Pope Francis has made an impassioned plea to Christians to reach out to the poor and homeless. Speaking on the World Day of the Poor, he said it was not enough simply not to do harm. Not doing good was also not good.
“We must do good, go out of ourselves and look, look at those who are most in need. There is so much hunger, even in the heart of our cities, and many times we enter that logic of indifference: the poor are there, and we look the other way.
“Hold out your hand to the poor: it is Christ.”
The poor are at the centre of the Gospel, he continued. “It is Jesus who taught us to speak to the poor, it is Jesus who came for the poor. Hold out your hand to the poor. You have received so many things, and you let your brother, your sister starve?”
He was speaking in his Angelus address on the penulti-mate Sunday of the liturgical year.
He also criticised Christians who play “on the defensive,” sticking only to keeping the rules and keeping the commandments: “Those measured Christians who never step outside the rules, never, because they are afraid of risk. And these, allow me the image, these who take care of themselves so that they never risk, these begin in life a process of mummification of the soul, and end up with mummies.”