Catholic News Service: on Tax Reform

Pope Francis: The church is not an NGO; focus on grace, not wealth

This was the experience of the early church as "St. Peter didn't have a bank account, and when he had to pay taxes, the Lord sent him to the sea to fish and find inside the fish the money for paying," the pope said.

The church must carry out its charitable work--where money is necessary--but it can be done with "a heart of poverty, not with the heart of an investor or an entrepreneur," he said. It's this kind of poverty that "saves us from becoming businessmen," he added. "The church is not an NGO."

"When we find apostles that want to make the church rich, the church becomes old, it becomes an NGO; the church becomes lifeless," the pope said.