Education for Mercy – Comparative Analysis of the Pontifical Discourses (Mercy is lifestyle, an essential and continuous characteristic of the Christian vocation)

Abstract

In today’s world of distorted views of life, religious values and beliefs, powerlessness and despair, there is a growing need for the virtue of mercy which could grant hope, peace and justice to mankind. The aim of this paper is to identify a core terminology in a million-word specialized English corpus that was compiled for the purpose of this research, focusing on the concept of mercy and mercy-related terms  The corpus consists of the last three Holy Fathers’ pontifical discourses freely available at the Holy See web site. The key-word lists g enerated by WordSmith tools for three subcorpora are contrasted to confirm preliminary assumption on their possible correspondence. The assumption is based on the fact that, regardless of different contexts and times the discourses were created, their authors share common religious legacy, beliefs, views and attitudes based on the Scriptures. The paper attempts to find the corpus-based evidences to an unbroken continuity of spiritual authorities in interpreting and pleading for mercy and justice in their pontifical discourses. This paper aims to contribute to the development of theological reflections based on the virtue of mercy, corpus linguistics, domain-specific terminology and clarity of religious concepts and ideas