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Catholic World News News Feature

Papal encyclical explores divine, human love January 25, 2006

Deus Caritas Est ("God is love"), the first encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI, was released on January 25 at midday.

In the encyclical letter, the Holy Father attempts to restore a proper understanding of love, saying that healthy human love derives from, and reflects, God's love for mankind. The document condemns all efforts to reduce human love to a merely physical attraction. At the same time, Deus Caritas Est confronts and rejects Nietzsche's argument that "Christianity had poisoned eros," explaining that eros merges into agape in Christian marital love.

Pope Benedict goes on to write that Christian love inevitably includes concern for the poor. This concern is shown in a dedication to justice in the political order-- as reflected in Church social teaching-- and in concrete works of charity to help those in need.

Signed by Pope Benedict on December 25-- Christmas Day-- 2005, Deus Caritas Est is addressed "to bishops, priests and deacons, men and women religious, and all the lay faithful." The document contains 42 sections (many containing two or more paragraphs in the English translation), including an introduction and conclusion.

[The full English-language text of the encyclical is available on the Vatican web site. The official Latin version is also available there, along with translations in several other languages.]
At a Vatican press conference introducing the work, Archbishop William Levada, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, remarked that the Pope was addressing himself to the "nucleus of Christian faith." The document, he said, "offers us a vision of love for others, and of the ecclesial duty to practice charity, as a way to implement the commandment of love-- one that finds its roots in the essence of God himself, Who is love."

The American prelate also noted that in his analysis of eros and agape, the Pope explains human love is derived from diving love, and how "in the indissoluble marriage between man and woman this human love takes a form that is rooted in creation itself."

Cardinal Renato Martino, the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, called particular attention to the Pope's insistence that the Church has a duty to "reawaken spiritual and moral forces," so that the Catholic laity will be active in building a just social order. Cardinal Martino observed that in this activity, the laity are "a sign and expression of charity."

The third prelate to speak at the January 25 news conference, Archbishop Paul Josef Cordes, saw Deus Caritas Est as a much-needed guide to the connection between charitable work and Christian charity. The encyclical, he said, explains the "theological foundation" for the dicastery he heads, the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, which is the charitable arm of the Holy See. "For our Council," he said, the encyclical is "a charter for our activity."