Much has been said recently on the Pope’s declaring a Year of Mercy for the Church.
It’s been embraced enthusiastically by Catholics throughout the world who are making pilgrimages to Rome or their own Cathedrals to pass through the Door of Mercy as a sign of the spiritual exodus to which Pope Francis is calling us during this special year of grace.
But in some places it has also been receiving resistance, intentional neglect, or plain disregard because of a misunderstanding of what Pope Francis and the Church mean by mercy.
Some have been misinterpreting Pope Francis’ call to mercy as a general indulgence toward sinful behavior, a wholesale amnesty toward the breaking of God’s commandments, a unilateral and universal spiritual debt forgiveness. They seem to have drawn this conclusion from widespread public perception of what some of Pope Francis’ statements and pastoral initiatives “meant.” Some have inferred, for example, that the Pope’s remarks about not judging gays who are seeking God’s will, his desire to reach out to those Catholics who are divorced and civilly remarried, and his comments about not obsessing about issues related to abortion or contraception indicate that he’s soft on sexual morality, adultery, and the killing of innocent human beings.
Such perceptions have led some faithful and Catholic priests to question whether the Year of Mercy is in fact a Trojan Horse, introducing reforms that will prove contrary to the Gospel, and for that reason, they’ve been hesitant to jump on board. On the other hand, the perceptions have also led many in situations the Church has long taught sinful to think that the Year of Mercy is not about their conversion but the conversion on the part of the Church toward them and their behavior. So they’re happy to give the Church a year to reform its life and attitudes, without sensing any call to action other than grateful acceptance.
Preaching on Jesus’ words about scandal, in which Jesus calls the corrupt “hypocrites” or fakers, the Pope noted that “the difference between a sinner and a man who is corrupt” is that “one who leads a double life is corrupt, whereas a sinner doesn’t want to sin, but is weak or finds himself in a condition he cannot resolve and goes to the Lord and asks to be forgiven.” The corrupt person “does not repent, continues to sin, and pretends to be a Christian.” His life ends up “a varnished decay.”
In his letter for this Jubilee Year, the Pope, in the “name of the Son of God who, though rejecting sin, never rejected the sinner,” made a particularly fervent appeal to those who are corrupt to “change their lives,” specifically calling out those “whose behavior distances them from the grace of God,” who “perpetrate and participate in corruption,” or who belong to “criminal organizations.” He reminded them and all of us that “everyone, sooner or later, will be subject to God’s judgment, from which no one can escape,” and urged us all to take advantage of the graces of the Jubilee to meet the Lord in his mercy before we need to face him as judge.
“Sinners yes, corrupt no!” Pope Francis has repeatedly exclaimed. Rather than blessing sinful lifestyles and choices, the Year of Mercy is summoning all of us to recognize that we’re sinners who need God’s mercy, come to receive that gift frequently, and, having been filled with the riches of God’s mercy and holiness, never stop paying that wealth forward.
Deacon John D’Amico
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