Returning The Compliment

"The question for those who do not believe in God is to follow their own conscience. Sin, even for a non-believer, is when one goes against one's conscience.
"To listen and to follow your conscience means that you understand the difference between good and evil"
"[The] mercy of God has no limits."
Pope Francis

Filippo Monteforte/AFP/Getty ImagesPope Francis: “Sin, even for a non-believer, is when one goes against one’s conscience.”

"Why should a non-believer seek legitimization from the Pope?"
"What interests non-believers is certainly not 'forgiveness' from an entity whose existence we do not trust."
Italian Union of Atheists and Agnostics

One, gracious, forgiving and open-hearted to all, secure and confident in the depth of his belief, and more than willing to encourage all people to consider themselves judged solely on the basis of their human decency, on their instinctual recognition of good as opposed to base, and willing themselves to behave for the common good, eschewing the anti-social.

The other, morosely condescending, refusing to tolerate the offense of a man of God wishing all those who cannot find comfort in such a spiritual belief, but who yet have no problems believing and acting in a manner that their own spirit compels them to, not requiring the avenues of the Church to open them to the highway of justice and goodness.

Most assuredly, people of no faith, but abundance in conscience need few lessons in how to respond to life and our interaction with others. There have been abundant demonstrations of those in the fold of the faithful being of little faith in the manners they bring to the social sphere and the social contract between people.

Those of no spiritual faith can have faith in their personal values born of their instinctual conscientious awareness of doing right.

And because we can discern right from wrong, sour-mouthed truculence in response to a well-meant, however misguided thought is perhaps rather uncouth. When confronted by a joyous declaration, one need only smile and murmur one's appreciation of the manifold ironies of life and human nature.

The Pope is a 76-year-old man who has, by all accounts, led a humble, modest and exemplary life of public service to his fellow man. Both within and without the Church. He can rest on those laurels. As we can on ours, if we are so entitled.

That, at the very least, is needful of some measure of respect. It's a far, far cry from an earlier Church which held that those who fail to believe in God "cannot be saved". In our atheistic wisdom, we should nod and forgive them their trespasses. And so shall we.

Saved from judging others, we might then simply wish the good man well.