Register Summary
God “sides with the victims” of violence and oppression, and stirs “the conscience of the evildoer so as to lead him to conversion,” John Paul II said Jan. 23.
When meeting with some 4,000 pilgrims at the midweek general audience, the Pope used the canticle of the Jewish sage Sirach, written between 190 and 180 B.C., to offer an intense description of divine justice and mercy.
“The God of the Bible is not indifferent to evil,” the Holy Father said. “Even although his ways are not our ways and his times and his plans are different to ours, he sides, never-thelrss, with the victims and is portrayed as a harsh judge of the violent, the oppressors, and those who are victorious yet have no mercy.”
“However, his intervention does not seek destruction,” the Pope explained, because his power when demonstrated in love leads to repentance.
- Keywords:
- February 03-09, 2002
