At long last!

Caritas in veritate, the third Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, has finally been released this morning.

I have only been able to read the first three pages so far today, but I already like it very much. Consider these little gems:

"Each person finds his good by adherence to God's plan for him, in order to realize it fully: in this plan, he finds his truth, and through adherence to this truth he becomes free (cf. John 8:22)" (1).

"All people feel the interior impulse to love authentically: love and truth never
abandon them completely, because these are the vocation planted by God in the heart and mind of every human person" (1).

"Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love" (3).

"A Christianity of charity without truth would be more or less interchangeable with a pool of good sentiments, helpful for social cohesion, but of little relevance" (4).

In my free moments this morning I will be happily reading this encyclical. After Mass this morning I worked on the high school Mass schedule for the coming year and in an hour I will have lunch with a friend. I've been invited to the lake this afternoon - an invitation that I am happy to accept - and will then go to soccer practice. Dinner will be had at Buffalo Wild Wings. After that, it's back the encyclical.

Thank you, Holy Father, for this timely treasure!

Good news

Tuesday morning will see the publication of Pope Benedict XVI's third encyclical letter, Caritas in veritate. (There is still some question as to whether the English title will be translated as Love in Truth or as Charity in Truth. I prefer the latter.)

For those like myself who prefer something more than a simple print out of the text (nevertheless, you can be certain I will print a copy as soon as it is available), Ignatius Press will publish the encyclical in three different formats. You can pre-order the hard copy now.

The encyclical cometh

The long-awaited third encyclical letter of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, titled Caritas in veritate (Love in Truth), will be released on Tuesday, 7 July 2009:

VATICAN CITY, 1 JUL 2009 (VIS) - In the Holy See Press Office at 11.30 a
.m. on Tuesday 7 July a press conference will be held to present Benedict XVI's
new Encyclical "Caritas in veritate".

Participating in the conference will be: Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino and Bishop Giampaolo Crepaldi, respectively president and secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace; Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, president of the Pontifical Council "Cor Unum", and Stefano Zamagni, professor of political economy at the University of Bologna, Italy and consultor of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

What's this?

Rocco's been on holiday for the last couple of weeks but now that he's back he's been busy and he's drummed up a special little find that I somehow missed.

Apparently, the third encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI, titled Caritas in veritate (Love in Truth) will be released the last day of this month. Let's hope so!

Ignatius Press, my favorite publisher, already has a page dedicated to the new encyclical. The product description says:

Pope Benedict’s third encyclical, Love in Truth (Caritas in Veritate), applies the themes of his first two encyclicals —love and hope (God Is Love, Saved in Hope) — to the world’s major social issues. Drawing on moral truths open, in principle, to everyone (the natural law) as well as on the teachings of the gospel (revelation), Pope Benedict addresses Catholics and non-Catholics alike, challenging us all to recognize and then to confront the social evils of our day.

The first part of the encyclical examines the dynamic teaching of Benedict’s predecessors, Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II. Both men contributed greatly to the body of doctrine known as “Catholic social teaching”. Both men challenged the simplistic division of political perspectives into “conservative” and “liberal”, and “right” and “left”. Both men were convinced that the natural moral law and the teaching of the Gospel were indispensable for a world in desperate search of hope and meaning.

In the second part Benedict surveys the social issues that confront the human race today—assaults on the dignity of the human person such as the attack on human life, poverty, issues of war and peace, terrorism, globalization, and environmental concerns. Benedict provides sound moral principles to address these social and economic problems, and to promote a culture of life and genuine peace.

In this outstanding work, Pope Benedict shows us why so many observers regard him as the world’s leading moral voice, as well as one of the most insightful and profound social/political thinkers of our day.

I guess it's time to get back to my posts commenting on Spe salvi.

Spe salvi, 4

Just when you though I'd forgotten about Spe salvi I'm back at it. I'll try to continue posting a bit each day until we get to the end.

In the fourth paragraph of his encyclical on hope, Pope Benedict XVI discusses what he terms an “informative” and a “performative” vision of Christianity. In the United States of America, we might term these Christianity of the “mind” and of the “heart,” respectively.

The Holy Father asks:

Can our encounter with the God who in Christ has shown us his face and opened
his heart be for us too not just “informative” but “performative” – that is to
say, can it change our lives, so that we know we are redeemed through the hope
that it expresses (4)?

