Pope Francis has urged Vatican bureaucrats to show more honesty, humility and sobriety as he issued a Christmas-time ``catalogue 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.''