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Justice and Mercy Are Alike for God Msgr. Charles Pope • May 10, 2016 • I recently prepared a talk to present to a group of lawyers on the relationship between justice and mercy. The following is a summary of the basic points: I. Distinctions – From our perspective as humans, we tend to distinguish sharply between justice and mercy.For us, justice is the rendering to each person what is due to him or her. There is a kind of “You did it, you get it” mentality (whether praise or rebuke, reward or punishment). For us, justice is about...

Rorate Caeli + Tempus Septuagesimæ + The Pope's Traditional Masterstroke to bring Crowds to the Jubilee So...the 2016 Mercy Jubilee was not the popular success that had been foreseen. What was the solution? The Pope had the Capuchins bring to Rome from different points of Italy two of the most popular and traditional saints of the 20th Century, great Apostles of Penance and Confession: Sts. Padre Pio and Leopold Mandic. And the crowds suddenly appeared for the venerable Relics! Hail Tradition!

It seems to be impossible to get off the Francis beat on which Remnant writers and other tradition-minded Catholic commentators around the world have found themselves over the past three years. Not a week passes without something from the Vatican, orchestrated by Francis and his public relations team, designed specifically to call attention to the latest sensational development in what is being marketed shamelessly as Pope Francis' Revolution of Tenderness and Love.(r) Many journalists have devoted entire careers to covering the Vatican beat, but this Pope's endless of train of publicity stunts has made Vatican-watchers of the rest of us....

Soooooo muuuuuuuuch. Where does one even begin. I see the emails saying, **What is going on? How can this be happening? Why is Pope Francis doing this?** I’ve already answered these questions, but I understand that sometimes it takes multiple **encounters** with the **tender two-by-four of reality** to have reality fully, permanently set-in. So, I’ll walk you through it again. Bergoglio keeps saying heretical things, recently denying the divinity of Christ (it was always just a matter of time) by saying that Our Lord had to beg forgiveness of Mary and Joseph for His **little escapade** when at age 12...

AN OPEN LETTER TO POPE FRANCIS Most Holy Father, Bishop of Rome, Francis: I note your overture to a Lutheran woman at the Lutheran church on Via Sicilia in Rome on 15 November 2015, the one who asked about intercommunion (starting minute 21.00 on the Vatican YouTube video). I had to wonder before if your recent interview with Eugenio Scalfari was correctly reported. I now have no doubt. With due respect to your person and your office, I ask you not to make this kind of thing part of what you want to publish about the Synod with the authority...

If You Don’t Know the Bad News, the Good News is No News – A Meditation on the Coming Year of Mercy Msgr. Charles Pope • September 23, 2015 • As we prepare for the “Year of Mercy” we need to continue to understand that mercy is very good news. However, there is an old saying, “If you don’t know the bad news, the good news is no news.”Sadly, many people today understand mercy in a very detached way, a way that is apart from repentance and a deep knowledge of our sinfulness. Too many people think that mercy means...

Radical feminist writer Jill Filipovic is not happy with Pope Francis. In the New York Times, she criticizes his recent announcement authorizing priests to forgive repentant confessions of abortion: "[M]ercy may actually be worse. While the pope’s announcement has been hailed as evidence of the church’s new, softer approach, it’s actually the latest example of the modern anti-abortion strategy: Portray women as victims who need to be protected from themselves with laws that restrict abortion rights. "Despite the concern for what the pope calls an “agonizing and painful decision,” research shows that a vast majority of women who terminate pregnancies...

Pray for the Living and the Dead – A Meditation on the Seventh Spiritual Work of Mercy Msgr. Charles Pope • June 15, 2015 • What is the value of one prayer? I suspect it is far greater than any of us imagine. Prayer changes things, sometimes in obvious ways, more often in subtle and even paradoxical ways. But prayer is surely important, even when we don’t experience its immediate effects. Perhaps this is why Jesus taught us to pray always and never to lose heart (cf Luke 18:1). St. Paul echoed this with the simple exhortation “Pray without ceasing”...

Forgive All Injuries – A Meditation on the Sixth Spiritual Work of Mercy By: Msgr. Charles PopeOf all the things about which I preach, very few (if any) provoke as strong (and usually negative) a reaction as the call to forgive. I get more angry pushback after a Mass at which I preach on forgiveness than when I speak about chastity, greed, or any other challenging moral topic.It would seem that the anger is rooted in two things: first, that the call to forgive implies some dishonoring or diminishing of the pain or injustice someone has experienced, and second, that it seems to imply that there...

“Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). What are mercy and grace? We can find the words grace and mercy used in the same context and sometimes in the same sentence in the Bible. Do they mean the same thing? And if not, what is the difference? Lesson from Jonah The story of Jonah being swallowed by a great fish, being delivered and giving God’s message to the city of Nineveh is one of the most famous stories in the Bible. What...

