Pope Francis: The corrupt should be tied to a rock and thrown into the sea

While quoting a verse from the Book of st Luke, where Jesus said some sinners deserve to be tied to a rock and thrown into the sea.

In what happens to be one of his strongest-worded homilies, the Argentinian Pontiff, Pope Francis said Christians who lead “a double life” by giving money to the Church while stealing from the state are sinners who deserve to be punished.



“Jesus says: It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea.”, he said While he did not allude directly to corruption within the Catholic Church, his remarks come just days after a scandal erupted inside an ancient religious order linked to the Vatican, and as he forges ahead with a determined effort to root out cronyism within the Holy See and financial irregularities in the scandal-tainted Vatican bank. The Pope described people engaged in corruption as “whitewashed tombs”, explaining that “they appear beautiful from the outside, but inside they are full of dead bones and putrefaction.” A life based on corruption is “varnished putrefaction”, the Pope said. Pope Francis made the remarks during his daily morning Mass inside Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican guesthouse which he has chosen to live in after spurning the much grander apostolic apartments on the other side of St Peter’s Basilica. It is believed that the sermon may be to address the latest scandal to have hit the Catholic Church. Accerding to reports, last week, the head of a 440-year-old religious order was arrested on suspicion of bringing trumped-up charges against rivals in a bid to be re-elected. Renato Salvatore, 58, was allegedly so desperate to be re-elected Superior General of the Camillians, also known as the Order of Ministers to the Sick, that he invented false charges against two rival priests who were opposed to his nomination. The unfounded charges resulted in the two priests, Rosario Messina and Antonio Puca, being hauled off to a police station in Rome, with the result that they were unable to cast their votes against Father Salvatore at a general assembly of the order, which was founded in 1582 and recognised by Pope Sixtus V in 1586.