Pope Francis wants to tweak the Lord’s Prayer

The Pope has revealed he wants to change the Lord's Prayer as he thinks the current version implies that God pushes people toward sin. He said the line "lead us not into temptation", memorised by hundreds of millions of Christians for centuries, is based on a flawed translation.

"It is not a good translation because it speaks of a God who induces temptation," the Pope said. The implication is awkward for Christians, who believe it is Satan who tempts people to sin.

"I am the one who falls. It's not him pushing me into temptation to then see how I have fallen," the Pope explained. "A father doesn't do that, a father helps you to get up immediately. It is Satan who leads us into temptation, that's his department."

Francis said the Catholic Church in France had opted for a different phrasing, which worked around this particular issue. The French translation uses the phrase 'do not let us fall into temptation' as an alternative, which, the Pope said, implies that the fault would be human. He indicated that it or something similar should be applied worldwide.The Rev Ian Paul, an Anglican theologian, said the Pope’s comments would make traditionalists nervous. “The word in question is peirasmos [from New Testament Greek] which means both to tempt and to be tested. So on one level the Pope has a point.

But he’s also stepping into a theological debate about the nature of evil.