Common do-good-ism is all around, but Fr. Fabio Rosini says, we no longer know what mercy is - and mercy is more essential than ever before. We confuse mercy with generic compassion, forgiveness, or acceptance. But mercy is something completely different. It is an act, a work, a knowledge, a care, the fruit of a relationship with other people. It springs up not from humans but from one's relationship with God. It is therefore a work of God, and not of ourselves.

Fr. Fabio helps readers understand that we cannot live without mercy, because the deepest happiness in life is to care for others. And Pope Francis has shown by first-hand example - often upsetting his more conservative detractors - that showing God's mercy is the most essential quality of every follower of Christ, even a Pope.