Vatican City, April 26

The clergy should serve their congregations, Pope Francis said on Tuesday, in a letter condemning clericalism, which he called one of the \"greatest distortions\" of the Church in Latin America.

\"The Church is not an elite of priests, of the anointed, of bishops, but we all make up the sainted people of God,\" Francis said in a wide-ranging letter on the role of the laity.

\"We must remember that as clergy we all began our lives as lay people,â€ Francis said in the letter addressed to Cardinal Marc Ouellet, president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

Clericalism, Francis recalled, \"forgets that the visibility and the sacramentality of the Church belong to all the people of God and not just to an illuminated and elected few\".

His letter followed-up the commissionâ€™s recent plenary assembly on \"The indispensable role of the lay faithful in the public life of Latin American countries\".

Clericalism distorts the Church: Pope Francis