OPINION:
“Open a door of mercy,” Pope Francis has been urging for several weeks.
“May mercy guide our steps, inspire our reforms, illuminate our decisions,” the pope urged his closest Vatican advisers on Dec. 21, reminding them of his own spiritual campaign through 2016.
The quality of mercy for the new year has been raised to a more central place by Pope Francis.
The global leader is appealing to all to be “artisans of mercy,” just as his predecessor, Saint John Paul II, urged everyone to be “artisans of peace.”
Amid increasing air sorties over Syria, and as U.S. presidential candidates urge opening national borders to Christian refugees, and with one candidate calling for them to be locked tight to Muslims, the pontiff has appealed to the better angels of our nature by a dramatic gesture. In November, he drove into a Muslim village racked by sectarian violence in Bangui, in the Central African Republic. Even armed United Nations’ military personnel reportedly feared to fight in that village. Francis announced at Bangui’s central mosque, “Christians and Muslims are brothers and sisters,” the Pope then fearlessly opened the holy door of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Bangui and opened a Jubilee Year for the first time ever outside of Rome.
The Pope wants bishops across the world symbolically to open each city’s cathedral doors and to reclaim mercy as a hallmark in the halls of all churches and parish communities.
“Jesus is the face of the Father’s mercy,” proclaimed Francis at the start of the Holy Year for fostering forgiveness, mercy and more compassion toward all as ISIS, among others, ignites global genocides.
After decades without dialogue on crucial Catholic questions, Francis is inviting a more merciful church to be demonstrated by its leaders and pastors who often put law front and center.
Francis seems to suggest that mercy is an encounter and experience with God.
“Be merciful as your Father is merciful,” the progressive pope proposes.
On Dec. 8, calling his formal Saint Peter’s Square start of this Jubilee Year of mercy “itself a gift of grace,” tens of thousands participated in a Mass in which the Argentinian pontiff praised the work of the spirit of the historic ecumenical Vatican II Council.
Will mercy mark the 2016 U.S. presidential election as personal attacks and party platform divisions fill the media with tones of denigrating and derisive words? “A good political leader is one who, with the interests of all in mind, seizes the moment in a spirit of openness and pragmatism,” Francis urged Congress in his recent visit to the United States. Rising partisanship in the U.S. could be calmed by “common good conversation,” Francis has argued. “Dialogue is our method, not as a shrewd strategy but out of fidelity to the One who never wearies of visiting the marketplace, even at the 11th hour, to propose his offer of love,” Francis told U.S. bishops.
Jubilee years have been a Christian tradition that started in the 14th century. Such years of less judgment and more mercy with holy pilgrimages across the globe stem from the Bible’s book of Leviticus, Chapter 25, and Jesus’ call for the “Year of the Lord’s favor” in the Gospel of Saint Luke, Chapter 4.
Francis’ formal declaration announcing the Jubilee Year is a reclaiming of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy outlined in the Christian Gospel of Saint Matthew, Chapter 25. The litany list invites followers of Jesus to feed the hungry, visit the inmates in jails, shelter the homeless, to confess sins, and to absolve believers of violations against the Ten Commandments noted in Deuteronomy, Chapter 5, and Exodus, Chapter 20.
Hearts will need opening like the doors of mercy that Pope Francis is urging in this Jubilee Year of forgiveness and reconciliation.
Perhaps the mercy Pope Francis proposes will change the tone of Washington, D.C., and, the national election in November. A dose of mercy may help. “We have to put mercy before judgment, and in every case God’s judgment will always be in the light of mercy. Let us abandon all fear and dread, for these do not befit men and women who are loved. Instead, let us live the joy of encounter with the grace that transforms all,” concluded Francis at the start of his Year of Mercy across the globe.
• Lawrence M. Ventline of Detroit, Mich., has been a Catholic priest and a board certified professional counselor for 40 years.
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