Holy Vatican See
12-04-2004, 03:54
Encyclical of Pope Leo XIV on the Work of God
To All Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops, and other Ordinaries in Peace and Communion with the Apostolic See
To the Clergy and Faithful, and those of good will
Venerable brothers and beloved children, Our Apostolic Benediction to you all
The occasion of our election to the role of ultimate teacher, ultimate lawgiver, ultimate judge to Christ’s Church upon earth found us most manifestly aware of our frail human inadequacies for such grave responsibilities. Our elevation, in the presence of brethren wiser, broader of experience, more greatly imbued with the ability to evoke the Love of Christ among the Faithful, greatly confused us. How unsearchable are the ways of Divine Providence, Who will take up such a faulty tool to do God’s great work!
Yet with the passing days we have received such an outpouring of support and loving greeting, that we are emboldened to take the seat of Peter and place at the feet of our loving Saviour this wholly inadequate offering: All of our thoughts, all of our activity, all of our care, and each day and hour and minute granted unto us, for the spread of His Kingdom and the care of His Church.
It is fitting at this time of change that we reflect upon the past and how it has brought us to this present and will shape our future. The Church for more than two millennia has served as a lamp stand to hold the Light of Christ before the feet of those stumbling in the darkness of sin and ignorance. And while we can never, and should never, lose our consciousness of the Church Eternal and Triumphant, spread over time and space with the divine banner of truth at its vanguard, there is comfort also in some reflection upon the Church as it appears on this side of the darkened glass, made up as it is of sinful and imperfect creatures.
That a Church so composed, can yet overcome all of these human faults vested in it to serve as the continuing vessel for the miracle of Christ’s communion with, and redemption of, His people, is the surest evidence of the power of the Holy Spirit in the affairs of creation. To have the welfare of this Church given into our hands greatly humbles us, and imbues us with a prayerful hope that all of our actions will be worthy of such Divine Trust.
We must, above all, preserve the ability of this Church to serve as the means whereby God saves His people. We wander in the wilderness of a temporal universe afflicted by materialism and war, hatred and selfishness—a universe that is emptied of meaning without the light of Faith, and our Church must therefore be the pillar of smoke by day, the column of fire by night. The passion of our works of mercy, the unshakable truth of our magisterium, and the loving sacrifice of the Servants of God who minister to His people, must be preserved from corruption to keep the column of smoke high, and the pillar of fire burning brightly.
As has been true in every year of the Church’s temporal existence, the problems we face are manifold and troubling. Yet we are kept from despair both by God’s firm promise of redemption, and by reflection on the number and gravity of challenges that the Church has already overcome.
It has become clear to us, in the years of our priesthood, that there are two great and seemingly contradictory longings within the hearts of the Faithful. We long for peace and stability, and the reverence and constancy that the millennia of our Church’s traditions and teachings provide. In a rapidly changing universe, we look to the Church as to an immovable rock in a storm-tossed sea. Again and again the Faithful have spoken, saying ‘Give us the Faith of our Fathers, the Truth Unchanging.’
At the same time, we are faced on all sides with the painful truth that our human fathers built the traditions of our Faith on the world that they knew, the world that they could perceive, the world that was around them, and that world has changed greatly, and is still changing. What is lawful never changes, but what is helpful, changes constantly. How shall we reconcile this paradox, and serve our Faithful with the constant law that is yet helpful anew in each generation?
We have chosen a hard road for this task, beloved in Christ, and can only trust to the Holy Spirit that this choice will serve our Church and the people of God as our Saviour wills. For having seen the snares and delusions of change—the increasing materialism, the constantly-multiplying means of temptation to fleshly indulgence and spiritual indifference, the painfully growing disparities between unprecedented wealth and grinding poverty—we look deeper into change itself to see how even the snares of Satan may be turned by God’s providence into tools for His Plan.
Our predecessor, Sixtus of beloved memory, began some of this great work in his attention to certain resources of the Church. We have made great strides in our ability to communicate—the Office of Communications has been a long-overdue modernization in conveying the Holy See an ability to speak the message of Christ with greater scope and immediacy than ever before. The implementation of modern information technology has begun a revolutionary era of effectiveness in our power to respond to needs, educate our clergy, and allocate our resources.
This work we propose to continue—and we propose to use this power to begin reconciling the great paradox of tradition and change. We will be proposing, at the Synod of Bishops, examination of a new magisterium concerning the Mass. The introduction of the vernacular Mass was a great and necessary change to meet the challenges of communication that the Church encountered in the twentieth century. Yet the loss of the beauty and truth of the traditional Tridentine Mass was deeply mourned, and dismayed many of the Faithful.
