Pope Francis: love is never indifferent to the suffering of others

Most Christians would agree that it is wrong to hate someone, but it is also wrong to be indifferent, which is a form of camouflaged hatred, said Pope Francis.

True love "must lead you to do good, to dirty your hands with works of love," said the Pope on 10 January at the morning mass in the chapel of his residence, the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

Commenting specifically on 1 John 4: 19-21, Francis said that the Bible "does not grind words." Indeed, he said, the Bible tells people: “If you say you love God and hate your brother or sister, you are on the other side; you're a liar".

If someone says: "I love God, I pray, I go into ecstasy and then I throw the others away, hates them, does not love them or is simply indifferent to them", observed the Pope, St. John does not say, "You are wrong" , but "you're a liar".

“The Bible is clear because being a liar is the devil's way of being. He is the great liar, the New Testament tells us; he is the father of lies. This is the definition of Satan that the Bible gives us, "said the pope.

Love "is expressed by doing good," he said.

A Christian doesn't get points simply by waiting, he said. Love is "concrete" and faces the challenges, struggles and disorder of everyday life.

Indifference, he said, "is a way of not loving God and not loving your neighbor who is somewhat hidden".

Francesco quoted Sant'Alberto Hurtado, who said: "It is good not to do evil, but it is bad not to do good".

On a truly Christian path, there are not those who are indifferent, "those who wash their hands of problems, those who do not want to get involved to help, to do good," he said. “There are no false mystics, those with a distilled heart like water who say they love God but forget to love their neighbor.