'Believe first then act':
The Pope's next encyclical
will be about faith
by PAOLO RODARI
Translated from
August 3, 2012
In the homily that formally inaugurated his Pontificate on April 24, 2005, Benedict XVI said that his task - and that of the Church - was "to lead men out of the desert, towards the place of live, towards friendship with the Son of God".
He was probably already thinking then that it would get to this point. Of what? The decision to write an encyclical on faith, his fourth, and the third dedicated to the virtues that have to do with God, the so-called theological virtues.
Definite news bout this came out just now from Les Combes in Val D'Aosta, from the vacationing Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, who also said that the Pope had finished working on the third book in his JESUS OF NAZARETH trilogy, this one dedicated to the infancy narrations (Die Kindergeschichten) about Jesus. Written in German, as are all of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's manuscripts, the book must now be translated into the major languages in which it will be published initially.
So, what would the Pope say in an encyclical on faith? The Pope gave a preview in his Apostolic Letter
Porta Fidei last October 11, with which he decreed the Year of Faith.
he said then that "It often happens that Christians are more concerned for the social, cultural and political consequences of their commitment, continuing to think of the faith as a self-evident presupposition for life in society". Whereas the Church "cannot accept that salt should become tasteless or the light be kept."
Therefore, faith ahead of social and political concerns, is a prerequisite that is not secondary in the German Pope's view of things. We know that he had Paul VI in mind, and his decision, which was in some ways rather shattering, to decree a Year of Faith in 1967, during a time of general upheaval, and in the Church, even of caving in: namely, action before belief - in the years immediately following the Second Vatican Council, when the truths of the faith were watered down by the winds of renewal. Paul VI thought a Year of Faith was necessary so that there would be "an authentic and sincere profession of the same faith" throughout all of the Church.
A profession by everyone, so that the faith may be purified of any drifts and betrayals: "The great upheavals of that year made even more evident the need for a celebration of this kind", Benedict XVI wrote. It had concluded with a Profession of Faith by the People of God, to attest how the essential contents of what had constituted for centuries the patrimony of all believers needed to be affirmed in a new way in order to give consistent testimony in historical conditions very different from those in the past.
It was not accidental that the encyclical should be timed, not just for the Year of Faith, but during the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council on October 11, 1962, and the 20th anniversary of the current Catechism of the Catholic Church.
[That's gratuitous and circular reasoning, considering that the timing of the Year of Faith was intended to coincide with those two anniversaries!]
Joseph Ratzinger worked long, as Prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith, on the preparation of the Catechism {and later, of a Compendium). For him, as for Paul VI more than 40 years ago, the Catechism is the way not just for learning and transmitting the correct faith, but also for interpreting and reproposing the teachings of Vatican II in the most correct way.
On June 30, 1968, Paul VI pronounced at the end of the Year of Faith his 'Credo of the People of God'. On November 23, 2013. the Solemnity of Christ the King, Benedict XVI will celebrate "a Eucharist during which the Profession of Faith will be solemnly renewed".
Will that also be the date when his fourth encyclical will be published? It is difficult to say. Papa Ratzinger has shown, in drafting the third book of the Jesus trilogy, that he does not like racing against time. He will take the time he needs to finish his fourth encyclical.