Priests should offer their lives in service to their people, not
pursue their own interests, Pope Francis said in his homily at a morning
Mass on December 9.
The Pope drew a contrast between “mediators” and “middlemen” in the
clergy. The mediator, he said, “gives himself to unite the parties; he
gives his life.”
The priest, he explained, is a mediator between God and
his flock, and in this sense he imitates Christ.
“The logic of Jesus as
mediator is the logic of annihilating oneself,” the Pope said, citing
the letter of St. Paul to the Philippians.
Middlemen, on the other hand, “must take the path of rigidity,” the
Pope continued. “Often disconnected from the people, they do not know
what human suffering is.”
He added that this sort of priest invariably
is influenced by worldliness, pursuing his own interests rather than the
good of the Church.