Pope Francis received the participants of the plenary session of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in a private audience today. He also addressed them and, unsurprisingly in this Holy Year, his main topic was mercy. But there is more to his words than most would expect.
^Pope Francis with Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Prefect of the Congregation, and, at left, Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, Archbishop of Valencia and one of the members of the congregation.
Too often, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is depicted as an opponent to Pope Francis and his attempts to reform the Curia and, especially, emphasise the importance of Christian mercy and mission in modern society. This stems from a perceived opposition between mercy (and, by extension, the practical application of faith and its consequences in society) and doctrine, as if the two are not complementary. We must show mercy, but we also need to know what that mercy is. It is the congregation’s duty to safeguard that, to ensure that what is being said and done in the name of the faith is indeed in agreement with that faith.
In his address, Pope Francis emphasised the complementarity between mercy and doctrine when he said,
“[H]ierarchical and charismatic gifts are called to collaborate in synergy for the good of the Church and of the world. The testimony of this complementarity is all the more urgent today and it represents an eloquent expression of that ordered pluri-formity that connotes all ecclesial fabric, as reflection of the harmonious communion that it lives in the heart of God, One and Triune.”
In other words, the Church and the world need both the gifts exhibited in the hierarchy, or that part of the Church which is called to teach, and those of the various charisms, the fruits of the Spirit which become visible in the faithful everywhere in the world. The Holy Father speaks of an “ordered pluriformity”, a term which in itself summarises this complementarity I referred to above. This complementarity, the Pope continues, is an expression of the essence of the Trinity.
Another important element that Pope Francis mentions, albeit in the context of synodality, is proper understanding. Instead of seeing mercy as “being nice” and doctyrine as “being mean”, we must make a proper endeavour to understand both, on their own and in relation to each other. There is no opposition, no fight between the two. Rather, the struggle must be about knowing, developing and displaying both, to come “to an ever more realized, deepened and dilated communion at the service of the life and mission of the People of God.”
In Caelo et in Terra 