Question 9.146

9.146 In a similar way, Francis keeps questioning attitudes of “spiritual worldliness”. This last theme seems to be at the heart of your own reflection.

The pope shows true courage when he speaks in these words. For in the Church, more particularly in her government, there can be persons who indulge in worldly behavior and habits.

Spiritual worldliness hides behind religious, spiritual appearances, but nevertheless it is a veritable denial of Christ. The Son of God came to bring salvation to mankind, not a few brief pleasures in lounges decorated with beautiful crimson velvet. A priest who seeks material well-being, worldly comfort, or his own glory instead of Christ’s is working for the devil. A priest who uses the appearances of his priesthood to enjoy more fully the pleasures of this world is a renegade. A priest who forgets that true power comes from God alone breaks the promises that he made at his ordination.

In many respects, the various forms of spiritual worldliness almost fall into a form of Pelagianism. The worldly cleric, indeed, relies on his own strength and his freedom, while setting aside the authentic power of grace.

In fact, worldliness is the most perverse enemy of the missionary spirit; it can go so far as to be a formidable subversion of it.

The priest is servant, he is not a god; the priest does not command troops, he leads his flock to God by his example. The priesthood is not a quest for glory or any sort of human prestige, because it derives its strength from God alone: “Non nobis Domine, non nobis: sed nomini tuo da gloriam” (Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory) (Ps 115:1).

Benedict XVI had understood perfectly the extent of this problem. During an address in Freiburg im Breisgau on September 25, 2011, he declared: “In order to accomplish her true task adequately, the Church must constantly renew the effort to detach herself from her tendency towards worldliness and once again to become open towards God. In this she follows the words of Jesus: ‘They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world’ (Jn 17:16), and in precisely this way he gives himself to the world. One could almost say that history comes to the aid of the Church here through the various periods of secularization, which have contributed significantly to her purification and inner reform. Secularizing trends -whether by expropriation of Church goods, or elimination of privileges or the like-have always meant a profound liberation of the Church from forms of worldliness, for in the process she as it were sets aside her worldly wealth and once again completely embraces her worldly poverty. In this she shares the destiny of the tribe of Levi, which according to the Old Testament account was the only tribe in Israel with no ancestral land of its own, taking as its portion only God himself, his word and his signs. At those moments in history, the Church shared with that tribe the demands of a poverty that was open to the world, in order to be released from her material ties: and in this way her missionary activity regained credibility. History has shown that, when the Church becomes less worldly, her missionary witness shines more brightly. Once liberated from material and political burdens and privileges, the Church can reach out more effectively and in a truly Christian way to the whole world, she can be truly open to the world. She can live more freely her vocation to the ministry of divine worship and service of neighbor. The missionary task, which is linked to Christian worship and should determine its structure, becomes more clearly visible. The Church opens herself to the world, not in order to win men for an institution with its own claims to power, but in order to lead them to themselves by leading them to him of whom each person can say with Saint Augustine: he is closer to me than I am to myself (cf. Confessions, III, 6, 11). He who is infinitely above me is yet so deeply within me that he is my true interiority. This form of openness to the world on the Church’s part also serves to indicate how the individual Christian can be open to the world in effective and appropriate ways.”

I will conclude by asking three questions: How could a priest who lacks nothing resemble Christ? How can a priest who possesses a superabundance of material comfort claim to be an associate of Christ? How can anyone forget Christ’s words: “A scribe came up and said to him, ‘Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head’” (Mt 8:19-20)?

Of course, in a cynical or merely superficial world, the media love to make people think that Jesus was not born in a poor stable when Mary and Joseph were turned away everywhere. The powers that dislike Jesus cannot tolerate such an omen; for them the wretched stable must be a sentimental myth. They also forget that at his death Jesus did not even have a place in which to be buried. He was laid hastily in the tomb intended for Joseph of Arimathea. …