Francis' book, The Name of God is Mercy

Is anyone reading Pope Francis' The Name of God is Mercy?

I'm about half-way though. Would love to chat about it.

I want to get a copy but not sure how and when. I'll be in England next week and might be able to pick one up there.

>2 John5918:: There were several copies in Waterstone's Inverness branch last week. So I wouldn't expect any problems down south in England.

While I am not planning to do a cover to cover read, I have dipped in and out of the major parts.

My immediate thought was that Tornielli as interviewer / editor, or the format itself, has done a good job at helping the Pope deal with some of the flaws in his communication. There is much less left unsaid as assumed and unnecessary, and thus far greater clarity of message. I rather suspect more communication done in this format / with this editor would address the deficit in ad intra trust the Pope experienced, and appeared to find so frustrating, at the last Synod.

As to the substance the most striking aspect for me, and perhaps the most relevant to discussions we have had on the Year of Mercy here, was best summed up by Austen Ivereigh take (http://www.mercatornet.com/above/articles/17478/):

The word on which the Jubilee of Mercy hangs -- a rich theological term that is the keynote of the Francis papacy -- is obscure to the modern mind. It conjures up a pleading man with a gun to his head, a quivering criminal awaiting sentence, maybe a peasant on Lesbos wrapping a blanket around a refugee family washed ashore. But beyond? In his letter in last week's Tablet Mr Wilson from Worcester suspects it may also have to do with sin and forgiveness, and recoils. "I think this should be a year of 'love and compassion' or of 'showing loving kindness'," he suggests, "not a year of receiving God's forgiveness for sins with which some in the Church seem to think we are all obsessed."

Oh dear. When he reads The Name of God is Mercy, released last week, Mr Wilson will be dismayed to find Francis obsessed with human sin and God's forgiveness -- although much more with the second. "Mercy is divine and has to do with the judgment of sin," the Pope declares.

The second most striking aspect was that it seems the innovations of Pope Francis really will be in pastoral gestures and the very Christian thing of enacted parables, rather than grand theological debates. Blessing a person who cannot receive absolution, rather than trying to skip ahead to receiving communion. Washing the feet of all the People of God in humble service, rather than trying to ordain them all. Which is very encouraging ahead of his formal response to the final Synod report.

>1 timspalding:

It's a quick read. I read half of it last night while exercising.

>3 PossMan:

Thanks for the tip. I had thought I would have to go to a specialist Catholic bookshop like Paulines, but I had forgotten Francis' wider appeal. Sure enough I got my copy in Waterstones in Brighton yesterday evening.

>6 John5918:

Oh, it's everywhere.

Getting towards halfway through now. I'm struck in Chapter I by Francis' reflections on priests who have influenced him. It makes me think of priests who have influenced my own life, as mentors, pastors, confessors, spiritual directors, exemplars, teachers, friends, colleagues and students, and of how much of the Catholic life (and indeed life in general) is passed on hand to hand, so to speak, rather than by theory or formal teaching. An apprenticeship, perhaps one could say, rather than a degree course. Praxis theology. Having just reached Chapter VI, I see that reprised in the chapter title, "Shepherds, not scholars of the law".

Having now finished reading Chapter VI, it has some powerful stuff in it.

PS: The piece by Richard Rohr which I posted at #17 in the Francis, part 7 (2016) thread relates to this, I think.

Just finished it. It sort of peters out a bit towards the end.