Pope: Professing the faith without good works is just spouting hot air

Understanding God's commandments and church doctrine is useless if those truths aren't put into practice, Pope Francis said.

"A faith without bearing fruit in life, a faith that doesn't bear fruit in works is not faith," the pope said in a Mass homily, focusing on the day's first reading from the Book of James (2:14-24).

Professing the faith without giving a witness makes the Gospel "words and nothing more than words," he said Friday during his early morning Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where he lives.

"We, too, make this mistake many times," he said. It's often the case when a person thinks, "'But I have lots of faith. I believe everything.'"

However, look at how that person lives life. It may be "a lukewarm, weak life" where "faith is like a theory" and not lived out in practice, the pope said.

http://ncronline.org/blogs/francis-chronicles/pope-professing-faith-without-good-works-just-spouting-hot-air

The right-wing fundies and Opus Dei types aren't going to like this one....