Why Was God Not Merciful to the Rich Man?

A Pastoral Approach that Appears Contradictory

In Pope Francis' preaching, we increasingly recognize certain recurring themes. Many question how these themes can be reconciled with each other, while others find value in these apparent contradictions because they seem to justify their worldly and falsely Catholic conduct.

What is this about? On one hand, we have the great theme of God's mercy and tenderness for everyone:

God forgives everyone, the Church welcomes everyone, and everyone is saved freely. He does not speak of the decisive importance of merits in relation to salvation. It seems that God saves everyone unconditionally. Paradise is not earned, but simply received as an unmerited gift. Good works are not necessary; grace alone suffices.

One cause of heresy is the heretic's inability to resolve certain apparent contradictions in Scripture. To avoid the contradiction, they choose the passages they like and disregard those that seem contrary. For example, today, those who are overly optimistic, naïvely kind, or excessively lenient, especially in a moral context, choose the passages where God is merciful and remain silent about those where He shows severity.

Now, some, both modernists and Lefebvrists, think the Pope follows this method. In reality, this interpretation seems plausible because the Pope indeed remains silent on those passages of the Gospel where Christ speaks of the existence of the damned. However, it must be noted that if the Pontiff is silent on those passages, this cannot be a sign that he is a heretic, as this is impossible for a Pope. Therefore, we must seek another explanation for this conduct of the Pope, which here is not doctrinal—the existence of the damned is a dogma of faith [1]—but pastoral.

The Holy Father, like every Pope, carries out, for a pastoral choice he deems useful, necessary, or appropriate in the particular time and circumstances in which he lives, his well-known pastoral and doctrinal themes.

For example, we hear from him that:

Living faith is not the acceptance of abstract ideas, but a living encounter with Christ. Life is more important than doctrine. Reality is more important than ideas. Christ did not come to condemn but to save. Christian ethics is an ethics of love, not of law. The Church does not discriminate against anyone but welcomes everyone.

Everyone is a brother and child of God, the plurality of religions expresses the beauty of diversity and is willed by God. Everyone, even atheists, are, albeit unconsciously, seeking God. The Pope disapproves of and condemns sin but never says that sin deserves punishment or is punished. It seems that, for him, all sins are always forgiven.

The Pope speaks of repentance, conversion, and penance, but seems to exclude the existence of the unrepentant, if it is true, as it seems, that everyone is forgiven and saved. He seems to agree with the leniency of Rahner and Urs von Balthasar.

He does not speak of the hostility of nature as a consequence of original sin, nor of the satisfactory and expiatory value of suffering, although he often speaks of the Crucified Jesus. Furthermore, he limits himself to saying that Christ suffered because He loves us. He does not portray sin as a debt that must be settled, but rather as a deficiency in love. He likes mysticism. Likewise, he acknowledges religious vows, and the value of sacrifice and renunciation, but seems to have an aversion to asceticism. However, he admits the struggle against the devil. It seems that sins or debts are forgiven or remitted not because Christ paid in our place, but out of pure, gratuitous, and unconditional mercy.

He is silent about the existence of hell and the damned; as we know, he has expressed the personal hope that everyone is saved, although he stated that he did not intend to express a dogma.

The truth of faith is not about always repeating the same thing to everyone, but about seeing from one's perspective and progressing in knowledge. God is not an absolute identity but a trinity and communion of persons.

He does not speak of imminent possible punishments or apocalyptic scourges, except to highlight the risk of nuclear war. During the recent COVID pandemic, he emphasized the duty of solidarity but did not mention that it could be interpreted as a punishment for the wicked and a divine call to penance and conversion.

On another front, we encounter:

the great theme of social justice and the denunciation of injustices, lies, and ideologies: the violence exerted by the powerful over the weak, women, children, the elderly, and the poor; the horror of war; racism, nationalism, discrimination, and hatred toward one's brother; pessimism, catastrophism, gossip, and defamation; cruelty toward fragile people; the oppression and exploitation of nature, the poor, and workers by the rich and big industrialists; selfishness, egocentrism, the thirst for power and money, resistance to change, backwardness, Gnosticism, doctrinal rigidity, Pelagianism, subjectivism, worldliness, idealism, and following the devil.

On yet another front, we find:

the absolute condemnation of war, which seems to be a condemnation of any use of military force. He does not like apologetics, in which he sees proselytism, clericalism, fundamentalism, attacking, and arguing that goes against dialogue, listening to others, respect for diversity, and charity. He seems to lack confidence in the usefulness of theological controversies.

Conflicts of interest and disputes between nations are resolved through dialogue, not the use of arms. Additionally, we have the condemnation of the death penalty, which seems to prefer private interest over the common good.

We ought not to judge, condemn, or engage in doctrinal controversies; rather, we should seek dialogue, engage in constructive confrontation, and strive for mutual integration. The truth is not the assertion of one's identity but listening to others. We must welcome everyone, and exclude no one. The universality of the Church is not abstraction but communion in diversity. The Church is not a sphere but a polyhedron.

We should not convert others but ourselves. It is not about persuading but witnessing. We must build bridges, not walls. However, the conflict and dialectic of ideas are inevitable: we must avoid monolithism and uniformity and rebel against a single way of thinking. Peace does not exclude tensions but overcomes them by enduring them.

