At the end of every speech, the Times of Malta reported, Pope Francis says “Pray for me” because, as he once explained, “I am a sinner too” (March 12).

In mystical literature, you come across mystics who have no sense of sin. In the Hindu Vedanta – the ultimate wisdom revealed in the Upanishads –there is no notion of sin. There is only ignorance.

As for myself, I do not feel like a sinner at all. I just feel like a human being.

In Roman Catholicism, there are as many shades of “sin” as there are words for “snow” among the Eskimos. From early childhood, Catholics are indoctrinated with original sin – mortal sin, venial sin, sins of the flesh, sins of omission, the Seven Deadly Sins – and more than enough “sins” to keep them guilt-ridden for the rest of their lives.

The “shepherds” of Christ keep their docile flock under control by constantly reminding them that they are “sinners”. They repeat this “mantra” long enough that the faithful end up believing it, as Blaise Pascal did when he said that “the God of the Christians is a God who makes them aware of their wretchedness”.

In Great Expectations, Charles Dickens wrote about “the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity of unworthiness and other monstrous vanities that have been curses in this world”.