Jun 24 2008
How to Approach a Papal Encyclical
Angelo Cardinal Scola writes in the Fall 2006 issue of Communio about the surprising topic of Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical, Deus Caritas Est (God is Love):
The interventions of the Magisterium of the Church do not in fact correspond either to pre-established programs or to the particular sensitivities of their authors. They always arise at the Spirit’s prompting from a consideration of the concrete need of the Christian people. They emerge because an opportunity is perceived to offer an aid to the evaluation of crucial aspects of human experience (stealing a term from the language of calculus, we might speak of “fundamentals”) whose meaning has become confused or even sometimes completely lost or twisted.
What makes this comment so interesting is the author’s deep faith that the teaching authority of the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit. Whatever the Church says at a particular time, she says because the Holy Spirit has prompted her to say it.
We must, of course, not confuse the Spirit’s influence on the Magisterium with the teaching of biblical inspiration. By biblical inspiration, the Church means that the Holy Spirit had complete control over the writing of the biblical texts; that everything and only those things the Spirit wanted contained in a text are in the text — nothing more, and nothing less. This extra-ordinary form of inspiration is limited to the Bible alone.
But if we believe that the Church is truly the Body of Christ, and that Christ truly gave the Church teaching authority the power to persevere complete and without error the fullness of his teaching; and if we believe that Christ is solicitious about his Church, desiring to lead her to the heights of holiness in order that she can bring all people to the heavenly Father — if we believe all of this, it is only natural that we should believe that the Church does not speak without first being moved by the Holy Spirit, the one who knows what the Church needs at every moment in her history. We should, therefore, approach every papal encyclical with great eagerness, for its themes are those that the Triune God wishes us to ponder.
