Pope Francis urged his priests Thursday to avoid “clerical hypocrisy” and treat their flocks with mercy as he delivered a lengthy set of marching orders to Rome-based priests at the start of a busy few days leading to Easter.
A strong-looking Francis presided over a Holy Thursday Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica during which the oils for church services are blessed.
Later in the afternoon, he travels to Rome’s main women’s prison for the annual Holy Week ritual in which he washes the feet of inmates in a symbol of humility and service.
The 87-year-old Francis, who has been hobbled by a long bout of respiratory problems this winter, appeared in good form for the morning Mass. He read aloud a long homily, after skipping his text at the last minute during Palm Sunday Mass last weekend.
In his remarks, Francis warned priests against “sliding into clerical hypocrisy,” or preaching one thing to their flocks but doing differently in their own spiritual lives. Rather, he urged them to always show mercy to the faithful and not judge them, and weep instead for their own sins.
Doing so, he said, “means looking within and repenting of our ingratitude and inconstancy, and acknowledging with sorrow our duplicity, dishonesty and hypocrisy,” he said.
