Pope, the good thief

March 07, 2014 - Pope Francis revealed on Thursday he broke the seventh commandment by stealing a small cross from the coffin of a great confessor-priest praying he could have half his mercy. In off-the-cuff comments to the clergy of Rome, which whom he meditated on the mercy of God, the Pope recalled when he was the vicar general of the archdiocese of his native Buenos Aires, he went to the funeral of a 94 or 96-year old priest who was a famous confessor, who heard confessions for hours and to whom even Pope John Paul and he himself had confessed. When he noticed there was not a single flower for a man who forgave the sins of all the priests of Buenos Aires, he bought some roses and was arranging them in the coffin where the dead priest was holding a rosary in his hand. "Suddenly, that thief that all of us have inside of us came into my mind,” the Holy Father recalled. “As I was arranging the flowers, I took the cross that was on the rosary and, using some force, detached it," the Pope said, adding, “at that moment I looked at him and said, ‘give me half your mercy.’” Pope Francis said he experienced a strong feeling inside him that gave him the courage to act thus and say the prayer. He then put the cross in his shirt pocket, and since that day he has been carrying it always on his chest in a small cloth pouch. “Whenever I feel an evil thought against someone, my hand goes up to it always, and I feel the grace and it does me good,” the Pope said, placing his hand on his chest. “How much good the example of a merciful priest who comes close to the wounds can do!” the Pope marveled.