Vatican spokesman: we must choose Christ’s army or the devil’s

May 28, 2012

Citing St. Ignatius of Loyola and recalling recent remarks made by Pope Benedict on the Church militant, the director of the Holy See Press Office said in his weekly editorial that “we must choose to stand either beneath the flag of the devil or beneath the flag of Jesus.”

“Under the devil’s flag, we are enlisted in the search for wealth, vainglory, pride, and all that which is seen by others,” Father Federico Lombardi wrote. “Beneath the flag of Jesus, we are committed to a love for poverty--both spiritual and material--humiliation, humility, and all of the virtues which follow.”

“St. Ignatius says that, on the one side, we are attracted to those deceptive spirits who promise happiness, but who actually lay traps along the way and enslave us,” the Jesuit Vatican spokesman said. “On the other side--that of goodness--we are invited to be ‘servants and friends’ of Jesus, masters of spirit and evangelical discernment.”

 

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Further information:

• Lombardi Editorial: From Babel to Pentecost (Vatican Radio)
• Pope Benedict: Luncheon with the Cardinals (21 May 2012)