“To put God in the corner” and “to wash one’s hands” amounts to “mistrusting God,” said Pope Francis during the Mass he celebrated at Saint Martha’s on December 16, 2019. It’s the attitude “of the mediocre, of liars of the faith.”
The Pontiff lashed out at “lukewarm Christians,” “without consistency,” who “put others in the corner.” They prefer “not to enter men’s history, not get involved in the problems, not struggle to do good, not fight to heal all those that are in need of it . . . not get dirty, not, not that, . . . not get involved.
He also advised Christians of the “fraternity of Saint Pilate”: “so many Christians wash their hands in face of the challenges of the culture, the challenges of history, the challenges of persons of our times — in face of the smallest challenges, too. How many times one hears the stingy Christian refuse alms to a person who has asked for it: “No, no, I don’t give because he gets inebriated with: . . . I don’t want people to get inebriated so I don’t give alms. ‘But I have nothing to eat . . . “It’s none of your business . . . I don’t want them to get inebriated.’”
What would happen if God put us in the corner? We would never enter paradise. And what would happen if the Lord washed his hands of us? Poor us,” concluded the Pope, inviting to flee these attitudes of polite hypocrites” to “make room for the Lord who comes.”
