Pope: the Christian cannot lead a double life, with a double moral

"The call of Jesus is a call to a new way of living". "Someone can say, 'But, father, we are weak, we are sinners ...' - 'Ah, this is something else. If you accept to be sinful and weak, He forgives you, because part of the novelty of the Gospel is to confess that Jesus Christ came for the forgiveness of sins. But if you say you are a Christian living with these worldly novelty, no, this is hypocrisy ".

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - The Christian cannot lead a double life, with a double moral, because he must be conscious of living "in a new way" and not "the worldly way", said Pope Francis today at Mass at Casa Santa Marta.

He was inspired by the passage of the Letter to the Corinthians in which Paul warns of hearing talk everywhere “of immorality among you, and of an immorality such that it is not found even among the pagans” which poses the question “how are you Christians and live like this? "

The apostle, the Pope underlined, is very angry with those who boasted of being "open Christians" and in whom "the confession of Jesus Christ went hand in hand with a tolerated immorality". Many lead "a double life". But Jesus had recommended to his disciples: "To new wines, new wineskins". "The novelty of the Gospel, the novelty of Christ - said Francis - is not only transforming our soul; it is transforming all of us: soul, spirit and body, everyone, everything, that is, transforming wine - yeast - into new wineskins, even everything. The novelty of the Gospel is absolute, it is total; it takes us all, because it transforms us from inside to outside: the spirit, the body and everyday life ".

The Christians of Corinth, on the other hand, did not understand the totalizing novelty of the Gospel that is not an ideology or a social way of living that coexists with pagan habits. The novelty of the Gospel is the Resurrection of Christ, it is the Spirit who has sent us "to accompany us in life". We Christians are novel men and women, said the Pope, not men and women of novelties. "And so many people try to live their Christianity 'of novelties'. 'But today, it can be done this way; no, today we can live like this ... '. And these people who live of the novelties that are proposed by the world are worldly. There is a comparison between the "novelty" of Jesus Christ and the "novelties" that the world offers us to live ".  

The people whom Paul condemns, the Pope continued, "are lukewarm people, they are immoral people, (...) they are people who simulate, they are formal people, they are hypocritical people", while "the call of Jesus is a call to newness". "Someone can say, 'But, father, we are weak, we are sinners ...' - 'Ah, that's another thing'. If you accept to be sinful and weak, He forgives you, because part of the novelty of the Gospel is to confess that Jesus Christ came for the forgiveness of sins. But if you say you are a Christian living with these worldly novelties, no, this is hypocrisy. That is the difference. And Jesus had told us in the Gospel: 'Be careful when they say to you: Christ is there, is there, is there .... The novelty is this: no salvation is with this, with this ... '. There is only one Christ. And Christ is clear in his message".

But Jesus does not deceive those who want to follow him and Francis asks the question: "But how is the road of those who live" "in a new way" and not "the worldly way", "? remember how the passage of today's Gospel ends, that is with the decision of scribes and doctors of the law, to kill Jesus, to "get rid of him". "The road of those who take the novelty of Jesus Christ is the same as Jesus: the road of martyrdom". Martyrdom is not always bloody, but everyday. "We are on the street and we are being watched by the Great Accuser who arouses today's accusers to contradict us”.But, he concluded, we must not negotiate with 'novelties', we must not "water down the Gospel proclamation".