But he does often define himself as a sinner. When he met with prisoners in Palmasola, Bolivia, during his 2015 journey to Latin America, he told them "Standing before you is a man who has been forgiven for his many sins." In his eyes, the Pope is a man who needs the mercy of God.
Pope Francis feels close to prisoners; he has a special relationship with those who have been deprived of their freedom. In "The Name of God Is Mercy: A Conversation with Andrea Tornielli," he says
"I have always been very attached to them (prisoners) precisely because of my awareness of being a sinner. Every time I go through the gates into a prison to celebrate Mass or for a visit, I always think: Why them and not me? I should be here. I deserve to be here. Their fall could have been mine. I do not feel superior to the people who stand before me. And so I repeat and pray: Why him and not me? It might seem shocking, but I derive consolation from Peter: he betrayed Jesus, and even so he was chosen."
St. Peter is an Everyman, whose fearful self-interest and betrayals of Jesus mirror our own selfish betrayals and turning away from God when we sin. When Jesus was arrested, St. Peter gave in to the mindless paralysis of fear, ran away instead of staying close to his Rabbi (whom he had earlier named the "Messiah, the Son of God") and then betrayed him when he told questioners in a courtyard three times that he "didn't even know the man!" Whenever we sin, we are, in effect, saying that we do not know God; He is superfluous in our lives.
Pope Francis wonders "I always think of what Simon Peter told Jesus on the Sunday of his resurrection, when he met him on his own, a meeting hinted at in the Gospel of Luke (24:34). What might Peter have said to the Messiah upon his resurrection from the tomb? Might he have said that he felt like a sinner? He must have thought of his betrayal, of what had happened a few days earlier when he pretended for three times not to recognize Jesus in the courtyard of the High Priest's house. He must have thought of his bitter and public tears. If Peter did all of that, if the Gospels describe his sin and denials to us, and if despite all this, Jesus said, 'Tend my sheep' (John 21:16), I don't think we should be surprised if his successors describe themselves as sinners. It is nothing new. The Pope is a man who needs the mercy of God."
Why are we sinners? Because of original sin. Pope Francis says that we know this from experience. All of us can think of those times in our lives when we knew what the right thing was for us to do and yet we did not do it. We are crippled prisoners, held hostage by our pride, our feelings of superiority, our desire to please and slavishly obey others to win their love, our anger that the world and the people in it aren't perfect, our headlong flights to self-destructive pleasures to escape pain and evade responsibilities. Pope Francis says
"Our humanity is wounded; we know how to distinguish between good and evil, we know what is evil, we try to follow the path of goodness, but we often fall because of our weaknesses and choose evil. This is the consequence of original sin...The story of Adam and Eve, the rebellion against God described in the Book of Genesis, uses a richly imaginative language to explain something that actually happened at the origins of mankind.
"The Father sacrificed his Son and Jesus humbled himself, he allowed himself to be tortured, crucified, and annihilated to redeem us for our sins, to heal that wound. That is why the guilt of our forefathers is celebrated as a 'felix culpa,' 'happy fault,' in the hymn of Exultet, which is sung during the most important celebration of the year, Easter Night: the fault was 'happy' because it deserved such a redemption."
Jesus humbled himself to redeem us. Peter, Everyman in being a sinner like us, also shows us the way back to God by humbling himself, experiencing repentance, grieving, confessing his sin to a resurrected Jesus. Pope Francis reveals his humility when he says "I do not feel superior to the people who stand before me." Sin is the antithesis of humility. Sin insidiously fills us with false beliefs of prideful superiority to the others whom we choose to hurtfully use, abuse, gossip about, manipulate, or betray. Our sins never just wound us; our sins always wound others. Because we are social beings, every sinful word or action of ours, affects society for ill. Pride blinds us to the reality of what we are doing. Pope Francis tells a horrifying story of a man imprisoned in his prideful and false self-image:
"We cannot be arrogant. It reminds me of a story I heard from a person I used to know, a manager in Argentina. This man had a colleague who seemed to be very committed to a Christian life: he recited the rosary, he read spiritual writings, and so on. One day the colleague confided, in passing, that he was having a relationship with his maid. He made it clear that he thought it was something entirely normal. He said that 'these people,' and by that he meant hired help, were there 'for that too.' My friend was shocked; his colleague was practically telling him that he believed in the existence of superior and inferior human beings, with the latter destined to be taken advantage of and used, like the maid. I was stunned by that example: despite all my friend's objections, the colleague remained firm and didn't budge an inch. And he continued to consider himself a good Christian because he prayed, he read his spiritual writings every day, and he went to Mass on Sundays."
