not seek any more.'” - VR

Ask for a clarification?

A few days ago Fr. Sirico said he would ask the Pope what he meant when he criticized the 'capitalist system' and condemned the love of money as “an idol that rules instead of serves, which tyrannizes and terrorizes humanity.”   Fr. Sirico, responding in the interview stated, ”I would ask for clarification.”

What if Fr. Sirico just got that clarification in today's homily?

He maybe didn't.

Acton Institute President, Fr. Sirico in Rome office.