The fundamental antinomy of the Pope's preaching seems to be summarized as follows: on one hand, he teaches that God shows mercy to everyone and that salvation is free for all, but on the other hand, he severely and rightly condemns our lack of mercy towards our neighbor, as well as any form of sin, violence, vengeance, arrogance, pride, abuse, injustice, oppression, greed, wrath, envy, gluttony, sensuality, aggression, and hatred toward others, even if they are enemies.

Merciful, naively benevolent, and modernist individuals take full advantage of this apparent excessive indulgence, weakness, and overly optimistic benevolence of the Pope to give a semblance of legitimacy to their moral licentiousness and feel authorized in their selfishness while also appearing as devout followers of the Pope: if even oppressors of their neighbors, selfish people, rich gluttons, libertines, haters, and violent individuals are forgiven and go to heaven, what prevents them from continuing to do what they do with peace of mind?

On the other hand, even the Lefebvrists find an opportunity to promote their backwardness, railing against an opportunistic and ambiguous Pope who does not believe in hell, who gives in to modernists, who allows laxity and ethical relativism and religious indifference, who maneuvers between God and the world, and who pretends to defend the poor while appeasing the powerful.

A Crucial Parable for Understanding Pope Francis' Pastoral Approach

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus is the key parable to understanding Pope Francis' papacy and resolving its apparent antinomies, although he never speaks of it and prefers, as is known, other parables and stories, such as the parable of the Good Samaritan or the story of the repentant sinner.

In this parable, we find the two polarities of the apparent antinomy and the means to resolve it. The two polarities are the figures of Lazarus and the rich man, two antithetical figures on which the Pope insists a great deal: Lazarus is the symbol of suffering and unfortunate humanity, enduring injustice, representing the vast masses of the poor, the fragile, the marginalized, the sick, the hungry, the migrants, the oppressed, the persecuted, the humiliated, and the forgotten. The rich man represents the selfish, the bullies, the oppressors, the violent, the haters, the warmongers, and those who commit injustices of all kinds.

But if everyone is shown mercy, does that include evildoers, thieves, murderers, terrorists, oppressors, exploiters, arms traffickers, tyrants, rapists, gender ideologists, and abortionists? Do they all go to heaven without even passing through purgatory?

Now, the parable of the rich man also serves to link the Pope's teaching with other parables that he never speaks of, parables that seem to contradict his apparently overly optimistic teaching, parables where the concept of merit, divine justice, and eternal punishment is clear, such as the parable of the wicked tenants (Mt 21:28-45), the parable of the talents (Mt 25:14-30), or the parable of the workers who all receive the same wage (Mt 20:1-16).

The implicit acceptance by the Pope of the teaching of these parables is evident when he preaches the necessity of charity, the rejection of hatred, the imitation of Christ, the listening to the Holy Spirit, conversion, penance, good works, the practice of mercy, and justice.

The condemnation of the rich man is very clear in the Pope's preaching. Therefore, when he says that God is merciful to everyone, it is clear that he does not mean that there is no one in hell. Otherwise, he would have to contradict Christ's teaching and affirm that those who have not shown mercy receive mercy.

On the other hand, when he speaks of the rich gluttons, the exploiters, and the oppressors, it is clear that he speaks of people who do not exercise mercy, who only care about themselves, asserting themselves over others, people who do not care about the well-being and needs of others, and have no pity for the suffering, people who do not strive to console them, people who do not correct their sins, people who neglect their duties of solidarity, people who oppress the poor instead of helping them, people who deceive others instead of enlightening them, people who do not exercise justice but favor the guilty at the expense of the innocent.

Through his preaching in favor of the countless Lazaruses of this life, the Pope makes us understand that, if Lazarus goes to heaven and is shown mercy, it is not so much because he was poor and suffered injustice, and because the rich man did not pity him, since this also happens to sinners, but the Pope makes us understand that Christ implies that, if Lazarus goes to heaven, it is because he sought and loved God and his neighbor, received the Word of God with faith, obeyed the Lord's commands, bore patience, earned merits, hoped for the heavenly reward, practiced and invoked mercy, repented of his sins, in a continuous path of conversion.

On the other hand, when the Pope condemns the rich gluttons severely, it is abundantly clear that mercy is not extended to them, because their pride and impenitence have excluded them from it. However, as clearly expressed in the parable, for them, there is justice and eternal punishment because they have neither practiced nor invoked mercy and, consequently, have no right to trust in divine mercy. We cannot expect to obtain what, due to our bad will, we have not put ourselves in a position to receive, even if the giver wants to give it to us.

So, how does the Pope reconcile the Lazaruses who are shown mercy with the condemnation of the rich gluttons? How can he affirm that God shows mercy to everyone while implicitly acknowledging through the parable of the rich man that there are the damned?

The Pope resolves his apparent contradiction between the salvation of Lazarus and the condemnation of the rich man by implicitly referring us to the meaning of the same parable. This parable helps us understand how divine justice is reconciled with mercy. It shows us that, although God created us for Himself and desires the salvation of all, not everyone seeks and loves God due to their selfishness, malice, and pride. Not everyone, through their fault, accepts the plan of divine mercy, but instead, they prefer to make gods of themselves, away from His presence, with the consequences that necessarily follow.

Fr. Giovanni Cavalcoli OP

Fontanellato, March 2, 2024

source:

https://padrecavalcoli.blogspot.com/p/perche-dio-non-e-stato-misericordioso.html

Note

[1] Contained in the Athanasian Creed of the 4th century (Denz. 76), in the Council of Quierzy of 853 (Denz. 623), and in the Council of Trent (Denz. 1523).