Bear Wrongs Patiently – A Meditation on the 5th Spiritual Work of Mercy By: Msgr. Charles PopeHere is  perhaps the most revolutionary of the Spiritual works of mercy. It is the one tied most directly to the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. To decide to bear wrongs patiently is nothing less than to declare a revolution and to wage a very paradoxical counteroffensive against this world and its economy of anger.There is a cycle of violence and retribution in which the devil seeks to engage us. The cycle begins with one person harming or slighting another, perhaps tempted to do so...

Comfort the Sorrowful – A Consideration of the Fourth Spiritual Work of Mercy By: Msgr. Charles PopeThe fourth Spiritual Work of Mercy is to “comfort the sorrowful.” Sometimes it is listed as to “comfort the afflicted.” This description broadens the work just a bit and also fits more with the original notion of the word “comfort,” as we shall consider in a moment.But of all the spiritual works of mercy, comforting the sorrowful requires the greatest patience, sensitivity, and also silence. This is because sorrow (or grief) often has a life and logic of its own; often it must be allowed...

Counsel the Doubtful – A Meditation on the Third Spiritual Work of Mercy By: Msgr. Charles PopeAt first glance, counseling the doubtful may seem rather similar to instructing the ignorant. However, teaching has learning as its goal while counseling aims to assist with decisions. Certainly giving counsel often includes some aspects of teaching, such as providing information and perspective, but its primary purpose is to assist a person in coming to a decision. This distinction is contained in the root meanings of the words “counsel” and “doubtful.”The English word “counsel” comes from the Latin consilium (con (with) + silium (a decision)). So to...

More Precious than Silver or Gold – A Meditation on the Spiritual Work of Mercy to Instruct the Ignorant By: Msgr. Charles PopeTo instruct comes from the Latin in + struere, which means to build up or (even more literally) to pile up. In English, there is also the notion of strewing something. For example, to strew hay or to say that the seed has been strewn. Thus, to instruct means to disperse knowledge or build someone up in what is learned.These days, the word “ignorant” is most often used in a negative or pejorative sense. And thus to say that someone is ignorant usually...

God’s Perfect Mercy – A Meditation for Divine Mercy Sunday By: Msgr. Charles PopeWe live in times in which mercy, like so many other things, has become a detached concept in people’s minds, separated from the things that really help us to understand it. For indeed, mercy makes sense and is necessary because we are sinners in desperate shape. Yet many today think it unkind and unmerciful to speak of sin as sin. Many think that mercy is a declaration that God doesn’t really care about sin, or that sin is not a relevant concept.On the contrary, mercy means that sin...

Admonish the Sinner – A Reflection on the First Spiritual Work of Mercy By: Msgr. Charles PopeI wrote last week asking, Whatever happened to the spiritual works of mercy? I also indicated an intent to write on each of them. Here is the first installment: Admonishing the Sinner.The word “admonish” comes from the Latin verb monere meaning to warn, advise, or alert someone to a threat or danger. As such, its purpose is the good of another; it is an act of love and concern. To admonish the sinner is not to belittle or humiliate him, but rather to alert him to the danger...

What Ever Happened to the Spiritual Works of Mercy? By: Msgr. Charles PopeDuring daily masses at this time we are beginning to read through John Chapter 6. There of course is a glorious focus and teaching of the Lords true presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament.However, there is also another important teaching given at a critical moment in chapter 6 that is important for us to lay hold of today. It is a call to recover a greater awareness of the importance of the spiritual works of mercy. We will list what they are in the moment, but for now, consider that, despite living in rather...

A number of decades ago at the Ligonier Valley Study Center, we sent out a Thanksgiving card with this simple statement: “The essence of theology is grace; the essence of Christian ethics is gratitude.” In all the debates about our role versus God’s role in sanctification—our growth in holiness—we’d stay on the right track if we’d remember this grace-gratitude dynamic. The more we understand how kind God has been to us and the more we are overcome by His mercy, the more we are inclined to love Him and to serve Him.Yet we can’t get the grace-gratitude dynamic right if...

The following is an edited transcript of the audio. Are Christians under the 10 commandments? No. The Bible says we're not under the law. I love Romans 7:4-6. By way of analogy, it says that you are married to the law. And you better stay married because if you leave this husband and go marry another you are going to be called an adulterer. But if your husband dies, then you can go and remarry. And then Paul draws the analogy out—a little complex the way he does it—saying that you died to the law. You aren't married anymore, you...

Featured Term selected at random:PENITENTIAL ACT The invitation by the priest at Mass, after the opening salutation, to have the congregation acknowledge their sinfulness. This is followed by the Appeal for Mercy, the Kyrie, unless the pleas for forgiveness was already included in the penitential act. Normally each invocation is sung (or said) twice, but there may be further repetitions and also brief text insertions (tropes) if the circumstances warrant such additions. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.