This is a serious question for each of us, one well worth considering. Will the hope that we have in Jesus Christ change our lives so that our very lives will bear witness to the reality of redemption?

The temptation is all too real for us to be “informed” by the Gospel but not affected by it. We see it especially in the seemingly ever-growing number of people who know about Christ but do not know him.

How many in our own families know about Christ but not know him? What will we do to help introduce them not to the facts about Jesus, but to Jesus himself?

Of course, there is also today the ever-growing reality of people who do not even know about Christ. Ask your person when Jesus lived and see how many can tell you? It is a truly lamentable situation and one that must quickly change through the witness of those who lives are marked with hope, whose hope becomes “performative.”

Turning his thoughts again to Saint Josephine Bakhita, Pope Benedict XVI recalls that “Christianity did not bring a message of social revolution like that of the ill-fated Spartacus, whose struggle led to so much bloodshed” (4).

If Christianity did not bring a social revolution – contrary to the claims of no small number today – what did it bring? It brought something heretofore unseen. Says the Holy Father:

Jesus, who himself died on the Cross, brought something totally different: an
encounter with the Lord of all lords, an encounter with the living God and thus
an encounter with a hope stronger than the sufferings of slavery, a hope which
therefore transformed life and the world from within (4).

The Christian Gospel is not one of exterior social or political revolution, but of internal spiritual revolution. Christianity unites people in ways that political situations and systems never can. Christians, “by virtue of their Baptism they had been reborn, they had been given to drink of the same Spirit and they received the Body of the Lord together, alongside one another” (4).

The interior revolution brought about by Christ helps us see that our home is not here on earth, in this world, but is in heaven. Consequently, the “present society is recognized by Christians as an exile; they belong to a new society which is the goal of their common pilgrimage and which is anticipated in the course of that pilgrimage” (4).

The penances that we perform during Lent are to help us detach from the things of this world and to become attached, as it were, to things of heaven, our true home. The “performative” vision of Christianity always leads to heaven, to union with Christ.

Spe salvi, 3 (and Saint Josephine Bakhita)

Up to now we have seen that, as Saint Paul says, “in hope we were saved” (Romans 8:24). We have further seen that faith and hope are intimately connected and even interchangeable (Spe salvi, 2). We also saw that the present only becomes livable if we can be certain of good in the future.

This sort of talk is deeply theological and philosophical and, as such, has the tendency to leave many heads spinning in a daze of confusion, which is part of the intellectual and spiritual excitement this encyclical can generate (for those of us who like this sort of thing).

With all that we have done, we have yet to answer the question, “What is our hope?” which might well account for the confusion. We have, though, asked the question, and a very good question it is:

[W]hat sort of hope could ever justify the statement that, on the basis of that hope and simply because it exists, we are redeemed? And what sort of certainty is involved here (Spe salvi, 1)?

In the third paragraph Pope Benedict XVI seeks to answer the question by way of example.

He sought to do much the same thing in his first encyclical, Deus caritas est, when he turned briefly first to the life of Saint Lawrence [c. 225-258], one of the seven deacons of Rome, in whom charity “found a vivid expression” (23). Next he turned to the example of the emperor Julian the Apostate [331-363] who, though not impressed with the Christian faith, was impressed with “the Church’s charitable activity” (24). Through these two (seemingly contradictory) figures the Holy Father proceeded to demonstrate the importance of works of charity for the Christian.

In the present encyclical, he uses the example of Saint Josephine Bakhita (1869-1947) to begin answering the question, “in what does hope consist which, as hope, is ‘redemption’” (3)? We recall here that, “redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, a trustworthy hope” (Spe salvi, 1). For what do we hope? How can this hope be redemption?

The Apostle Paul gives us the answer to this question when he writes to the Christians of Ephesus. He writes, as we have previously seen,

Therefore, remember that at one time you, Gentiles in the flesh … were at that time without Christ, alienated from the community of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world” (2:11-12).

To be without Christ is to be without hope; to be with Christ, then, is to have hope.

“We who have always lived with the concept of God, and have grown accustomed to it,” writes the Holy Father, “have almost ceased to notice that we possess the hope that ensues from a real encounter with God” (Spe salvi, 3). It takes just a few moments at Mass on Sunday to see that the Pontiff is very much correct in this observation. We are introduced to our hope at a young age, it is everywhere around us, yet only rarely do we ever take any notice of it. We too often grow complacent in our faith, in our hope, and hence our knowledge of God begins to fade.