It has been clear, by the overwhelming response to the return of the Tridentine Mass wherever it has been dispensed, that this great Mass, the foundation-stone of our liturgy for more than five hundred years, has too great a value for its usage to be restricted. We will therefore ask the Synod to examine the issue of permitting unrestricted the practice of both vernacular and Latin Masses, with the proviso that no parish shall restrict its Masses to only one method. That is, masses in both Latin and the vernacular shall be offered in every parish, on a schedule that provides the Faithful with the opportunity to choose the Mass that brings them the greatest spiritual union with the great Sacrifice of Christ.
We are well aware of how this will affect other aspects of the Church’s most important activities—catechesis and the training of clergy among them. Nonetheless, we believe that with the now-widespread advent of modern information and communications tools, the Church is ready to restore this valuable and edifying tradition without losing the power of the vernacular. We will be able to return the study and usage of Latin to a broader range of our clergy and lay scholars, preserve traditions and scholarship that stand in danger of being lost today.
The great investment of resources needed to address the issues of education arising from this change will take a generation or more. We promise our personal attention to the garnering and growth of resources to fulfill this dream, but we must also extend our appeal outward, throughout the entire body of the Church, to all the Faithful. The education required for catechesis is the basis of all of the rest of our teaching. If this education is to reach from the forests of Tanah Burung to the space cities of Valinon, we must ensure that every church, every mission, every school has the tools needed to educate the young, nurture vocations and train clergy, and promote the scholarship and study that illuminates the great Truths of our Faith for all.
This is only one of the traditions that the Church has been in danger of losing. We can recall, in the days of our youth, when we traveled through many nations, seeing a constant condition everywhere we went: Wherever there was a substantial community of Catholics, there were institutions devoted to the cardinal works of mercy—those corporal expressions of Faith that provide us with temporal means to make over our souls into the image the Creator designed for them. In every place where there was a community of Catholics, there were not only schools, but hospitals, facilities for care of the destitute elderly and orphaned children, and refuges to help those whose lives had been ruined by sin and weakness.
In the past century or two, the rise of national governments who have taken greater and greater responsibility for the well-being of their citizens has been one of the true triumphs of human progress. Yet in the turmoil of today’s world, we see this progress eroding, in danger of being lost, in all too many areas. It is time to reassert the Church’s tradition of moral leadership by renewing the institutions that served as beacons for human progress in the past. We believe that this aspiration can help us revive yet another tradition, and preserve some of our Church’s greatest resources: the religious orders of sisters and brothers who undertake this work.
We will be asking the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life to establish a Commission, in conjunction with the Pontifical Commission for the Laity, to examine the institutions of oblate brotherhood and sisterhood, and develop plans for including more of our laity in the work of our religious Orders, to increase their ability to undertake these works of mercy. We especially hope that there will emerge new ways for our Catholic youth to enter into this work as part of their regular education. We know that the experience of participating in this work can open hearts and minds, and bring in ever greater resources of charity and support for this important work.
Our care for the well-being of our Clergy cannot be understated. Our vineyards are at risk. Some have too few workers, some workers are not adequately trained and supported, and in many places the workers in our vineyards do so at the risk of life and limb. In our very first Apostolic Letter, we proposed a great Symposium to address this issue, to be followed by a Summit Discussion with representatives from our brothers and sisters of other churches and faiths to address the broader issues of Divine service. We would draw the attention to all of our Bishops, Abbots, and pastoral Ordinaries to this Symposium and again ask your assistance in soliciting the suggestions and queries from our clergy to assist in preparing for this great endeavor.
The matter of reconciling the paradox of tradition with change recurs forcibly when we contemplate the role of the Church in the international affairs of today. With the millennia of experience in human affairs and conditions that our holy Mother the Church has gained, we have unique resources of wisdom to offer in promoting peace and stability. Yet that very experience has taught us another paradox: The forcible attempt to transfer that wisdom results, inevitably, in its very opposite—folly and misery.
How then, do we work in the arena of international affairs to bring about the Kingdom of God? How do we promote the growth of freedom of conscience and the respect for human rights in a world full of nations increasingly threatened by these very things? For without freedom of conscience, the spread of true and heartfelt Faith in God is stifled; and without human rights, the practice of Christian ideals becomes an endeavor too heroic for universal application. And heartfelt faith and the practice of the Christian life are the keys to the Kingdom of God.
The solution of my predecessor, beloved Sixtus, was to devote the Church to providing moral example. To this I would add but one thing: Communication. We must not only excel at providing a moral example of Faith and works of mercy, but we must be constantly willing to engage the Church in dialogue with the nations of the world to promote understanding. Willingness to engage is not a forcible process, and dialogue is not compulsion. We make no pledge to respect that, which is morally repugnant to the Church, nor to remain silent in the face of injustice. But we believe that the willingness to discourse can transcend and enlighten communications, and, through the power of the Holy Spirit, have a transformative effect even upon those who would oppose the coming of the Kingdom of God.
Therefore, we will solicit the reception of diplomatic communication—both through the formal establishment of Nunciatures, and through the reception of informal emissaries, among the many nations active in our universe today. It is our fervent hope that by increasing the opportunities for communication, we will open more and greater channels for the Holy Spirit to work among the affairs of creation.
