Pope reminds confessors of their role of being God’s mercy, love

March 28, 2014 - Pope Francis on Friday reminded confessors about their role of being the mercy and love of the Father in search of the lost sheep, saying Confession is not a court of condemnation but where one experiences pardon and mercy. The Pope made the remark to some 600 new priests and deacons participating in a course to impart the Sacrament of Confession, organized by the Vatican’s Apostolic Penitentiary.

The Pope said that the confessor “welcomes penitents neither as a judge nor as a simple friend, but with the love of God, the love of a father who sees his son returning and goes out to meet him, a shepherd who has found the lost sheep. “A priest’s heart moves not with sentimentality or emotions but with the “gut mercy” of the Lord.” Regarding the traditional role of the confessor, the Pope said, “Let us never forget that as physician we are called to heal and as judge we are called to absolve.”

Stressing that ‘mercy is the heart of the Gospel,” the Pope said God always loves the sinner and invites him to conversion. He reminded the course participants that the faithful make great effort to come to the Sacrament of Confession, either for practical reasons or for the natural difficulty of confessing one’s sins to another person. For this reason, the Pope said, we must work a lot on ourselves, on our humanity, so that we are never an obstacle but always to make way for mercy and pardon. Pope Francis however urged confessors to avoid the extremes of rigidity and laxity, saying it does not benefit the penitent. “Confession is not a court of condemnation but an experience of pardon and mercy,” the Pope added.