An extreme example, perhaps. But all of us have a tendency to consciously or unconsciously compartmentalize our lives, divide the people in it into those who matter and those who don't matter so much or even don't matter at all. What can help us overcome this tendency to lie to ourselves, let ourselves "off the hook"? Pope Francis has one word: Confession. For him, it's not enough to repent and sort things out with God alone. He explains
"Jesus said to his apostles: 'Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained' (John 20: 19-23). Therefore, the apostles and all their successors - the bishops and their colleagues the priests - become instruments of the mercy of God. They act 'in persona Christi,' 'in the person of Christ.' This is very beautiful. it has deep significance because we are social beings. If you are not capable of talking to your brother about your mistakes, you can be sure that you can't talk about them with God, either, and therefore you end up confessing into the mirror to yourself. We are social beings, and forgiveness has a social implication; my sin wounds mankind, my brothers and sisters, and society as a whole. Confessing to a priest is a way of putting my life into the hands and heart of someone else, someone who in that moment acts in the name of Jesus. It's a way to be real and authentic; we face the facts by looking at another person and not in the mirror."
But does Pope Francis, self-confessed sinner, practice what he preaches? Does Pope Francis go to Confession? Yes, he does. And each kind and loving priest confessor has prepared him to become a merciful confessor. He remembers
"I think of Father Carlos Duarte Ibarra, the confessor I met in my parish church on September 21, 1953...I was seventeen years old. On confessing to him, I felt welcomed by the mercy of God. Ibarra was...in Buenos Aires to receive treatment for leukemia. He died the following year. I still remember how when I got home, after his funeral and burial, I felt as though I had been abandoned. And I cried a lot that night, really a lot, and hid in my room. Why? Because I had lost a person who helped me feel the mercy of God....
"Another important figure for me is Father Jose Ramon Aristi....He died in his late nineties in 1996. He too was a great confessor; lots of people and many priests went to him. When he heard a confession he gave his rosary to the penitents and made them hold the little cross in their hands, then he used it to absolve them, and last of all he asked them to kiss it. When he died, I was auxiliary bishop in Buenos Aires. It was the evening of Holy Saturday. I went to him the following day, Easter Sunday, after lunch. I went down into the crypt of the church. I noticed that there were no flowers next to his coffin, so I went to look for a bouquet of flowers. Then I came back and started to put them here and there. I saw the rosary wrapped around his hands. I took the little cross from it and said 'Give me half of your mercy!' From that moment on, that cross has always been with me, I wear it on my chest: when I have a bad thought about someone I touch the cross. It's good for me. There you have another example of a merciful priest, someone who knew how to be close to people and treat their wounds by giving them mercy."
What if it's been a long time since we've been to confession? What if we're afraid? Pope Francis reminds us of the One whom we meet in the Sacrament: the merciful Father who welcomed home his prodigal son:
"Precisely because there is sin in the world, precisely because our human nature is wounded by sin, God, who delivered his Son for us, can only reveal himself as merciful. God is a careful and attentive Father, ready to welcome any person who takes a step or even expresses the desire to take a step that leads home. He is there, staring out at the horizon, expecting us, waiting for us. No human sin - however serious - can prevail over or limit mercy....The Church does not exist to condemn people but to bring about an encounter with the visceral love of God's mercy."
When we try to decide whether or not to go to Confession, we can remember Jesus and Peter. The resurrected Jesus knew what guilt and shame Peter was suffering because he had run away from Jesus when Jesus needed him the most. He had denied his friendship with the most important person in his life. So the resurrected Jesus, still bearing the wounds caused by our sins, takes the initiative and appears to Peter - alone. Just the two of them. Just Peter's eyes meeting Jesus' eyes. The beautiful aloneness of the Son of God giving individual love, forgiveness, and mercy to a prodigal son. How beautiful! And Jesus and his Father wait for us to return to the waiting arms of mercy, to our God who shows us our true faces and reveals to us the beauty of our inner souls once we are healed and freed. Going to Confession is meant to free the prisoners from the prison of their own self-absorption and selfishness. It's a sacred time, as Pope Francis himself has often experienced, to be freed from what wounds us and returned to health, to who we really are, by the God whose Name is Mercy.