In a rare hour-long interview with Italian state broadcast network, Pope Francis spoke frankly about his vision for the Church, which he described as a “Church on pilgrimage,” as well as the greatest challenges it faces, namely spiritual worldliness.
POPE FRANCIS
Today, the Church's greatest evil is spiritual worldliness, a worldly Church. This worldliness inside the Church makes something ugly grow, that is clericalism, which is a perversion of the Church.
The Pope discussed caring for the environment and the harmful effects of war, and spoke strongly about the conditions of migrants who are held in lagers, the German word for the labor camps used during the Holocaust.
POPE FRANCIS
With migrants, what they are doing is criminal. They suffer so much to reach the sea. There are videos of the lagers, and I use this word seriously, lagers, in Libya, trafficker camps. The fact that the Mediterranean is the largest cemetery of Europe should make us think.
After a being spotted while visiting a record shop in Rome, the Pope was also asked about his music taste, and referred to his roots as a “porteño,” a colloquial term for someone from Buenos Aires.
'You've been asked if you danced tango, and you said yes, that when you were young you sometimes danced tango.'
'Well a porteño who doesn't dance tango is not a porteño. '
The Pope also shared other personal anecdotes, discussing his decision not to live in the papal apartments in order to be around others, and how as a child he hoped to one day become a butcher.
JM
