Pope: Understanding for sinners, no negotiating the
truth
(Vatican Radio) Announcing the word of God should never be
dissociated from the understanding of human weakness. That was Pope Francis’
message during the daily Mass at the Casa Santa Marta. Commenting on the Gospel
passage in which Christ speaks with the Pharisees about adultery, he said the
Lord overcomes the human vision which would reduce the vision of God to a
casuistic equation.
The Gospel, the Pope said,
is full of examples of the Pharisees and the doctors of the law attempting to
trap Jesus by catching Him off guard, seeking to undermine the authority and
favour he enjoys with the people. One of those attempts is related in the day’s
Gospel, in which the Pharisees tempt Him by asking if it is licit for a man to
put away his wife.
Truth, not casuistry
Pope Francis speaks of the
“trap” of “casuistry,” concocted by “a small group of enlightened theologians,”
convinced that they “have all the knowledge and wisdom of the people of God.”
It is a snare from which Jesus escapes, he says, by going “beyond,” “to the
fullness of matrimony.” The Lord had already done so with the Sadducees, the
Pope recalled, when they had questioned Him about the woman who had had seven
husbands. At the resurrection, Jesus affirmed, she would not be the wife of any
of them, because in heaven “they neither marry nor are given in marriage.”
In that case, the Pope
said, Christ looked to the “eschatological fullness” of marriage. With the
Pharisees, on the other hand, He referred to “the fullness of the harmony of
creation.” “God created them male and female,” and “the two became one flesh.”
“They are no longer two, but one
flesh,” and so “no human must separate what God has joined. Both in the case of
the levirate marriage and in this case, Jesus responds with the overwhelming
truth, with the blunt truth: This is the truth! Always from the fullness. And
Jesus never negotiates with the truth. And these people, this small group of
enlightened theologians, always negotiate with the truth, reducing it to
casuistry. And Jesus never negotiates with the truth. And this is the truth
about marriage, there is no other.
Truth and understanding
“But Jesus,” Pope Francis
continued, “so merciful, He is so great, that he never, never, never, closes
the door to sinners.” And so He does not limit Himself to proclaiming the truth
of God, but goes on to ask the Pharisees what Moses had established in the Law.
And when the Pharisees responded that Moses permitted a husband to write a bill
of divorce, Jesus replied that this was permitted “because of the hardness of
your hearts.” That is, the Pope explained, Jesus always distinguished between the
truth and “human weakness” without “twisting words.”
In the world in which we live,
with this culture of the provisional, this reality of sin is so strong. But
Jesus, recalling Moses, tells us: “But there is hardness of heart, there is
sin, something can be done: forgiveness, understanding, accompaniment,
integration, discernment of these cases… But always… But the truth is never
sold. And Jesus is capable of stating this very great truth, and at the same
time being so understanding with sinners, with the weak.
Forgiveness is not an equation
And so, Pope Francis
emphasized, these are “the two things that Jesus teaches us: truth and
understanding.” This is what the “enlightened theologians” fail to do, because
they are closed in the trap of “a mathematical equation” of “Can it be done?
Can it not be done?” and so they are “incapable both of great horizons, and of
love” for human weakness. It is enough to see, the Pope concluded, the
“delicacy” with which Jesus treated the adulteress woman who was about to be stoned:
“Neither do I condemn you: Go forth, and sin no more.”
May Jesus teach us to have at
heart a great adhesion to the truth, and also at heart a great understanding
and accompaniment for all our brothers who are in difficulty. And this is a
gift, this is what the Holy Spirit teaches us, not these enlightened doctors,
who to teach us need to reduce the fullness of God to a casuistic equation. May
the Lord give us this grace.
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