Francis told hundreds of priests who are to serve as "Missionaries of Mercy" during the jubilee year that holiness of life is the principle of renewal and reform in the Church.

"Holiness is nourished by love and knows how to bring upon itself the weight of those who are weaker," he said.

"A missionary of mercy takes the sinner on his shoulders, and consoles him or her with the power of compassion."

Altogether, 1142 clerics from six continents will serve as missionaries of mercy.

The priests received their mandate on Ash Wednesday at St Peter's Basilica.

They are to hear confessions during the year and will be granted "the authority to pardon even those sins reserved to the Holy See."

This latter faculty is limited to the following sins

1. "Profaning the Eucharistic species by taking them away or keeping them for a sacrilegious purpose;"
2. "Use of physical force against the Roman Pontiff;"
3. "Absolution of an accomplice in a sin against the Sixth Commandment of the Decalogue;"
4. "A direct violation against the sacramental seal by a confessor."

In his address to the missionaries on the day before Ash Wednesday, Pope Francis reflected on the shame people sometimes feel in coming to Confession.

"Do not forget," the Pope exhorted the priests, "before us there is not sin, but the penitent sinner - a person that feels the desire to be accepted and pardoned."

". . .[W]e are not called to judge, with a sense of superiority, as if we were immune from sin," said Francis.

"On the contrary, we are called to act like Shem and Japheth, the sons of Noah, who took a robe over their father to hide his shame."

Sources

• National Catholic Reporter
• Vatican Radio
• Image: Consolidated Communications

Speaking at a Mass in Dublin on the feast of Our Lady of Mercy, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said many in his generation grew up in a religion where this punitive image prevailed.

"Mercy was reduced to a sort of lucky escape from the consequences of hard judgement, hardly the essence of the Christian life," he said.

"The concept of biblical mercy can only be understood if we turn our image of a punitive God head-over-heels," he added.

Archbishop Martin noted how a recent book by Cardinal Walter Kasper on mercy greatly impressed Pope Francis.

The problem was, the archbishop continued, "that if we are trapped into an image of God whose justice is primarily punitive, we will never see mercy as essential to the Christian concept".

"Mercy will, to use the words of Cardinal Kasper, become ‘a concept often to be downgraded, degenerating in to soft spirituality or vague pastoral concern, lacking clear definition and shaped somehow to suit each individual'."

He noted the challenge posed by Pope Francis for the synod next month "is to be open to ways of applying the primacy of mercy to particular situations, while remaining faithful to fundamental truth".

Meanwhile, a Spanish bishop has said Pope Francis told him that the Church's teaching that divorced and civilly remarried Catholics not receive Communion won't change.

Bishop Demetrio Fernandez of Cordoba said that during an ad limina visit to the Vatican earlier this year, Francis told him that "the Pope cannot change" what Jesus Christ has instituted.

In an interview with Diario Cordoba newspaper, Bishop Fernandez said, "We asked the Pope himself, and he responded that a person married in the Church who has divorced and entered into a new civil marriage cannot approach the sacraments".

"The Pope said that ‘this was established by Jesus Christ and the Pope cannot change it'," he added, according to a Catholic News Agency report.

"I say this because sometimes people say that ‘everything is going to change', and there are some things that cannot be changed. The Church answers to her Lord and her Lord remains alive," Bishop Fernandez continued.

However, he explained, "The Church is continuously telling us to be welcoming, that people not feel excluded, and we can always find ways to be more welcoming".

Source

• Irish Times
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Irish Times