Pope Francis Calls Ten Commandments Too Rigid

[News Brief]

Pope Francis on Monday warned against the excessive rigidity of the Ten Commandments and said “God gives us the freedom to search our own conscience for commandments.”

“I always try to understand what’s behind people who are too young to have seen Moses walk down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, and yet still they want to obey them,” Francis said. “Sometimes I find myself confronted with a very legalistic person who follows the Commandments and I ask myself, ‘Why so much rigidity?’ This rigidity in following the Commandments always hides something, insecurity or even something else.”

Pope Francis went on to say that, “Behind an attitude of always feeling like you must follow the rigidity of the Commandments there is something else in the life of a person. The Commandments are not a gift of God. The Beatitudes are because they are not a list of rules that stiffen us and make us rigid; they make us feel good.”