Satan, not God, tricks people with temptation, Pope says

God never tricks, traps or tempts his children to sin or commit evil, Pope Francis has said.

God is with his people every step of the way – during times of joy and sadness, triumph and tribulation – and he always helps lead people away from the devil and his temptations, the Pope said during his weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square today on the feast of St. Joseph the Worker.

Marking the feast day, the Pope prayed that the saint, a carpenter and Jesus’ guardian, would support people sacrificing so much to do good in the world and intercede on behalf of all those who have lost their job or cannot find employment.

Unemployment “is a global tragedy today”, he said at the end of his audience.

In his main audience talk, the Pope continued his catechesis on the Lord’s Prayer, looking at the next to last invocation, “Lead us not into temptation”.

Modern translations from the original Greek expression “are a bit shaky” and do not give a precise rendering of the real meaning, he said. But recent Vatican-approved translations in some languages, like French, Italian and Spanish, include equivalents such as “Do not abandon us to temptation” or “Do not let us enter” or “fall into temptation”.

Pope Francis already highlighted the translation issue as part of a television series on the Lord’s Prayer in 2017 when he said some translations of the “Our Father” can give believers the wrong impression that God can and does lead people into temptation.

“I’m the one who falls. But it’s not (God) who pushes me into temptation to see how I fall. No, a father does not do this. A father helps us up immediately,” he had said in the interview.

The Pope reiterated the same point at his general audience, saying that despite the various translations, one thing is undisputed: “We must exclude God as the source of the temptations that impede humanity in its journey as if God himself were on the prowl, setting snares and traps for his children.”

Catholic News Service