Pope Benedict XVI understands that these discussions are a bit cerebral and so he says, “the example of a saint of our time can to some degree help us understand what it means to have a real encounter with this God for the first time” (Spe salvi, 3). He then offers a moving brief biography of the holy woman, Josephine Bakhita, that is worth quoting in full:

She was born around 1869—she herself did not know the precise date—in Darfur in Sudan. At the age of nine, she was kidnapped by slave-traders, beaten till she bled, and sold five times in the slave-markets of Sudan. Eventually she found herself working as a slave for the mother and the wife of a general, and there she was flogged every day till she bled; as a result of this she bore 144 scars throughout her life. Finally, in 1882, she was bought by an Italian merchant for the Italian consul Callisto Legnani, who returned to Italy as the Mahdists advanced. Here, after the terrifying “masters” who had owned her up to that point, Bakhita came to know a totally different kind of “master”—in Venetian dialect, which she was now learning, she used the name “paron” for the living God, the God of Jesus Christ. Up to that time she had known only masters who despised and maltreated her, or at best considered her a useful slave. Now, however, she heard that there is a “paron” above all masters, the Lord of all lords, and that this Lord is good, goodness in person. She came to know that this Lord even knew her, that he had created her—that he actually loved her. She too was loved, and by none other than the supreme “Paron”, before whom all other masters are themselves no more than lowly servants. She was known and loved and she was awaited. What is more, this master had himself accepted the destiny of being flogged and now he was waiting for her “at the Father's right hand”. Now she had “hope” —no longer simply the modest hope of finding masters who would be less cruel, but the great hope: “I am definitively loved and whatever happens to me—I am awaited by this Love. And so my life is good.” Through the knowledge of this hope she was “redeemed”, no longer a slave, but a free child of God. She understood what Paul meant when he reminded the Ephesians that previously they were without hope and without God in the world—without hope because without God. Hence, when she was about to be taken back to Sudan, Bakhita refused; she did not wish to be separated again from her “Paron”. On 9 January 1890, she was baptized and confirmed and received her first Holy Communion from the hands of the Patriarch of Venice. On 8 December 1896, in Verona, she took her vows in the Congregation of the Canossian Sisters and from that time onwards, besides her work in the sacristy and in the porter's lodge at the convent, she made several journeys round Italy in order to promote the missions: the liberation that she had received through her encounter with the God of Jesus Christ, she felt she had to extend, it had to be handed on to others, to the greatest possible number of people. The hope born in her which had “redeemed” her she could not keep to herself; this hope had to reach many, to reach everybody.

This woman with 144 scars came to know her true Master, her true Paron, Jesus Christ, who, many centuries earlier, willingly accepted flogging and death for her. She came to know the One who is Good and so she received hope, she who, it would seem, had little reason to hope.

The words of Saint Paul were true for her: with God she was with hope. And because she was with hope she could say, “I am definitively loved and whatever happens to me – I am awaited by this Love. And so my life is good.” Would that each of us could echo these words!

Josephine, through her hope, realized that “the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey” (Spe salvi, 1).

She new her goal was Jesus Christ; she knew that she could be sure of this goal because Christ “had himself accepted the destiny of being flogged and now he was waiting for her ‘at the Father’s right hand’” (Spe salvi, 3); she knew that this goal was certainly great enough because she had truly been redeemed, bought back, “no longer a slave, but a free child of God” (Spe salvi, 3).

We, too, have been redeemed, bought back, and so we are with hope: Christ Jesus.

Spe salvi, 2

After his introductory paragraph to the encyclical Spe salvi, Pope Benedict XVI turns to examine hope itself as found in the Scriptures and notes that hope is often used interchangeably with faith in the writings of the New Testament.

The author of the epistle to the Hebrews writes, saying,

[L]et us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful… (10:22-23).

In ordinary parlance, one does not confess hope but faith, yet the sacred writer uses the words one for the other.

Turning to the first letter of Peter, we find the same interchangeability:

Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence (3:15).

Again, one does not ordinarily seek to defend a hope but one would certainly seek to defend faith.

Saint Paul would even go so far as to write to the Ephesians, reminding them that before their faith in Christ Jesus “you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (2:12).

We see, then, that the “assurance of faith” is the “confession of our hope” “that is in you”, without which we are “without God in the world”. Faith and hope are very closely related, indeed.

