I'm having a bit of a crisis of faith over competing definitions of the word mercy, and the role of repentance in forgiveness when it comes to salvation.
On the one side (one might say the conservative Catholic side), to paraphrase Fr. Robert Baron, Mercy includes Misery. You don't ask for mercy for q situation that isn't making you miserable; thus, even merely asking for mercy is a form of repentance. And as we know from Luke 17:1-10, God's mercy for the repentant is indeed boundless- all we need to do is recognize that we have sinned and are sorry for it, and we WILL be forgiven. q=>r=>m
The other side (one might say the liberal form of Calvinism) God's Mercy is also boundless- and unavoidable. All good dogs go to heaven type. In this form salvation is unavoidable, heaven is very full, and hell is very empty, because God forgives *everything*, even the previously unforgivable sin of failing to ask for repentance.
The problem is, I see Jesuits in America Magazine and in real life preaching more the second and far less of the first. They call this being pastoral. Even the Pope has had harsh words for the Pharisees who insist on repentance first. But where is the role for evangelization and conversion in the second?, Why would anybody give up the joys of sin, if all sins are forgiven whether we repent or not?
When did the liberal Calvinists take over Europe? Why do they have so much power in the Curia? And why is their form "Pastoral"?
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