Pope says he's saddened by 'perfect' Catholics who despise others

IMAGE: CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano

By Junno Arocho Esteves

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — God did not choose perfect people to form his church, but rather sinners who have experienced his love
and forgiveness, Pope Francis said.

The
Gospel of Luke’s account of Jesus forgiving the sinful woman shows how his
actions went against the general mentality of his time, a way of thinking that saw a “clear
separation” between
the pure and impure, the pope said Aug. 9 during his weekly general
audience.

“There were some scribes, those who believed they were
perfect,” the pope said. “And I think about so many Catholics who
think they are perfect and scorn others. This is sad.”

Continuing
his series of audience talks about Christian hope, the pope reflected on Jesus’ “scandalous gesture” of
forgiving the sinful woman.

The woman, he said, was one of many poor women who were were
visited secretly even by those who denounced them as sinful.

Although Jesus’ love toward the sick and the marginalized
“baffles his contemporaries,” it reveals God’s heart as the place where
suffering men and women can find love, compassion and healing, Pope Francis
said.

“How many people continue today in a wayward life
because they find no one willing to look at them in a different way, with the eyes — or
better yet — with the
heart of God, meaning with hope,” he said. But “Jesus sees the
possibility of a resurrection even in those who have made so many wrong choices.”

Oftentimes, the pope continued, Christians become accustomed to
having their sins forgiven and receiving God’s unconditional love while
forgetting the heavy price Jesus
paid by dying on the cross.

By forgiving sinners, Jesus doesn’t seek to free them from a guilty
conscience, but rather offers “people who have made mistakes the hope of a
new life, a life marked by love,” the pope said.

The church is a people formed “of sinners who have experienced the mercy and forgiveness
of God,” Pope Francis said. Christians are “all poor sinners” who need God’s
mercy, “which strengthens us and gives us hope.”

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