Wednesday, May 1, 2013

The biggest threat to the church is worldliness, Pope Francis said in his daily morning Mass homily. A worldly church becomes weak, and while people of faith can look after the church, only God "can look evil in the eye and overpower it," he said April 30. The pope celebrated the Mass with members of the Vatican's investment agency in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where he lives. The day's reading from the Gospel of St. John recounts Jesus telling his disciples, "I will no longer speak much with you, for the ruler of the world is coming;" but Satan "has no power over me." The pope said, "If we don't want the prince of this world to take the church in his hands, we have to entrust her to the only one who can defeat the prince of this world. Entrusting the church to the Lord is a prayer that makes the church grow" and is an act of faith because "we can do nothing. All of us are poor servants of the church," he said.