The Pope’s long-awaited first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est or God Is Love, was released early January, 2006. The BBC News writes: “Papal proclamations are often taken as a sign of the possible direction of the Roman Catholic Church. Theologians are expected to scrutinise Pope Benedict’s first encyclical for any hints at how the former head of Catholic doctrine will lead his flock.” His encyclical is essentially on love – in particular, Christian love, and charity. It seems he will lead with, and in, love.
The first part of the encyclical deals with the distinction between Eros and Agape. We are to emulate the Divine love: “Fundamentally, ‘love’ is a single reality.” When the two are separated, love becomes a “caricature or … an impoverished form of love.” The greatest example of this love is Christ’s sacrifice. Receiving the Eucharist is “more than statically receiving the incarnate Logos,” but also a drawing into this love. Our response to that must be genuine and we must necessarily be ready to love our neighbor in imitation of His love.
The second part is on Caritas and the concrete acts of charity in the Church. This love of neighbor, discussed above, must be practiced by the Church community as a whole. The role of the Church is “to contribute to the purification of reason and to the reawakening of those moral forces without which just structures are neither established nor prove effective in the long run. The direct duty to work for a just ordering of society ... is proper to the lay faithful.” The charitable activity of the Church is an “opus proprium” and flows organically from within.
Pope Benedict XVI reminds us that charity should not be merely a means to spread the Good News. “Love is free.” Love should be the end of a charitable act and not used as a means.
For the encyclical see the Vatican website.