Referring to the lives of the pagans, Paul “knew they had had other gods, he knew they had had a religion, but their gods proved questionable, and no hope emerged from their contradictory myths” (Spe salvi, 2).

Here, then, is one of the great distinguishing factors of Christianity from the rest of the religions of world: Christianity produces hope for the future because Christ has been found faithful and trustworthy. Christ Jesus has not proved “questionable” but has proved fully reliable for the words he spoke before his crucifixion were fulfilled afterwards: “the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and deliver him to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day” (Matthew 20:19)

The Holy Father reminds us that, “notwithstanding their gods, they were ‘without God’ and consequently found themselves in a dark world, facing a dark future” (Spe salvi, 2).

Considering the darkness of the world of the pagans resulting from their lack of hope, the Apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, “But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep [e.g., dead], that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” (I Thessalonians 4:13).

For the pagans, death was, at worst, simply the end of existence; at best, it was the beginning of a meaningless, eternal, existence. Consequently, life had little meaning and we find that as a result many of the pagans were turning to the mystery cults in the years surrounding the life of Christ. We are, today, experiencing an increase of these same sentiments.

This is not so with Christianity; in Christianity, life certainly has meaning and purpose. Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Christian hope “leads towards a goal … great enough to justify the effort of the journey” (Spe salvi, 1). Christians may not know “the details of what awaits them, but they know in general terms that their life will not end in emptiness” (Spe salvi, 2).

Having said this, His Holiness turns from the future life to that of the present: “Only when the future is certain as a positive reality does it become possible to live the present as well” (Spe salvi, 2).

Life can only truly be fully lived if the future is known to be positive, if it is known to be good. If the future is good then we have reason to live in the present; if the future is bleak, if it is negative, there is no purpose, no meaning, to this present life. Christian hope knows the joy of the promised resurrection of the dead and union with Christ, hence the present life, “even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted” (Spe salvi, 1).

It is precisely because the message of the Gospel, the hope that is given, allows believers to live the present life that the message of Christianity is “not only ‘informative’ but ‘performative’” (Spe salvi, 2).

The proclamation of the Gospel is never simply about the passing on of information about Jesus Christ or of his Church. The proclamation of the Gospel must always be “performative” in that “it makes things happen and is life-changing” (Spe salvi, 2). Because “redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope” (Spe salvi, 1), “the dark door of time, of the future, has been thrown open” (Spe salvi, 2). This hope given to the Christian is such that “on the basis of that hope and simply because it exists, we are redeemed” (Spe salvi, 1).

This is a truth of the faith well worth pondering that “in this hope we were saved” (Romans 8:24). Because of this hope, because of this redemption, “the one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life” (Spe salvi, 2).

In the next paragraph we will take at look at the difference found in this new life granted through hope.

Spe salvi, 1

The introduction to the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI’s second encyclical on Christian hope, Spe salvi, will have, it seems to me, one of two effects on the reader: it will either lead the reader in great excitement into the following paragraphs, or it will confuse the reader terribly and lead him or her to put the encyclical down, never to be picked up again.

It is a brilliant introduction that encapsulates beautifully the context of the entire encyclical and lays it out rather clearly, though it does pose a most difficult question:

[W]hat sort of hope could ever justify the statement that, on the basis of that hope and simply because it exists, we are redeemed? And what sort of certainty is expressed here (1)?

The thrill of this intellectual and spiritual hunt has been ignited and the hounds have been released to go in search of the answer, even if the question leaves one at first a bit dumbfounded.

The question posed by the Holy Father comes from his reflection on the writings of the Apostle Paul: “For in this hope we were saved” (Romans 8:24).

Saint John Chrysostom explained this passage thus:

What Paul means is that we are not to expect everything to be given to us in this life, but we are to have hope as well. For the only thing we brought to God was our faith in the promises of what was to come, and it was in this way that we were saved. If we lose this hope, we lose the one thing which we have contributed to our salvation (Homilies on Romans, 14).

Without hope, there is no salvation.

Pope Benedict XVI reminds us: “redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face the present” (Spe salvi, 1).

Not only is this hope a key aspect of the Christian faith, one of those three things that will remain, it is also trustworthy (cf. I Corinthians 13:13). It cannot, therefore, be the same sort of hope that we might have when we hope to win the lottery; it is something far more profound.

It is because of hope that “the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads toward a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey” (Spe salvi, 1).

