Pope Francis: "Enough with the hypocrisies and masks on the face"

Speaking at a general audience in the Vatican, Papa Francesco focused his speech on "virus of hypocrisy".

The Pontiff focuses his speech on this evil that leads to pretending rather than to "be yourself".

"Hypocrisy in the Church is particularly detestable - he underlines -". “Endangers unity in the Church” What is hypocrisy? - asked the Pope. “It can be said that it is fear for the truth. The hypocrite is afraid of the truth. You prefer to pretend rather than be yourself. It is like putting on make-up in the soul, like putting on make-up in attitudes, like putting on make-up in the way of proceeding: it is not the truth ”.

“The hypocrite - underlines the Pope - is a person who pretends, flatters and deceives because he lives with a mask on his face, and does not have the courage to confront the truth. For this reason, he is not capable of truly loving - a hypocrite does not know how to love - he limits himself to living on selfishness and does not have the strength to show his heart transparently ”.

The Pope continued: "Hypocrisy often lurks in the workplace, where you try to appear friends with colleagues while the competition leads to hitting them from behind. In politics it is not unusual to find hypocrites who experience a split between the public and the private. Hypocrisy in the Church is particularly detestable. And unfortunately there is hypocrisy in the Church, there are many Christians and many hypocritical ministers. We should never forget the words of the Lord: "Let your speech be yes yes, no no, the more comes from the evil one" (Mt 5,37:XNUMX). To act otherwise means to jeopardize the unity in the Church, the one for which the Lord himself has prayed ”.