In a letter to priests of the Rome diocese, Pope Francis warns against the “gentle temptation” toward spiritual worldliness.
Citing the words of the theologian Henri de Lubac, the Pope says that spiritual worldliness is “the greatest danger to the Church” and “the most perfidious temptation, the one that always resurfaces, insidiously, when the others are vanquished.”
This temptation, the Pope continues, can lead priests to think of themselves as “traders in the spirit.” He cautions the priests of Rome, therefore, to be “vigilant against clericalism.” In particular he warns against “doctrinal intransigence and liturgical aestheticism.”
The antidote to this temptation, the Pope says, is “to fix our eyes every day on He who emptied Himself and humbled Himself uynto death.”