The Name of God Is Mercy (5 page)

A
FEW
years ago, in a school in northern Italy, a teacher of religion explained the parable of the Prodigal Son to her students, then asked them to write freely about it and reflect on the story they had just heard. The large majority of the students interpreted the ending in the following way: the father received the prodigal son, punished him severely, and then forced him to live with the servants so that he would learn not to squander the family’s wealth.

That’s an entirely human reaction. The reaction of the elder son is also human. It is the mercy of God that is divine.

H
OW
do you approach the problem of the older son in the parable? Sometimes, even from the Church, we
hear, “Too much mercy! The Church must condemn sin.”

The Church condemns sin because it has to relay the truth: “This is a sin.” But at the same time, it embraces the sinner who recognizes himself as such, it welcomes him, it speaks to him of the infinite mercy of God. Jesus forgave even those who crucified and scorned him. We must go back to the Gospel. We find that it speaks not only of welcoming and forgiveness but also of the “feast” for the returning son. The expression of mercy is the joy of the feast, and that is well expressed in the Gospel of Luke: “I tell you, in just the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance” (Luke 15:7). It does not say: and if he should then relapse and go back to his ways and commit more sins, that’s his problem! No, when Peter asked how many times he should forgive someone, Jesus said, not seven times but seventy times seven (Matthew 18:22), or in other words, always. The older son of the merciful father
was allowed to say what was true even if he didn’t understand the situation, and that was because as soon as the younger brother started blaming himself, he didn’t have time to speak: he was interrupted by his father, who embraced him. Precisely because there is sin in the world, precisely because our human nature is wounded by original sin, God, who delivered his Son for us, can only reveal himself as merciful. God is a careful and attentive father, ready to welcome any person who takes a step or even expresses the desire to take a step that leads home. He is there, staring out at the horizon, expecting us, waiting for us. No human sin—however serious—can prevail over or limit mercy. After serving for several years as the Bishop of Vittorio Veneto, Albino Luciani held some training exercises for parish priests, and when commenting on the parable of the Prodigal Son once said this about the Father: “He waits. Always. And it is never too late. That’s what he’s like, that’s how he is…he’s a father. A father waiting at the doorway, who sees us when we are still far off, who is moved, and who comes running toward us, embraces us, and
kisses us tenderly….Our sin is like a jewel that we present to him to obtain the consolation of forgiveness….Giving a gift of jewels is a noble thing to do, and it is not a defeat but a joyous victory to let God win!”

To follow the way of the Lord, the Church is called on to pour its mercy over all those who recognize themselves as sinners, who assume responsibility for the evil they have committed, and who feel in need of forgiveness. The Church does not exist to condemn people but to bring about an encounter with the visceral love of God’s mercy. I often say that in order for this to happen, it is necessary to go out: to go out from the church and the parishes, to go outside and look for people where they live, where they suffer, and where they hope. I like to use the image of a field hospital to describe this “Church that goes forth”; it exists where there is combat, it is not a solid structure with all the equipment where people go to receive treatment for both small and large infirmities. It is a mobile structure that offers first aid and immediate care, so that its soldiers do not die. It’s a place for
urgent care, not a place to see a specialist. I hope that the Jubilee will serve to reveal the Church’s deeply maternal and merciful side, a Church that goes forth toward those who are “wounded,” who are in need of an attentive ear, understanding, forgiveness, and love.

C
AN
there be mercy without acknowledgment of one’s sins?

Mercy exists, but if you don’t want to receive it…If you don’t recognize yourself as a sinner, it means you don’t want to receive it, it means that you don’t feel the need for it. Sometimes it is hard to know exactly what happened. Sometimes you might feel skeptical and think it is impossible to get back on your feet again. Or maybe you prefer your wounds, the wounds of sin, and you behave like a dog, licking your wounds with your tongue. This is a narcissistic illness that makes people bitter. There is pleasure in feeling bitter, an unhealthy pleasure.

If we do not begin by examining our wretchedness, if we stay lost and despair that we will never be forgiven, we end up licking our wounds, and they stay
open and never heal. Instead, there is medicine, there is healing, we only need take a small step toward God, or at least express the desire to take it. A tiny opening is enough. All we need to do is take our condition seriously. We need to remember and remind ourselves where we come from, what we are, our nothingness. It is important that we not think of ourselves as self-sufficient.

Saint Teresa of Avila warned her sisters about the vanity of self-sufficiency. When she heard comments such as “They had no reason to do this to me,” she would say, “May God free us from bad reasons. If someone doesn’t want to carry the cross, I don’t know what she’s still doing in the convent.”

None of us should speak of injustice without thinking of all the injustice we have committed before God. We must never forget our origins, the mud of which we were made, and this counts above all for those who are ordained.

W
HAT
do you think of people who always confess the same sins?

If you are talking about the penitent who automatically repeats a formula, I would have to say that he was not well prepared, he was not well catechized, he does not know how to self-examine, and he does not realize how many sins he actually commits….I greatly enjoy hearing children confess, because they are not abstract; they say what really happened. They make you smile. They are simple: they say what happened and they know what they did was wrong.

