Francis in Santa Marta: in politics as in parishes, a “false unity” is created to slander people. Sometimes the “leaders” suggest people “what to shout”.
He said it and he repeats it: “gossip is a behavior that kills because it destroys people, it destroys their reputation”. Bergoglio in Santa Marta returns to stigmatize the tendency, visible in political and civil life, among the media, as well as in Christian communities (where it is even more dangerous), to besmirch people. And, often, behind these behaviors, there are “leaders” who ardor the masses.
The Pope’s reflection took cue – as reported by Vatican News – from an episode read in the Acts, in which “a mob of accusers appears before St Paul pointing their finger at him: “A part was composed of Sadducees who claimed that “there is no resurrection, neither angels nor spirits” while the Pharisees professed these things”. The Apostle, “quick” and wise, “set aside “the stone of division”” saying that he is “called to justice because of his hope in the resurrection of the dead”. Paul therefore manages to destroy that “false unity”, which is the negative aspect of the “unity of salvation” that Jesus talks about in today’s Gospel.
This “false unity”, emphasizes the Pope, has no “consistency”. The episode of the Sadducees and Pharisees clearly demonstrates this: after the words of Saint Paul this apparently “united” assembly breaks up in a few seconds, a dispute erupts and they end up divided.
Actually, this is the same method that was used to persecute Jesus, and, after him, Paul, Stephen and all the martyrs. Even today, Francis observes: “For example, in civil life, in political life, when you want to make a coup d’état ... the media begin to slander people, leaders. Then comes justice, that condemns them, and in the end, a coup d’état is carried out.
A script that has been repeating over and over, for centuries: on the one hand, a people that “cries out without even knowing what it is saying”, and on the other, “leaders” who incite it and suggest it what to shout. It is a bad thing: “this brainwashing of people entails also a contempt for the same people”, Francis points out, “The people is turned into an anonymous mob”.
This “environment of false unity”, insists the Pontiff, is the dynamic beneath any condemnation. But there is no need to go so far, on a smaller scale the same dynamic occurs “in our parish communities for example, when two or three begin to criticize another and begin to talk behind the person’s back… They create a false unity to condemn. They feel safe and condemn. They condemn mentally, then they act it out; then they end in accusing each other because they are divided. In this way gossip is a behavior that kills because it destroys people, it destroys their reputation”.
Let’s think about this. On Palm Sunday, everyone acclaims him: ‘Blessed are you, who comes in the name of the Lord.’ The Friday after, the same people cry out ‘Crucify him.’ What happened? They brainwashed them, and they changed everything. They became an anonymous mob which destroys.
It is evident that this attitude has nothing Christian about it: “Let’s think of the greatness of the vocation to which we are called: to be one with Jesus, and the Father”, says the Pontiff. “Men and women who are united and who always seek to progress along the path of unity—not a false unity, which has no substance, which only serves to get ahead and condemn people, and promotes interests which are not ours: the interests of the prince of this world, which is destruction.
“May the Lord - then the Pope’s prayer - give us the grace to walk always along the path of true unity”. “When we in life, in the Church or in civil society, work for unity”, he concludes, “we are on the path that Jesus traced”.
