VATICAN CITY (ChurchMilitant.com) - Pope Francis blasted top-ranking Vatican officials Thursday, calling out "traitors" corrupted by "ambition and vainglory."
As in past years, the Holy Father used his annual Christmas message to the Curia to unleash grievances against them, namely the obstruction he faces in his attempts to bring about change.
"Reforming Rome is like cleaning the Sphinx of Egypt with a toothbrush," Pope Francis said from his seat in Clementina Hall at the Vatican's Apostolic Palace.
Although Francis acknowledged that the majority of curial officials are faithful and trustworthy, he accused some in the central bureaucracy of having an "unbalanced and debased mindset of plots and small cliques that in fact represent — for all their self-justification and good intentions — a cancer leading to a self-centredness."
Such "traitors of trust" who are quietly removed from their posts go on to "declare themselves martyrs of the system," he said, "instead of reciting a mea culpa."
Under Pope Francis' reign the Vatican has gone through massive shake-ups in various departments, including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, among others.
The Vatican Bank has also endured scandals, including the abrupt resignation of the Vatican's first auditor general, Libero Milone (who later claimed he was forced to step down after discovering financial misdeeds). The Vatican Bank's deputy director was also fired without explanation.
The Holy Father's speech was offered shortly before the funeral of Cdl. Bernard Law, the disgraced former head of the Boston archdiocese, a central figure in the explosive sex abuse scandal that led to an in-depth investigation into clerical abuse throughout the U.S. Church.