Pope demands humility in zinger of an X’Mas speech

Pope Francis at the Vatican. Pic/AP

Pope Francis urged Vatican cardinals, bishops and bureaucrats Thursday to embrace humility this Christmas, saying their pride, self-interest and "glitter of our armor" was perverting their spiritual lives and corrupting the church's mission. He took Vatican administrators to task, denouncing those who "rigidly" hide behind Catholic Church traditions. Cardinals and bishops sat stone-faced in the Hall of Blessings.

"The humble are those who are concerned not simply with the past but also with the future, since they know how to look ahead, to spread their branches, remembering the past with gratitude," Francis said. "The proud, on the other hand, simply repeat, grow rigid and enclose themselves in that repetition, feeling certain about what they know and fearful of anything new because they cannot control it," he said. "As a consequence, they neither learn from their sins nor are they genuinely open to forgiveness. This is a tremendous corruption disguised as a good. We need to avoid it," he said.

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