Offering counsel and admonishing sinners are works of mercy, but they are not a license to pretend to be better than others, Pope Francis said.
To counsel others is a chance to see how well you, too, measure up to essential standards, he told pilgrims gathered in St Peter's Square.
In his final general audience during the Year of Mercy, which is to close on November 20, Pope Francis reflected on two verses in the Gospel of St Luke (6:41-42) in which Jesus warns against the hypocrisy of noticing "the splinter in your brother's eye," but not perceiving "the wooden beam in your own."
