Do not neglect Scripture’s human dimension or divine origin, Pope says at audience on Vatican II
February 04, 2026
Continuing his series of Wednesday general audiences on the Second Vatican Council and its documents, Pope Leo XIV reflected today on Sacred Scripture as “the Word of God in human words.”
The audience (video), which took place in Paul VI Audience Hall, was the fifth in the series and the fourth devoted to Dei Verbum, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (1965).
“Sacred Scripture, read in the living Tradition of the Church,” is “a privileged space for encounter where God continues to speak to the men and women of every time, so that, by listening, they can know him and love him,” Pope Leo began. “In some cases, making oneself understood to others is a first act of love. This is why God chooses to speak using human languages and thus, various authors, inspired by the Holy Spirit, have written the texts of Sacred Scripture.”
“Therefore, not only in its content, but also in its language, the Scripture reveals God’s merciful condescension towards men, and his desire to be close to them,” the Pope said.
Pope Leo then warned against two deficient approaches to Scripture.
“A correct interpretation of the sacred texts cannot dispense with the historic environment in which they developed and the literary forms that were used; on the contrary, to renounce the study of the human words that God used risks leading to fundamentalist or spiritualist readings of the Scripture, which betray its meaning,” he said. “Equally reductive, on the other hand, is a reading of Scripture that neglects its divine origin and ends up understanding it as a mere human teaching, as something to be studied simply from a technical point of view or as a text ‘only of the past.’“
The Pontiff concluded:
Dear brothers and sisters, let us thank the Lord because, in his goodness, he ensures our lives do not lack the essential nourishment of his Word, and let us pray that our words, and even more so our lives, do not obscure the love of God that is narrated in them.
Audiences in series “Vatican Council II through its Documents”
- Introductory catechesis (1/7/26)
On Dei Verbum, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (1965):
- God speaks to men as to friends (1/14/26)
- Jesus Christ reveals the Father (1/21/26)
- A single sacred deposit: The relationship between Scripture and Tradition (1/28/26)
- The Sacred Scripture: the Word of God in human words (2/4/26)
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