God save us from the "hegemonic uniformity" of the "one line of thought", "fruit of the spirit of the world that negotiates everything", even the faith. This was Pope Francis' prayer during mass this morning at Casa Santa Marta, commenting on a passage from the Book of Maccabees, in which the leaders of the people do not want Israel to be isolated from other nations, and so abandon their traditions to negotiate with the king.

They go to "negotiate" and are excited about it. It is as if they said "we are progressives; let's follow progress like everyone else does." As reported by Vatican Radio, the Pope noted that this is the "spirit of adolescent progressivism" according to which "any move forward and any choice is better than remaining within the routine of fidelity." These people, therefore, negotiate "loyalty to God who is always faithful" with the king. "This is called apostasy", "adultery." They are, in fact, negotiating their values, "negotiating the very essence of being faithful to the Lord."

"And this is a contradiction: we do not negotiate values, but faithfulness. And this is the fruit of the devil, the prince of this world, who leads us forward with the spirit of worldliness. And then there are the direct consequences. They accepted the habits of the pagan, then a further step: the king wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people, and everyone would abandon their customs. A globalizing conformity of all nations is not beautiful, rather, each with own customs but united, but it is the hegemonic uniformity of globalization, the single line of thought. And this single line of thought is the result of worldliness."