Mercy, Mercy, Mercy
Yes, even the title of the popular song said it three times. But that’s virtually nothing compared to the repetitions of the word, over and over, during and after the papal funeral in Rome these days, by commentators, lay and clerical alike, as if it were a recent and novel discovery by Pope Francis. And as if the day after the funeral (Divine Mercy Sunday) had not been instituted by St. John Paul II in 2000, a full quarter century previously. Or his encyclical Dives in Misericordia (“Rich in Mercy”) had not been issued in 1980, two decades before that.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re used the term multiple times in his homily for the Requiem Mass. The Cardinal also preemptively canonized the just departed pope by asking him to pray for us: “May you bless the Church, bless Rome, and bless the whole world from heaven.” Not even a brief stop in Purgatory.
Of course, discussions are already underway as to what the next pope will need to be and do. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, for instance, the Vatican Secretary of State under Pope Francis – to some observers a strong contender to succeed Francis – is saying, very publicly, that the Church needs to continue Francis’ legacy of “mercy.” (I myself believe that Cardinal Parolin will have a steep climb to the papacy, though he’s trying very hard, after his disastrous, still “secret” accord with Communist China, which has been anything but a mercy to Chinese Catholics.)
