Sir, – Jim Shine (November 23rd) writes, in response to your editorial on "The quality of mercy" (November 22nd), that Pope Francis "has never confused mercy with the common liberal idea of being non-judgmental".
He implies that by being non-judgmental one becomes a “common liberal” , a label for which he obviously has little respect .
However, we find the writers of the four Gospels emphasising at great lengths that Jesus was essentially non-judgmental in his dealings with the marginalised people of his times, and they give many examples of this attitude he possessed – the most famous one being when he refused to judge the woman ready to be stoned to death for adultery.
Pope Francis has followed Jesus’s example in being non-judgmental – the most famous example of this was when he refused to condemn LGBT people with his now celebrated phrase “Who am I to judge?”.
There is much resistance against Pope Francis, who is trying to reintroduce the essential Gospel value of “non-judgmentalism”, allied with the limitless compassion of God, as essential features of a church which unfortunately had rebranded the merciful God as a harsh and judgmental ruler. – Yours, etc,
BRENDAN BUTLER,
Malahide,
Co Dublin .