Cardinal: Mercy - the name of our God. Culture of mercy is the future of the Church

Cardinal Kasper: New culture of mercy is the future of the church

At the opening of the academic year in Heiligenkreuz, the 90-year-old former president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity made a plea for a church that sees "signs of the times" and has open eyes for people's needs.

For the emeritus German Curia Cardinal Walter Kasper, a “new culture of mercy is the future program of Christian humanism”. The 90-year-old former president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity said that realizing this "in a world that has gone out of control" is now the task of a new generation at the inauguration of the new academic year at the University of Philosophy and Theology Heiligenkreuz convinced.

At the opening of the academic year, Kaspar gave the inaugural lecture entitled "Mercy - the name of our God. Reflections on the crisis of God". The Cistercian Monastery of Heiligenkreuz announced on Wednesday that 19 new students have enrolled at the private university for the fall semester.

It is the task of youth, “in a world that has become discouraged and friendless,” to use the message of God’s mercy to “keep heaven at least a little open and bring new joy and confidence into the world,” the former Stuttgart bishop appealed to the students. “It is not enough to talk about God, it is also important to do the truth,” said the cardinal, referring to the Gospel of John (chapter 3). So the question arises: “What does mercy mean for personal behavior, for the church and for the world?”

If it is important to “be merciful as God is merciful,” then, “God knows, that is a high standard that contradicts any conformist, bourgeois Christianity,” said the Cardinal of the Curia. The churchman was thus directing himself against those who believed that being a Christian based only on the idea of mercy was ultimately a “Christianity and a church on sale.”

Hope for the Synod of Bishops

Mercy is a challenge not only for individual Christians, but also for the church. "She must not miss the 'signs of the times'; she must have her eyes open to people's needs." That wasn't always the case. “She only understood the challenges of modern times very late and overlooked the social issue for a long time,” said Kaspar frankly. "I hope that in the synodal process that is beginning these days, despite all the pessimism, eyes and ears will be open to the urgent new challenges of today."

When it comes to social problems, the last popes spoke of a new culture of love, "love that shows itself in mercy," recalled Kaspar. "It is much more than charity. It includes justice. Justice is, so to speak, the minimum; love that shows itself in mercy is the excess," said Kaspar, referring to Pope Benedict XVI.

This must be implemented "in view of the blatant injustice and hunger in the world, in view of the migration crisis, the ecological crisis, the many brutal wars, the ethnic persecutions including the persecution of Christians, the polarization that is increasingly turning into hate (unfortunately also in the church )". That's why there is no other way "than to stand on the side of the poor, weak, persecuted and oppressed, to put aside all clerical arrogance and yet not to give up an inch of Christian identity or even to deny it," the Curial Cardinal concluded.

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