Flu-stricken pope issues ‘catalog of virtues’ to Curia

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has urged Vatican bureaucrats to show more honesty, humility and sobriety as he issued a Christmas-time “catalog of virtues” for his collaborators to follow after having excoriated them last year for a host of sins.

Francis joked Monday during his annual Christmas greeting that after last year’s public diagnosis of the “15 ailments of the Curia” that he should have come up this year with the “Curial antibiotics” to treat them.

In a way he did, issuing a list of virtues that should guide their work, including honesty, sobriety, respect and humility.

The 79-year-old Francis delivered his remarks sitting down, telling the sober-faced cardinals and bishops gathered that had been suffering from the flu for the past several days “and I don’t feel very strong.”