Benedict Seeks To Surprise With Encyclical on Love
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WASHINGTON – By choosing to highlight in his first encyclical letter to the world’s billion Catholics the meaning of Christian love, Pope Benedict XVI is setting a papal agenda aimed at reviving a vibrant practice of the faith with a return to the basics.
The new pope’s 71-page letter, “On Christian Love,” touches on the connection between human and divine love and addresses the charitable work of individual Christians, calling this – and not temporal authority – fundamental to the mission of the church.
“In a world where the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance or even a duty of hatred and violence, this message is both timely and significant,” he wrote. “For this reason, I wish … to speak of the love which God lavishes upon us and which we in turn must share with others.”
Encyclicals, or “circular” letters, are generally aimed at addressing a prevalent error of the day that threatens to corrupt faith or morals. Popes in the late 19th century wrote on the danger posed by Marxism and other materialistic ideologies. Pope John Paul II, who wrote 14 encyclicals during his 26-year pontificate, focused primarily on freedom and dignity.
Many had expected that Pope Benedict, a lifelong theologian who served for more than two decades as the Vatican’s top doctrinal watchdog, would take aim at wayward theologians, questionable liturgical practices, or relativism. His focus on love struck some as an effort to disarm critics.
“I would not be surprised if he intentionally wrote this to surprise some people, to show that he is not the doctrinal enforcer or whatever people call him,” a priest of the Catholic Archdiocese of New York and editor of the journal First Things, the Reverend Richard John Neuhaus, said. “That he wanted instead to come back to the very heart of the Christian proposition, and you can’t get any more focused than with the claim that ‘God is love.'”
Several commentators saw in the letter themes consistent with Pope Benedict’s previous theological writings, which have called for a fresh presentation of the Catholic faith in an age of pluralism. Some said they saw – in its mention of those who associate God with violence – a coming body of teachings aimed at distinguishing Christianity from Islam in a way that Pope John Paul II was reluctant to do.
“I think that Pope Benedict understands that one root of the problems that one form of Islam is presenting to the world today is theological, and you can’t get around that,” the official biographer of Pope John Paul II and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, George Weigel, said. “And that has to be faced. If you are going to have real inter-religious dialogue, it has to begin with those differences that make all the difference.”
Pope Benedict divides the letter in two parts. In the first, he argues that the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and many contemporary thinkers distorted Church teaching on sex by arguing that the Church “blows the whistle” on it “with all her commandments and prohibitions.” Instead, Benedict said, human and divine love complement one another.
“It is neither the spirit alone nor the body alone that loves: it is man, the persona unified creature composed of body and soul, who love,” the pope wrote. “Only when both dimensions are truly united, does man attain his full stature. Only thus is love – Eros – able to mature and attain its authentic grandeur.”
The letter’s second section is focused on charitable work, asserting that it is a responsibility of every Christian. He dismissed the notion that the Church is interested in temporal authority and acknowledged a development in the Church’s recognition of this fact. Pope Benedict wrote that individual Christians are responsible for bringing their beliefs into secular society, largely through example.
“Those who practice charity in the Church’s name will never seek to impose the Church’s faith upon others,” he wrote. “They realize that a pure and generous love is the best witness to the God in whom we believe and by whom we are driven to love.”
A Jesuit priest and professor of philosophy at Fordham University, the Reverend Joseph Koterski, saw in Pope Benedict’s allusion to people who associate God with vengeance a clear allusion to militant forms of Islam. He said the reference reflected a growing level of comfort in the new papacy with the notion of a “clash of civilizations.” He noted, though, that the reference was not meant to condemn a particular group but, rather, to clarify the Christian understanding of God as love.
“I think what he’s saying is that whatever anyone else is doing, Christians believe in a God who is love itself, Rev. Koterski said. It’s in contrast to those who want to use God as simply a justification for violence and revenge and, positively, that God’s own nature of genuine love wants to evoke an appropriate response in us, a loving response and not a vengeful one.”
But a professor at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, David Schindler, said the reference could instead be aimed at those who argue that all serious believers are fanatics-in-waiting. Mr. Schindler is the editor of the journal “Communio,” which was founded in 1972 by Pope Benedict, then Joseph Ratzinger, and has written extensively on the new pope’s thinking.
“It’s not only the problem that emerges in an obvious way with terrorism that is linked to the name of God or Allah,” Mr. Schindler said, “but I think it also is tied to the association by many people in the more general secular culture of God with a kind of self-righteousness that tends toward violence and intolerance.”