When there is the kind of repetitiveness that becomes a habit, you cannot grow in the awareness of yourself or of the Lord; it would be like not acknowledging that you have sinned or that you have wounds that need healing. The routine confession is a bit like the example of the dry cleaner that I mentioned earlier. So many people are wounded, not least psychologically, and do not even realize that they are. That is what I have to say about people who confess by rote….

It is different when someone relapses and commits the same sin and suffers because of it, when they have a hard time getting back on their feet. Many humble
people confess to having fallen again. The most important thing in the life of every man and every woman is not that they should never fall along the way. The important thing is always to get back up, not to stay on the ground licking your wounds. The Lord of mercy always forgives me; he always offers me the possibility of starting over. He loves me for what I am, he wants to raise me up, and he extends his hand to me. This is one of the tasks of the Church: to help people perceive that there are no situations that they cannot get out of. For as long as we are alive it is always possible to start over, all we have to do is let Jesus embrace us and forgive us.

Back when I was rector of the Collegio Massimo of Jesuits and a parish priest in Argentina, I remember a mother with young children, whose husband had left her. She did not have a steady job and only managed to find temporary jobs a couple of months out of the year. When there was no work, she had to prostitute herself to provide her children with food. She was humble, she came to the parish church, and we tried to help her with Caritas (our charity). I remember one day—it was during the Christmas holidays—she
came with her children to the College and asked for me. They called me and I went to greet her. She had come to thank me. I thought it was for the package of food from Caritas that we had sent to her. “Did you receive it?” I asked. “Yes, yes, thank you for that, too. But I came here today to thank you because you never stopped calling me Señora.” Experiences like this teach you how important it is to welcome people delicately and not wound their dignity. For her, the fact that the parish priest continued to call her Señora, even though he probably knew how she led her life during the months when she could not work, was as important as—or perhaps even more important than—the concrete help that we gave her.

M
AY
I ask you about your experiences as confessor to homosexual people? During the press conference on your return flight from Rio de Janeiro you famously remarked, “Who am I to judge?”

On that occasion I said this: If a person is gay and seeks out the Lord and is willing, who am I to judge that person? I was paraphrasing by heart the Catechism
of the Catholic Church where it says that these people should be treated with delicacy and not be marginalized. I am glad that we are talking about “homosexual people” because before all else comes the individual person, in his wholeness and dignity. And people should not be defined only by their sexual tendencies: let us not forget that God loves all his creatures and we are destined to receive his infinite love. I prefer that homosexuals come to confession, that they stay close to the Lord, and that we pray all together. You can advise them to pray, show goodwill, show them the way, and accompany them along it.

C
AN
there be opposition between truth and mercy, or between doctrine and mercy?

I will say this: mercy is real; it is the first attribute of God. Theological reflections on doctrine or mercy may then follow, but let us not forget that mercy is doctrine. Even so, I love saying: mercy is true. When the adulteress stands before Jesus and the people are ready to follow the Law of Moses and stone her, he stops and writes in the sand. We do not know what he
wrote, the Gospels do not tell us, but all the people who were there, ready to cast their stones, dropped them and left. Only the woman remained and she was probably still frightened, having been a breath away from dying. To her Jesus says, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, [and] from now on do not sin any more.” We do not know what her life was like after that encounter, after that intervention, after hearing Jesus’ words. We know that she has been forgiven. We know that Jesus says that we should forgive seventy times seven: the important thing is to return frequently to the source of mercy and grace.

W
HEN
you comment on the Gospel in your morning homilies at Saint Martha’s House, you often refer to the scholars of the law. Why is that? What attitudes do they represent?

The conduct of the scholars of the law is often described in the words of the Gospel: they represent the principal opposition to Jesus; they challenge him in the name of doctrine. This approach is repeated throughout the long history of the Church.

Once, during a council of Italian bishops, a fellow bishop cited an expression from
De Abraham
by Saint Ambrose: “When it comes to bestowing grace, Christ is present; when it comes to exercising rigor, only the ministers of the Church are present, but Christ is absent.” There have been many similar tendencies from the past that have re-emerged in other forms: the Cathars, the Pelagians—who justify themselves with words, actions, and volunteer work, contrasting clearly with the text of Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Then there is Gnosticism, which follows a softer kind of spirituality, with no incarnation. John is very clear on this: he who denies that Christ came in the flesh is the Antichrist. I always think back to the excerpt from the Gospel of Mark (1:40–45) and the description of how Jesus healed the lepers. Once again, as in many other pages of the Gospel, Jesus does not remain indifferent, he feels compassion, he lets himself be involved and wounded by pain, by illness, by the poverty he encounters. He does not back away. The Law of Moses stated that lepers had to be excluded from the city and from the encampments (Leviticus 13:45–46), in places that were deserted,
cast out, and declared impure. In addition to suffering from the illness, they faced exclusion, marginalization, and loneliness. Let us try and imagine the heavy burden of suffering and shame that a leper had to bear; he was not just a victim of illness, but also felt guilty, as if he were being punished for his sins. The intention of the law that pitilessly cast out the leper was to avoid contamination: the healthy needed to be protected.