Pope Francis urged Vatican officials to avoid “rigid ideological positions” in a speech days after his recent approval of blessings for same-sex couples. Addressing the Holy See hierarchy in his annual Christmas greeting last Thursday, Francis emphasized the importance of evolving to serve the Catholic Church effectively. “In our service here in the Curia too, it is important to keep faring forward, to keep searching and growing in our understanding of the truth, overcoming the temptation to stand still and never leave the ‘labyrinth’ of our fears,” the bishop of Rome said. “Fear, rigidity and monotony make for an immobility that has the apparent advantage of not creating problems … but lead us to wander aimlessly within our labyrinths, to the detriment of the service we are called to offer the Church and the whole world.”