With that as an opening, I'm working on a RCIA talk on the subjects of "mercy" and Pope Francis' infamous "who am I to judge?" comment since they are easily misunderstood and, despite my aggravations, it's my job to correct the misunderstandings. I present here a line of attack I've been ruminating on for your amusement. There will likely be more. This is just my way of working out what I want to talk about and perhaps get some feedback.
Typically in the media, Pope Francis is portrayed in opposition to the previous two popes, especially Pope Benedict XVI. It is commonly stated that while Benedict was a strict enforcer, Francis is focused on "mercy". In fact, that characterization doesn't take into account the complexity of the two men and much has been written on how much Francis' various positions are mirrored in the statement of Benedict. But leaving that aside, is there a distinction between God's Commandments and God's Mercy?
Let's say you wanted to be a cook. More than that, you wanted to run a restaurant and be known as a great chef. To be a great cook in a great restaurant, you have to follow a bunch of rules: you have to follow a recipe and you have to maintain a minimum of sanitation. The consequences of this are clear: what you cook won't taste good and people can get sick. Now if I go to your restaurant and don't like what the waiter brings out because you used the wrong ingredients in the recipe, or because it's covered with cat fur, you may not like it. You may ask who I am to impose a bunch of small minded rules on you, a free person who can make up his own mind what to do. But that doesn't mean I'm going to pay. And if I happen to be the health inspector, things will quickly go downhill for you.
What does "mercy" mean in this case? Mercy means that I give you another chance to follow the rules. Mercy doesn't mean that whatever you do in the kitchen is OK with me and whatever comes out of the oven will get five stars on my Yelp review. It doesn't matter what I say about the matter. If you don't follow the recipe, then the same results will come: unhappy, sick customers.
What would the lack of mercy be in situation? A lack of mercy would be to castigate you as a failure of a cook who will never be any good and to banish you forever from the kitchen. (There is a sense of Justice here, as well, if you sicken your customers, there will be a period of penance -- just ask the people at Blue Bell -- but I will leave that for a future discussion). Indeed, we can think of situations where the only way to protect society is to remove a miscreant from society but even there mercy can moderate the harshness of the sentence.
God's mercy is not in opposition to His commandments. It is an opportunity to return to the Commandments when we've gone astray.
Now when Pope Francis make his "who am I to judge" statement, he was making a statement about a hypothetical person who had sinned in the past and had confessed those sins and was honestly seeking the Lord. In the context of the interview, it seems that the person Francis was talking about was a repentant sinner who was trying live by the teachings of the Church. In that case, the merciful thing to do is to give the sinner another chance to live a moral life.
But just like the example above, "mercy" does not mean that whatever the person does is good and holy and we can't distinguish between one action or another. As in the example above, failing to live a moral life puts a sinner in jeopardy, no matter what Francis says. He doesn't have the power to make sin a virtue, and according to the reports of the interview, he never intended to.
Let's say you wanted to be a cook. More than that, you wanted to run a restaurant and be known as a great chef. To be a great cook in a great restaurant, you have to follow a bunch of rules: you have to follow a recipe and you have to maintain a minimum of sanitation. The consequences of this are clear: what you cook won't taste good and people can get sick. Now if I go to your restaurant and don't like what the waiter brings out because you used the wrong ingredients in the recipe, or because it's covered with cat fur, you may not like it. You may ask who I am to impose a bunch of small minded rules on you, a free person who can make up his own mind what to do. But that doesn't mean I'm going to pay. And if I happen to be the health inspector, things will quickly go downhill for you.
What does "mercy" mean in this case? Mercy means that I give you another chance to follow the rules. Mercy doesn't mean that whatever you do in the kitchen is OK with me and whatever comes out of the oven will get five stars on my Yelp review. It doesn't matter what I say about the matter. If you don't follow the recipe, then the same results will come: unhappy, sick customers.
What would the lack of mercy be in situation? A lack of mercy would be to castigate you as a failure of a cook who will never be any good and to banish you forever from the kitchen. (There is a sense of Justice here, as well, if you sicken your customers, there will be a period of penance -- just ask the people at Blue Bell -- but I will leave that for a future discussion). Indeed, we can think of situations where the only way to protect society is to remove a miscreant from society but even there mercy can moderate the harshness of the sentence.
God's mercy is not in opposition to His commandments. It is an opportunity to return to the Commandments when we've gone astray.
Now when Pope Francis make his "who am I to judge" statement, he was making a statement about a hypothetical person who had sinned in the past and had confessed those sins and was honestly seeking the Lord. In the context of the interview, it seems that the person Francis was talking about was a repentant sinner who was trying live by the teachings of the Church. In that case, the merciful thing to do is to give the sinner another chance to live a moral life.
But just like the example above, "mercy" does not mean that whatever the person does is good and holy and we can't distinguish between one action or another. As in the example above, failing to live a moral life puts a sinner in jeopardy, no matter what Francis says. He doesn't have the power to make sin a virtue, and according to the reports of the interview, he never intended to.
No comments:
Post a Comment