Pope Francis has harshly criticised luxurious, self-indulgent churches of having forgotten, or never encountering Christ.
"When we find decadent churches, decadent parishes, decadent institutions, these are clearly the result of Christians who have never encountered Jesus Christ or they have forgotten that encounter with Jesus Christ," he said in a Mass at Casa Santa Marta.
The Holy Father explained instead, that a true Christian should be driven only by the power found in the "encounter" between sins and the blood of Christ.
"When there is no encounter, there is no strength of heart," he stated.
"What can a Christian boast about? Two things: their sins and the crucified Christ."
The Pope has previously condemned churches driven by material prosperity and worldly success.
"It is tempting for pastoral ministers to adopt not only effective models of management, planning and organisation drawn from the business world, but also a lifestyle and mentality guided more by worldly criteria of success, and indeed power, than by the criteria which Jesus sets out in the Gospel."
"May we be saved from that spiritual and pastoral worldliness which stifles the Spirit, replaces conversion by complacency, and, in the process, dissipates all missionary fervour."
Concluding his homily, the Pope invited listeners to ask themselves whether they are able to confess their sins before God and if they really believe they have been given a "new life".
"The driving force of the Christian life and the power of the Word of God it is at that moment where I, a sinner, encounter Jesus Christ and this encounter turns my life on its head, it changes your life ... it gives you the strength to proclaim salvation to others."