Papal Piety Peter Heinegg The Name of God is Mercy By Pope Francis and Oonagh Stransky (Tr.) Random House, 2015. xx + 151 pp. $26, (cloth) With his genial, gentle, jovial style, Pope Francis, it's safe to say, has gained a lot of fans around the world since his election in March of 2013. At the same time, there's also been a lot of intense discussion about where he stands theologically. He's spoken out in favor of ecumenism, social justice, the environment, peace, and forgiveness. But while rejecting the ultra‐conservative Curial bureaucracy, traditional Vatican triumphalism, and much of the modus operandi of the pre‐Vatican II Church, it's not clear that the pope means to take any steps toward serious doctrinal revision on issues like birth control, homosexuality, divorce, the ordination of women, clerical celibacy, and so forth. (After all, he was made a cardinal by the basically inflexible John Paul II.) Though his kindly gestures toward gays, like his generally leftist politics (he has forcefully condemned state oppression of indigenous peoples in Chiapas) and his hints about letting divorce and remarried Catholics receive communion, have alarmed hardliners like Ross Douthat, he doesn't seem about to redefine any settled dogmas in a way that would rock St. Peter's bark. That impression is confirmed by The Name of God is Mercy, a series of interviews with Italian journalist and vaticanista Andrea Torniellli reflecting on the “Year of Mercy” declared by Francis (from the highly Catholic dates of the feast of the Immaculate Conception [December 8, 2015] to the feast of Christ the King [November 20, 2016]), symbolized by opening the “Door of Mercy,” the northernmost entrance to St. Peter's Basilica. Technically, there are only eight such doors, four of them in Rome; but the pope has asked bishops around the world to designate a “holy door,” in either their own cathedral church or a popular shrine. The problem one immediately senses with this, and eventually with the book as a whole, is the extreme churchliness of the whole affair. It's almost as if the R.C.C. had a monopoly on divine mercy, for which it served less as a humble conduit than as the only licensed distributor. Among other things, every single author cited by the pope (with the sole exception of Peter Marshall, the popular ‘40s preacher) is a saint or Catholic cleric, including his four most recent predecessors in the Vatican and some of his own priest‐friends. As for the pope's message, it couldn't be more straightforward or positive. To follow the way of the Lord, the Church is called on to pour its mercy over all those who recognize themselves as sinners, who assume responsibility for the evil they have committed, and who feel in need of forgiveness. The Church does not exist to condemn people but to bring about an encounter with the visceral love of God's mercy. More vividly, he compares the Church to a field hospital, “where treatment is given above all to those who are most wounded.” All well and good, especially for Catholic old‐timers, who may have felt that the Church's message has too long been front‐loaded with Jansenistic chidings about “impurity.” But what kinds of “evil” is Francis talking about? Though he rather vaguely chides people guilty of “corruption,” his specific examples of sin here concentrate on the familiar sexual sphere: two women working (but not willingly) as prostitutes, a businessman pressuring a young female employee into being his mistress—and for good measure the story of the woman taken in adultery (John 8.1‐11). One would have liked to hear something about bigger, corporate sins, like exploiting workers, looting the underclass, promoting racism and sexism, waging war, poisoning the environment, and so forth. Liberal hopes were buoyed when asked at a press conference about homosexuality, Francis replied, “Who am I to judge?” But with Tornielli he dodges the issue: “I prefer that homosexuals come to confession, that they stay close to the Lord, and that we pray all together. You can advise them to pray, show good will, show them the way, and accompany...