The Name of God Is Mercy

I am not Catholic, I had not read any writings by any popes before, and I'm not sure why I've been just slightly more curious about Pope Francis than any of his predecessors. So color me kind of surprised that I really enjoyed this, and that WHOA the Pope is way more radical than I expected. And it was pretty concise - the audio was only 3 hours.

You get the point of this interview/essays from the title - about God's mercy and how Jesus enacts that mercy. It gave me several new ways to think about forgiveness and mercy and love, especially in light of the way us ‘Mericans tend to treat people who are “other.”

Definitely worth checking out if this is of interest to you! I mean, what else are you doing for three hours.

Notes I very carefully took while at stoplights (KIDS DON'T BE ON YOUR PHONE AT STOPLIGHTS):
- even if you can't absolve someone, you can still give them a blessing

This book is in the format of Q&A, with our Pope Francis answering questions regarding the 2016 Holy Year of Mercy. As our pontiff says, God's mercy is superabundant and one of the features of His omnipotence. By emphasizing the importance of the sacrament of confession, the Pope argues how great and mysterious our God is, given He's not just mercy, but goodness, justice, and truth. These three last aspects of our God show his boundless mercy and power to reach us even in our darkest hours. Finally, mercy and compassion as proposed by Church is telling of its abilities to be a bridge between our temporal world, fallen by sin, and God's atemporal reality, full of mercy.

Short Review: This is a long interview with Pope Francis and an Italian reporter transcribed with the statement declaring the year of Mercy at the end.

I thought the interview was interesting but not really enough here for a book. I am happy I picked it up on sale. I would have been frustrated if I had paid full price for it.


My slightly longer review is at on my blog at http://bookwi.se/mercy/

My first impression of Pope Francis is his simplicity. I like that so much, his willingness to seek out a simple lifestyle amid the complexity of the Vatican, and his simple focus on God's love.

But that's not all Pope Francis is. He is also quite complex. He's had many years to think about God and read about God and talk about God with others. It's shaped his beliefs into a beautiful complex simplicity full of deep truth with a heart of wide compassion for the world.

And that is a lovely thing to read and see.