Idols require blood warns Pope Francis

(ANSA) - Vatican City, August 1 - Pope Francis warned against worshiping money during his weekly general audience on Wednesday, stressing that "idols require blood".
    "In ancient times human sacrifices were made to idols but even today people sacrifice their children for their careers, neglecting them or simply refusing to have them," the Argentine pontiff said in the Vatican's Paul VI Hall in his first general audience after the July break.
    "Money robs us of life, and pleasure leads to loneliness.
    "Economic structures sacrifice human lives for better profits. "One lives in hypocrisy, doing and saying what others expect of us, because the god of self-affirmation imposes it. And lives are ruined; families are destroyed; and young people are abandoned to destructive habits, all to increase profit".