Cardinal Tagle shuns hypocrisy as Ash Wednesday ushers in Lent

Cardinal Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Hypocrites be damned.

Not exactly the way Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle said it but he nonetheless urged Catholics not to be hypocrites in his Ash Wednesday homily to usher in the season of Lent.

According to a report from the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, Tagle said that people should engage in activities such as almsgiving, prayer, and fasting for God and not to “put themselves up.”

“What does Jesus call those people? Hypocrites,” Tagle said at the Arzobispado de Manila. “Engaging in religious activities not in order to return to God but to be full of self.”

“That is not holiness. That is definitely not a way to return to God. That is hypocrisy.”

Cardinal Tagle said that politicians who promote themselves through the guise of charity are not genuinely helping and their actions are solely for themselves.

“If I’m a politician, people will vote for me because of my charity work,” Tagle said. “It’s not for God but for one’s self.”

He added that fasting during the Lenten season should have an “element of self-discipline” as to return ones self to God and not just for the purpose of losing weight.

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