Pope Francis and Mercy

On the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome amidst all the beauty and splendor portrayed, there is the image of God stretching out a hand in the creation of a human person. A finger points, it forms and creates the reality of history in a gratuitous act of divine generosity. All particular historicity is established in that moment and temporal reality continued to be marked by the presence of God at work within the world, forming a covenant with his chosen people to which he faithfully adheres despite the infidelities of the people. With the incarnation the presence of God amongst God’s people becomes a personal encounter in Jesus Christ. His life, passion, death and resurrection mark a definitive engagement and an irrevocable commitment of God to human persons. In the growth of the early church we see a community growing in faith and understanding amidst the trials of persecution and exile. Across many generations there have been significant moments of history in the life of the Roman Catholic Church. In the elevation of Cardinal Bergoglio to the pontificate of Pope Francis we encountered another such moment. Here was a man ‘from the ends of the earth’, the first Latin American and the first Jesuit Pope.

It was not just the manner of his being announced to the crowd outside St Peter’s Basilica, where 6000 accredited journalists had waited patiently for a puff of white smoke, that made us conceive we were touching history. It is the way that Pope Francis lived out the manner of his papacy, such that he was seen to put into action the words he spoke. Central to this enactment was the way he called the Church to a radical encounter with Christ and a re-appropriation of the gospel message.

A man of gestures both large and small the Holy Father commanded respect even from those who profoundly disagreed with him. People were attracted to him and intrigued by him and perhaps especially those who would designate themselves as non-believers. His statements and gestures were simple, direct and profound. At times they seemed to be a passionate enactment of the gospel. His leadership was novel. He was the first pope for centuries to believe in the fruitfulness of tension and disagreement, within the leadership of the Church; and he advocated the principle of dialogue and the operative tool of discernment as key skills for governance. It is also noteworthy that in the Church’s relations with international nations, in his first three years in office Pope Francis met with every Head of State with whom the Holy See has diplomatic relations most of whom trod the path to Rome to greet him. In this new papacy world leaders saw a figure willing to engage international issues and speak out in favor of the poorest members of society. Essential to the mission of the Church was the need to reveal the compassion of God for all and particularly those most vulnerable existing on the margins of society.

Facing global problems of climate change, terror, unemployment, political destabilization of an unprecedented international order, refugees, and dire poverty, Pope Francis gave shape to his compassion through endorsing a clear trajectory of mercy, love and forgiveness as pre-eminently the mission of the Church to contemporary cultures and communities of faith. “Mercy cannot become a mere parenthesis in the life of the Church; it constitutes her very existence, through which the profound truths of the Gospel are made manifest and tangible. Everything is revealed in mercy; everything is resolved in the merciful love of the Father.” This could not be a more distinctive assertion of the importance of mercy, in no way is it a mere appendage rather it is the operative dynamic of the Church’s existence, revelatory of the good news of the merciful love of God. In addition, for the Holy Father, the mercy of God has a concrete face and a generative heart in the incarnate Word - Jesus Christ. Here, we see the central consistent importance of Christology for Pope Francis’ thought both in terms of his teaching and his preaching.