Who would deny that life, that discipleship, is often arduous? Even so, this difficult pilgrimage of faith can be lived, it can be ventured, so long as the goal is known to us.

We know the goal of our pilgrimage: it is Christ himself, and surely there can be no greater reason to embark upon a journey, difficult and strenuous though it may be, than the one “who gives flesh and blood to those concepts [of love] – an unprecedented realism” (Deus caritas est, 12).

But this hope we have been given, this Christian hope, is a curious thing for it itself saves us: “For in this hope we were saved.” How is it that hope, which is the expectation, the anticipation, of the future can save us? We are saved in hope because it is Christ Jesus himself who is our hope (cf. I Timothy 1:1).

This is the fascinating question of this encyclical.

On encyclicals

Since the release of the second encyclical of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI, Spe salvi, on 30 November 2007, I have been considering a series of posts commenting on the encyclical.

I have been, to be sure, rather surprised not to find much mention of or commentary on the encyclical around the blogosphere, especially considering the great buzz that accompanied its release. Certainly I am not the most qualified to comment on the Pontiff’s writings, but I will what I am able.

First, though, a few comments about encyclicals in general.

The English word “encyclical” comes from the Latin word encyclicus, meaning “circular.” Simply put, an encyclical is a circular letter.

In the glossary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, an encyclical is defined as “a pastoral letter written by the Pope and sent to the whole Church and even to the whole world, to express Church teaching on some important matter. Encyclicals are expressions of the ordinary papal magisterium.”

The title of an individual encyclical, like the tile for most ecclesial documents, is taken from the opening sentence of document in Latin, a practice borrowed from that of the Roman Empire.

Sometimes the title will clearly reveal the topic of the document, as is the case with Pope Benedict XVI’s Deus caritas est (which translates, “God is love”) on the topic of Christian love. Other times the title will have little to do with the document’s topic, as is the case with the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium (which translates, “this sacred Council”) on the sacred Liturgy.

An encyclical is cited like the Catechism and other ecclesial documents: by paragraph number and not by page number. This ensures that people everywhere can find the citation with great ease; regardless of the publication of the work they have available. The page numbers of different publications can vary greatly depending on page size, font size, commentary within footnotes, etc. Regardless of the publication, the paragraph number remains the same.

And now for my initial commentary on Spe salvi.

The day has come

... and the long awaited second Encyclical of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI, Spe salvi, has been presented and is already available in English translation. Praised be Jesus Christ!

Ratzinger on hope

The following passages are taken from Pope Benedict XVI, The Yes of Jesus Christ: Exercises in Faith, Hope and Love (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1991). They may be a hint of what we can expect to find on the morrow.

“I think one can only understand the true nature of Christian hope and can only live it afresh if one sees through for what they are its imitations and distortions [ideological optimism] that are trying to foist themselves on to it. The greatness and the reasonableness of Christian hope come to light again only if we liberate ourselves from the pinchbeck allure of their secular imitations” (p. 44).

“The goal of Christian hope is the kingdom of God, that is the union of the world and man with God through an act of divine power and love” (p. 46).

“[T]he justification of Christian hope is the incarnation of God’s word and love in Jesus Christ” (p. 47).

“The aim of Christian hope, by contrast, is a gift, the gift of love, which is given us beyond all our activity: to vouch for the fact that this thing that we cannot control or compel and that is yet the most important thing of all for human beings does exist, and that we are not clutching at thin air in waiting insatiably for it, we have the interventions of God’s love in history, most powerfully in the figure of Jesus Christ in whom God’s love encounters us in person” (p. 47).

“The hope of faith, on the other hand, reveals to us the true future beyond death, and it is only in this way that the real instances of progress that do exist become a future for us, for me, for every individual” (p. 49).

“Jeremiah the pessimist showed himself to be the true bearer of hope. For the others everything had necessarily to have come to an end with this defeat: for him everything at this moment was beginning anew. God is never defeated, and his promises do not collapse in human defeats: indeed, they become greater, as love grows to the extent that the beloved has need of it” (p. 51-52).

“The theory put forward by many scholars that all great prophets have been prophets of doom is false. But it is correct that their genuinely theological hope did not coincide with superficial optimism and that, as bearers of true hope, these great figures were at the same time relentless critics of current parodies of hope” (p. 52-53).

