At the Mass that preceded the inauguration of the judicial year of the Tribunal of the Vatican City State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin preached that as God’s justice aims at correcting the sinner, human justice should aim at the rehabilitation of the offender.
“God’s justice becomes care, love, salvation, and forgiveness for the repentant sinner—a grace from which, conversely, the one who arrogantly deems himself in no need of any correction remains excluded,” Cardinal Parolin, the Secretary of State of His Holiness, preached at the Mass, celebrated in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace on March 14. “Human justice” is “called to draw inspiration from divine justice, embracing and giving concrete form to the objectives that the latter pursues.”