Poverty at the center of Gospel, pope says

In additional to calling on the world last week to combat climate change, Pope Francis responded to those who complain that he talks too much about poverty. “Poverty is at the very center of the Gospel,” he said during a Mass Tuesday. “If we remove poverty from the Gospel, no one would be able to understand anything about the message of Jesus.” He urged followers of Jesus to pursue “Christian poverty,” which he defined as giving from what we need, not just from what is left over, to the poor, because they will enrich us. “Why does the poor person enrich me?” he said. “Because Jesus Himself told us that He is in the poor person.” – Phillip Brownlee

This story was originally published June 20, 2015 at 7:05 PM.