VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis warned against the idolatry of money and luxury in the Church, particularly among bishops, in his sermon during mass at the Casa Santa Marta on Monday, Vatican sources report.

 The apostle Paul’s letter to Titus inspired the pontiff’s reflections, in which Paul wrote that a “bishop must be without crime, as the steward of God.” During his sermon, Francis invited all bishops to ask themselves the question, “Am I a steward of God, or am I a businessman?”  

 The pontiff also gave strong reminders that those representing God should not be “devoted to wine...nor attached to money.” “It is a calamity for the Church,” he continued, “if a bishop has even one of these qualities,” speaking against those in Catholic leadership who have been better motivated by money and luxuries than by the dissemination of the Gospel.

 The fundamental nature of this problem within the Church was also underlined by Francis at the mass, as he concluded that “order cannot be upheld in the Church” without the bishops’ adherence to Biblical values.

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