Pope Francis on Tuesday warned against the risk money poses to love and peace in his Lenten message called 'The Word is a gift. The other is a gift'.
"Instead of being an instrument at our service for doing good and showing solidarity towards others, money can chain us and the entire world to a selfish logic that leaves no room for love and hinders peace", the pontiff said.
The message focused on the parable of the rich man and the beggar called Lazarus in the Gospel of Luke, noting that money is "the main cause of corruption and a source of envy, strife and suspicion" "Money can come to dominate us, even to the point of becoming a tyrannical idol".
The parable shows how "the rich man's greed makes him vain" although appearance "masks an interior emptiness", the pontiff's message said. "The lowest rung of this moral degradation is pride". Lent begins on Ash Wednesday which falls this year on March 1.
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