@PONTIFEXCELLENT: Oh, snap! Edition

Yes, he is loving, kind, warm, gregarious, charming, tender. But Papa Frank is also a bad ass and he’s not afraid to tell it like it is.

Take his homily this morning at Santa Martae, where, according to a report from Francis X. Rocca, Catholic News Service, Il Papa said:

“We should all call ourselves sinners, yes, all of us,” he said, but “not corrupt people. The corrupt man is stuck in a state of self-importance, he doesn’t know what humility is,” Pope Francis said, according to a report by Vatican Radio. “Jesus spoke to these corrupt men of the ‘beauty of being whitewashed tombs’ (St. Matthew 23: 27), which appear beautiful on the outside but inside are full of dead bones and putrefaction,” the pope said.

“We all know someone in this situation, and how much harm they do to the church,” he said. “Corrupt Christians, corrupt priests. How much harm they do to the church, because they don’t live in the spirit of the Gospel, but in the spirit of worldliness.”

Papa Frank expounded on the Gospel reading for today from St. Luke 17,  in which Jesus says of those who would lead or cause others to sin:  “it would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea.”

What is the difference between sin and scandal?

“The difference is that one who sins and repents, asks forgiveness, recognizes his weakness, feels like a child of God, humbles himself and asks Jesus for salvation,” Papa Frank said.

“But what is scandalous about the other?” the pope asked. “That he doesn’t repent. He continues to sin but pretends to be Christian, (he leads) a double life.”