Corruption Goes Out and Kills

Last Sunday, on the flight back to Rome from Manila, Pope Francis spoke about corruption once again.

A journalist asked him what he, as Pope, could do to fight corruption, not only in government but also in the Church. Here, in my own words, is the substance of his answer.

The Pope said that corruption is an everyday thing in today’s world and that a corrupt attitude easily finds a nest in institutions, because an institution with many branches here and there, so many bosses and deputy bosses, can very easily fall into it or provide a nest for it; any institution can fall into this. Corruption, he said, does not think about people. The corrupt person who makes corrupt deals, or governs corruptly, or joins others in corrupt business, is stealing from other people, and they are the victims of corruption. “Corruption does not stay shut up in itself; it goes out and kills,” he said. “Do you understand?”

He recalled that around 2001 he asked the chief of staff of the then president of Argentina, in a government he did not consider especially corrupt, how much of the aid sent to the interior of the country, whether cash, food or clothing, actually reached its destination. That man, whom he described as a truly honest man, answered at once: 35 percent.

Then he spoke of corruption in Church institutions. When he speaks of the Church, he explained, he likes to speak of the faithful, the baptized, the whole Church, and in that case it is better to speak of sinners, because we are all sinners. But when we speak of corruption, we are speaking of corrupt people, or of institutions in the Church that fall into corruption, and yes, there are such cases.

He told how in 1994, when he had just been named a bishop in the Flores district of Buenos Aires, two officials from a government ministry came to see him. They told him he had great needs there, with so many poor people in the shantytowns, and offered him 400,000 pesos (at that time, 400,000 dollars). He listened, he said, because when the offer is so big even a saint hesitates. Then they explained that they would make the deposit and he would give them half. He thought about what to do: either insult them and give them a kick where the sun doesn’t shine, or play dumb. He played dumb and told them the vicariate had no bank account, so they would have to make the deposit at the archdiocese’s office and get a receipt. “Oh, we didn’t know,” they said, and left. Later, he admitted, he wondered whether those two had come straight to him without asking around because someone else had once said yes; but, he added, that is an uncharitable thought.

Corruption is easy to fall into, he said, and we must remember this: “Sinners, yes; corrupt, no, corrupt never!” We must ask forgiveness for those Catholics, those Christians, who cause scandal with their corruption; it is a wound in the Church. But there are so many saints, he said, saints who are sinners but not corrupt, and we must also look at the other side: the Church is holy.

Thank you, Holy Father, for your words, always so clear and so fitting for the times we are living through. We pray a great deal for you from Venezuela. And we ask for your prayers so that corruption, which has torn our country apart and has been to blame for so many deaths, may disappear from our homeland.

We will achieve that if in our families we follow the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, above all by giving an example of rock-solid honesty, and by teaching the new generations that money is earned with sweat and honestly.