Not all Christians are saints — not everyone who professes virtue is virtuous. Appearances of piety or respectability do not guarantee actual goodness.
This Milanese proverb reflects the healthy scepticism of a mercantile city that had seen centuries of people using religious respectability as a cover for commercial fraud. The great financial scandals of Lombard history — from the Renaissance moneylenders who displayed religious charity while charging ruinous interest, to the twentieth-century bankers who attended Mass every Sunday while looting their depositors — gave this proverb an edge of bitter experience. The Catholic tradition of the city is genuine and deep, but so is the Milanese awareness that religiosity and goodness are not the same thing. The proverb is directed not at religion but at hypocrisy: it is the gap between the claim and the reality that the Milanese find intolerable.
Milanese sceptical proverb rooted in centuries of observing the gap between religious respectability and commercial behaviour in a great trading city.
A Milan businesswoman on a fraudulent supplier
Andava a Messa ogni mattina e ci ha truffato di trecentomila euro. Minga tüt i cristian a son sant.
He went to Mass every morning and defrauded us of three hundred thousand euros. Not all Christians are saints.
A Milanese journalist on a political scandal
Il consigliere con l'immaginetta della Madonna in ufficio è stato arrestato per corruzione. Minga tüt i cristian a son sant.
The councillor with the Madonna image in his office has been arrested for corruption. Not all Christians are saints.
A grandmother warning her granddaughter about a suitor
— Va a Messa tutte le domeniche. — Minga tüt i cristian a son sant, cara. Aspetta a giudicare.
— He goes to Mass every Sunday. — Not all Christians are saints, dear. Wait before judging.
Two Milanese colleagues discussing a recently exposed colleague
Era sempre il primo a fare il benefattore, le foto per i giornali e tutto. Minga tüt i cristian a son sant — e adesso si vede.
He was always the first to play the benefactor, the photos for the newspapers and everything. Not all Christians are saints — and now it shows.