As we mourn the death of Pope Francis and find ways to honor his life and papacy amid our uncertain and polarized world, his insistence on mercy takes on a new urgency.
Pope Francis reminds us:
God’s mercy is our liberation and our happiness. We live for mercy, and we cannot afford to be without mercy. It is the air that we breathe. We are too poor to set any conditions. We need to forgive, because we need to be forgiven.[1]
And in his 2023 Angelus Address in Saint Peter’s Square, Pope Francis eloquently emphasizes that forgiveness is fundamental to Christianity and a balm for hope and healing in our broken world:
Jesus’ message is clear: God forgives incalculably, exceeding all measure. This is how he is; He acts out of love, and gratuitously…[B]y corresponding to his gratuitousness, that is, by forgiving one another, we can bear witness to him, sowing new life around us. For outside of forgiveness there is no hope; outside of forgiveness there is no peace. Forgiveness is the oxygen that purifies the air of hatred. Forgiveness is the antidote to the poisons of resentment, it is the way to defuse anger and heal so many maladies of the heart that contaminate society.
In that address, Pope Francis proposes a forgiveness “exercise”:
[L]et us try, now, each one of us, to think of a person who has hurt us, and ask the Lord for the strength to forgive them. And let us forgive them out of love for the Lord: brothers and sisters, this will do us good; it will restore peace to our hearts.[2]
This exercise—or challenge—is something we ought to do regularly as Christians. Pope Francis reminds us that Christians are impelled to “forgive always” as Jesus told Peter to forgive “seventy times seven” (Mt 18:22).[3]
We are formed by God’s forgiveness of us in the sacrament of reconciliation, but forgiving others, in practice, is hard.
Even though forgiveness is both critical to Christianity and produces many known health benefits—including decreasing depression, decreasing anxiety, and increasing flourishing[4]—its peaceful effects are not always immediate. Many of us have likely experienced the reality that, especially when dealing with difficult hurts, we can’t quite let go of all the feelings of anger, hurt, or sadness; this might feel like our forgiveness didn’t quite “stick.”
The great teacher of forgiveness, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, addresses this difficulty and explains that emotional hurts will not necessarily disappear upon willing to forgive. He says, “The thing is, of course, that I don’t know that you yourself are able, by an act of will, as it were, to let go of the pain.” He goes on to explain that in forgiving, the will acts insofar as forgiveness is a decision to forgo revenge and payback: “The will part of it, where your will is, deliberately to say, ‘I am not going to let you victimize me and hold me in a position where I have an anger against you, a resentment, and I’m looking for the opportunity to pay back.’”[5] But the hurt feelings can still remain.
Theology has been helpful in conceptualizing what forgiveness is and isn’t, and this conceptualizing is a critical component of forgiveness, for how can we will something we don’t understand?
Theo-philosophical definitions of forgiveness tend to posit forgiveness as replacing ill will with good will toward those who have committed an offense against us. This is not the same as reconciliation, which is about reconnecting a relationship.[6] And forgiving does not mean forgetting or forgoing justice, it does not mean hiding the truth; forgiveness is compatible with accountability.[7]
Forgiveness has been used improperly and theologians and philosophers have rightly alerted us to the pitfalls of forgiveness, such as “‘cheap forgiveness” that is used to hide problems rather than bring them to light.[8] And philosophers, such as Myisha Cherry, have lifted up the ways in which victim-survivors experience harm and then face the additional work and burden of having to forgive.[9]
But when one decides to forge the path of forgiveness—after taking seriously such warnings—what do we do about the pain that even Archbishop Tutu acknowledges cannot simply be willed away? Theological conceptualizations are helpful to get a handle on what one does or does not will when one forgives, but these frameworks do little to ease our emotional pain when peace is elusive.
Psychology offers insight into this. Psychologist and researcher Everett Worthington studies the emotions involved in forgiveness, focusing on the psychological distinction between decisional forgiveness and emotional forgiveness. According to Worthington, one can and must make a cognitive decision to forgive (decisional forgiveness). However, replacing negative emotions with more positive emotions (emotional forgiveness) takes time and is hard, but can be cultivated.[10] Encapsulating Tutu’s wisdom, Worthington writes: “[E]ven if you have made a perfectly sincere decision to forgive, you can still feel resentment, bitterness, anger, and fear of being hurt again.”[11]
As Worthington points out, and as many theologians and philosophers would agree, these painful emotions can be instructive or necessary, such as when anger alerts us to danger, wrongdoing, or injustice.[12] Emotional forgiveness and peace often follow once those emotions are acknowledged and processed.
Worthington also explains that the kind of positive emotions one must cultivate to feel full emotional forgiveness varies based on person and circumstances. For instance, full emotional forgiveness toward a stranger might require only eliminating negative emotions because you will never see them again, but forgiving someone you are in relationship with, such as a partner, will require eliminating negative emotions and replacing them with positive emotions.[13]
The decisional/emotional forgiveness distinction is incredibly powerful because when one decides to forgive there is often a presumption or hope that the negative feelings around the hurt will fall away immediately and that peace will be instantaneous. Sometimes it is. But when it isn’t, the experience of negative emotions bubbling up can create a worry that the existence of these feelings undermine a commitment to forgive. But Worthington reassures us that a willful decision to forgive is intact amid the messiness of human emotions. And, importantly, he gives us the tools to foster the emotional forgiveness that can usher in a sense of peace.