“The sermon on the mount is a word of hope. In fellowship with Jesus what is impossible becomes possible: the camel goes through the eye of a needle (Mark 10:25). In being one with him we become capable too of fellowship with God and thus of conclusive salvation. To the extent that we belong to Jesus his qualities are realized in us too – the beatitudes, the perfection of the Father” (p. 63-64).

“To hope is to fly, said Bonaventure: hope demands of us a radical commitment…. The supernatural, the great promise, does not push nature to one side. Quite the contrary: it calls forth the commitment of all our energies for the complete opening up of our being, for the unfolding of all its possibilities” (p. 65).

“The concluding formula of liturgical prayers, ‘through Christ our Lord,’ corresponds to the fact that Christ is realized hope, the anchor of our hoping” (p. 66).

“Those who despair do not pray any more because they no longer hope: those who are sure of themselves and their own power do not pray because they rely only on themselves. Those who pray hope in a goodness and in a power that transcend their own capabilities. Prayer is hope in execution” (p. 66-67).

“Learning to pray is learning to hope and thus learning to love” (p. 68).

“Hope is … the certainty that I shall receive that great love that is indestructible and that I am already loved with this love here and now” (p. 70).

“Christian tradition is aware of two attitudes that are fundamentally opposed to hope: despair and presumption” (p. 70).

Ratzinger's "On Hope"

A good friend from college and a reader of the blog kindly sent word that Communio has linked to an article by Joseph Ratzinger from 1985 entitled, "On Hope." Do have a look, and a read.

Spe salvi pondering

Many are anxiously awaiting the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI's second Encyclical letter Spe salvi (Saved by hope)to be presented Friday at 11:30 a.m. Rome time. I, too, am excitedly wondering about this, and am hoping - perhaps against hope - that the English tranlsation will be released at the time of presentation.

Since his election to the See of Peter, His Holiness has frequently spoken about hope in his homilies, Wednesday audiences and Angelus addresses. I've collected a few of these words at Beggar for Love, a sort of archive of some of the words of the current Pontiff. You might want to take a look.

I will try later today or tomorrow to take a look through some of then-Cardinal Ratzinger's writings looking for what he says about hope in them.

Wahoo!

Today the Press Office of the Holy See announced news of great joy: the second Encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI, Spe salvi, will be presented Friday next, the Feast of the Apostle Saint Andrew:

VATICAN CITY, NOV 23, 2007 (VIS) - The new Encyclical of Benedict XVI, "Spe salvi," will be presented in the Holy See Press Office at 11.30 a.m. on Friday, November 30. The document will be presented by Cardinal Georges Marie Martin Cottier O.P., pro-theologian emeritus of the Pontifical Household, and by Cardinal Albert Vanhoye S.J., professor emeritus of New Testament exegesis at the Pontifical Biblical Institute.

I don't know about you, but I'm very excited about this. I know what I'm doing a week from today...

I hope this is true

ROME, Nov 15, 2007 / 09:41 am (CNA).- The Italian newspaper La Repubblica revealed today that Pope Benedict XVI has finalized his second encyclical on the subject of Christian hope, and that it should be published before Christmas, during Advent. [more]

The next encyclical?

For months rumors have circulated that the next Encyclical Letter from His Holiness Benedict XVI would be of a social nature, but I've often wondered whether or not this is true. It just doesn't quite seem to fit the overall themes to which the Pontiff devotes his words. He does speak often enough of socially minded things, but often within the greater context of faith, particularly of the love of God.

Many were surprised at the topic of his first Encyclical Deus caritas est (appropriately released - if not seemingly delayed at an irritating rate - on Christmas Day); I was not. It fits perfectly well within the framework of all of his words, both spoken and written, both as Bishop of Rome and as Cardinal-theologian. Those who had read Cardinal Ratzinger couldn't help but notice the connections.

Now, newer rumors seem to be circulating as to the topic of the next Encylical: hope.

This seems much more likely to me and, frankly, much more exciting and, well, hopeful. If these new rumors are true, which I do hope they are, I will greatly look forward to the Encyclical; not so much so if it is about social things.

Pope Benedict has a knack for getting right to the heart of the issue, and what better way could he do so than to first write an Encyclical on love, then on hope, and finally on faith? I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is the plan. May God grant that it is so!

Hat tip to the American Papist. Drew at the Shrine of the Holy Whapping - always good for a laugh or an intellectual intrigue - thinks so, too.