Pope Francis's new book: "The Name of God is Mercy"

[pnwmom]

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/with-his-new-book-pope-francis-unlocks-the-door

A book on mercy might be expected to be a warm bath in kindliness, all sweetness and light, but Pope Francis, in “The Name of God Is Mercy,” offers a tough-minded reflection on an urgently needed public virtue, together with firm, if kindly, pushback against his critics.

The Pope’s now mythic line—“Who am I to judge?”—endeared him to many who long for humane authority, but it alarmed those who worry that the traditional center of religious and social order cannot hold. (Who are you to judge? You’re the Pope, that’s who!) That the question was asked in the context of an apparent tolerance of homosexuality made it especially threatening to the culture warriors, for whom gay rights is a flash point. Was the Pope yielding on a point of doctrine? Indeed, was doctrine at risk in his seeming openness to readmitting the divorced and remarried to Communion, or in his refusal to give due emphasis to other touchstone issues of sexual morality? Was there, in the Times columnist Ross Douthat’s incendiary phrase, a “plot to change Catholicism”?


The Pope’s new book is framed as an interview, and, as if to be sure that he is understood, he welcomes a return to that totemic question. And he makes clear that, yes, “Who am I to judge?” is a defining position, but for Francis it is a stance rooted in a strong sense of mercy. When his interlocutor, a Vatican reporter named Andrea Tornielli, raises the critics’ objection—“Can there be opposition between truth and mercy, or between doctrine and mercy?”—Francis’s answer is forthright. “I will say this: mercy is real; it is the first attribute of God. Theological reflections on doctrine and mercy may then follow, but let us not forget that mercy is doctrine. Even so, I love saying: mercy is true.” Against those who obsess that the Pope is failing to uphold doctrine, Francis recalls that, in the Gospel, such critics “represent the principal opposition to Jesus; they challenge him in the name of doctrine.” And he adds, “This approach is repeated throughout the long history of the Church.”

SNIP

[ian cameron dromore]

1. Doctrine!

Do you not think that it is a nearly impossible task to keep all aspects of the Catholic Church happy. With so many differing views I think Pope Francis is doing a fantastic job particularly in relation to reaching out to the masses to provide common sense guidance.