Worthington offers the REACH Model of Forgiveness, which has been tested and shown to increase emotional forgiveness:[14]
R – Recall the hurt objectively
E – Empathize with the offender
A – Altruistic gift of forgiveness
C – Commit to forgive
H – Hold on to forgiveness[15]
Worthington has synthesized his research and practical experience into a Do-it-Yourself workbook that has been shown to encourage forgiveness and reduce anxiety and reduce depression.[16] In the workbook, Worthington offers creative exercises that build emotional forgiveness by increasing compassion and empathy toward the offender. For instance, the workbook has an exercise to “describe the hurt differently” and to write out a conversation between oneself and the wrongdoer.[17]
I have been using with workbook as I lead the Human Flourishing Program’s Global Forgiveness Movement at Harvard to encourage forgiveness in individuals and communities. Individuals work through the workbook on their own and then meet with an online Forgiveness Group to reflect on their experiences. I have been astonished with the effects of the workbook!
But there is much more work to be done to support forgiveness. Worthington’s emphasis on emotions raises important and practical questions for theological accounts of forgiveness, which have primarily been concerned with the decisional aspect of forgiveness. At the same, theological insights can help individuals struggling to forgive to better understand the nature of wrongdoing and the role of intention in forgiveness. For instance, Worthington offers little guidance for examining whether an offense is a genuine wrong, and he treats forgiveness motives equally, so that forgiving for self-interested reasons and altruistic reasons are treated the same.[18] Additional interdisciplinary work is needed to learn how to cultivate forgiveness more fully within individuals communities.
Theological and psychological work is necessary but not sufficient for supporting forgiveness. Forgiveness can be hard and ultimately its peace is a grace. We must also, then, as Pope Francis taught, “ask the Lord for the strength to forgive.”
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[1]Pope Francis and Andrea Tornielli, The Name of God Is Mercy: A Conversation with Andrea Tornielli, trans. Oonagh Stransky (New York: Random House, 2016), 97.
[2] Pope Francis, “Angelus: On Forgiveness,” Vatican.va, September 17, 2023, https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/angelus/2023/documents/20230917-angelus.html.
[3] Pope Francis, “Angelus.”
[4] See Katelyn N. G. Long, Everett L. Worthington, Tyler J. VanderWeele, Laura E. O’Connor, Yi-Chen Chen, and Joshua N. Hook, “Forgiveness of Others and Subsequent Health and Well-Being in Mid-Life: A Longitudinal Study on Female Nurses,” BMC Psychology 8 (2020): 104. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-020-00470-w.
[5] Bill Moyers, “Conversation with Archbishop Desmond Tutu,” PBS, April 27, 1999, interview transcript, https://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/12282007/transcript2.html.
[6] See Anthony Bash, Forgiveness and Christian Ethics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 25.
[7] See John Paul II, No Peace Without Justice, No Justice Without Forgiveness: Message for the Celebration of the World Day of Peace. Vatican. January 1, 2002. https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/messages/peace/documents/hf_jp-ii_mes_20011211_xxxv-world-day-for-peace.html.
[8] Stephen J. Pope and Janine P. Geske, “Anger, Forgiveness, and Restorative Justice in Light of Clerical Sexual Abuse and Its Cover-Up,” Theological Studies 80, no. 3 (2019): 612; see also Hans Zollner, SJ, “The Child at the Center: What Can Theology Say in the Face of the Scandals of Abuse?,” Theological Studies 80, no. 3 (2019): 699-702; For more on the potential pitfalls of forgiveness, see Wilco de Vries, Jonathan C. Rutledge, Kate Jackson-Meyer, Hanneke Schaap-Jonker, Allard Sierksma, Richard G. Cowden, “Forgiveness Reconsidered: Agency and the Contextual Nature of Forgiveness in the Aftermath of Clergy Sex Abuse,” In International Handbook of Emotions. Positive and Cultural Psychology Perspectives, edited by Claude-Helene Mayer and Elizabeth Vanderheiden, OSF Preprints, 2024. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/x2t8p.
[9]Myisha Cherry, Failures of Forgiveness: What We Get Wrong and How to Do Better. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2023.
[10] Everett Worthington, Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Theory and Application (New York: Brunner-Routledge, 2006).
[11] Everett Worthington, Your Path to REACH Forgiveness: Self-directed Learning Exercises to Become More Forgiving in a Few Hours, Adapted for Use in Churches by Richard Cowden and Kate Jackson-Meyer, 15 (Hardcopy),
https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/sites/g/files/omnuum8886/files/2025-04/HFH_REACH%20WB%20for%20Churches_Digital_1-Page_Spreads_Final_April_9_25.pdf.
[12] See Pope and Geske, “Anger”; Cherry, Failures of Forgiveness.
[13] Worthington, Your Path to REACH, 58.
[14] Nathaniel G. Wade and M. Veronica Tittler, “Psychological Interventions to Promote Forgiveness of Others: Review of Empirical Evidence,” in Handbook of Forgiveness, 2nd ed., ed. Everett L. Worthington Jr. and Nathaniel G. Wade (New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2020), 255–265, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351123341-24.
[15] Worthington, Forgiveness and Reconciliation.
[16] Moon Y. Ho, Everett L. Worthington Jr., Richard Cowden, A. O. Bechara, Z. J. Chen, E. Y. Gunatirin, S. Joynt, et al., “International REACH Forgiveness Intervention: A Multisite Randomised Controlled Trial,” BMJ Public Health 2 (2024): 2:e000072. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjph-2023-000072.
[17] Worthington, Your Path to REACH, 41, 50.
[18] Worthington, Your Path to REACH.