Lead Us Not Into Temptation

There was quite a hullabaloo in the press and an equal amount of murmurings from traditionalist camps in the second week of December over Pope Francis’ statement during his Wednesday audience in St. Peter’s square. The pope, without any equivocation, told us that a key part of the Lord’s Prayer, “lead us not into temptation,” has been mistranslated or misinterpreted for two millennia. If the pope’s novel correction to the Lord’s Prayer wasn’t beleaguered by a number of
many other doctrinally avant-garde teachings he has given us since he took office in 2013, such as the suggestion that hell does not exist or that we can’t judge homosexuals, we might not be as curious. But whether it’s pope or pauper who suggests that a 2000-year old prayer from the lips of none other than the Second Person of the Trinity has a major defect, we are obligated to take a very close look at the nature of the accusation. To be fair to Francis, asking God “not to lead us into temptation” is somewhat puzzling and at first sight seems to be totally out of character with God. Does God actually lead people into temptation so that we must plead with him not to do so on a daily basis? It prompted the pope to say, “No, that’s the devil’s business, not God’s.”

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