Given in the Vatican City, at St. Peters, this ____ Day of _____, in the first year of our Pontificate.
To All Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops, and other Ordinaries in Peace and Communion with the Apostolic See
To the Clergy and Faithful, and those of good will
Venerable brothers and beloved children, Our Apostolic Benediction to you all
The occasion of our election to the role of ultimate teacher, ultimate lawgiver, ultimate judge to Christ’s Church upon earth found us most manifestly aware of our frail human inadequacies for such grave responsibilities. Our elevation, in the presence of brethren wiser, broader of experience, more greatly imbued with the ability to evoke the Love of Christ among the Faithful, greatly confused us. How unsearchable are the ways of Divine Providence, Who will take up such a faulty tool to do God’s great work!
Yet with the passing days we have received such an outpouring of support and loving greeting, that we are emboldened to take the seat of Peter and place at the feet of our loving Saviour this wholly inadequate offering: All of our thoughts, all of our activity, all of our care, and each day and hour and minute granted unto us, for the spread of His Kingdom and the care of His Church.
It is fitting at this time of change that we reflect upon the past and how it has brought us to this present and will shape our future. The Church for more than two millennia has served as a lamp stand to hold the Light of Christ before the feet of those stumbling in the darkness of sin and ignorance. And while we can never, and should never, lose our consciousness of the Church Eternal and Triumphant, spread over time and space with the divine banner of truth at its vanguard, there is comfort also in some reflection upon the Church as it appears on this side of the darkened glass, made up as it is of sinful and imperfect creatures.
That a Church so composed, can yet overcome all of these human faults vested in it to serve as the continuing vessel for the miracle of Christ’s communion with, and redemption of, His people, is the surest evidence of the power of the Holy Spirit in the affairs of creation. To have the welfare of this Church given into our hands greatly humbles us, and imbues us with a prayerful hope that all of our actions will be worthy of such Divine Trust.
We must, above all, preserve the ability of this Church to serve as the means whereby God saves His people. We wander in the wilderness of a temporal universe afflicted by materialism and war, hatred and selfishness—a universe that is emptied of meaning without the light of Faith, and our Church must therefore be the pillar of smoke by day, the column of fire by night. The passion of our works of mercy, the unshakable truth of our magisterium, and the loving sacrifice of the Servants of God who minister to His people, must be preserved from corruption to keep the column of smoke high, and the pillar of fire burning brightly.
As has been true in every year of the Church’s temporal existence, the problems we face are manifold and troubling. Yet we are kept from despair both by God’s firm promise of redemption, and by reflection on the number and gravity of challenges that the Church has already overcome.
It has become clear to us, in the years of our priesthood, that there are two great and seemingly contradictory longings within the hearts of the Faithful. We long for peace and stability, and the reverence and constancy that the millennia of our Church’s traditions and teachings provide. In a rapidly changing universe, we look to the Church as to an immovable rock in a storm-tossed sea. Again and again the Faithful have spoken, saying ‘Give us the Faith of our Fathers, the Truth Unchanging.’
At the same time, we are faced on all sides with the painful truth that our human fathers built the traditions of our Faith on the world that they knew, the world that they could perceive, the world that was around them, and that world has changed greatly, and is still changing. What is lawful never changes, but what is helpful, changes constantly. How shall we reconcile this paradox, and serve our Faithful with the constant law that is yet helpful anew in each generation?
We have chosen a hard road for this task, beloved in Christ, and can only trust to the Holy Spirit that this choice will serve our Church and the people of God as our Saviour wills. For having seen the snares and delusions of change—the increasing materialism, the constantly-multiplying means of temptation to fleshly indulgence and spiritual indifference, the painfully growing disparities between unprecedented wealth and grinding poverty—we look deeper into change itself to see how even the snares of Satan may be turned by God’s providence into tools for His Plan.
Our predecessor, Sixtus of beloved memory, began some of this great work in his attention to certain resources of the Church. We have made great strides in our ability to communicate—the Office of Communications has been a long-overdue modernization in conveying the Holy See an ability to speak the message of Christ with greater scope and immediacy than ever before. The implementation of modern information technology has begun a revolutionary era of effectiveness in our power to respond to needs, educate our clergy, and allocate our resources.
This work we propose to continue—and we propose to use this power to begin reconciling the great paradox of tradition and change. We will be proposing, at the Synod of Bishops, examination of a new magisterium concerning the Mass. The introduction of the vernacular Mass was a great and necessary change to meet the challenges of communication that the Church encountered in the twentieth century. Yet the loss of the beauty and truth of the traditional Tridentine Mass was deeply mourned, and dismayed many of the Faithful.
It has been clear, by the overwhelming response to the return of the Tridentine Mass wherever it has been dispensed, that this great Mass, the foundation-stone of our liturgy for more than five hundred years, has too great a value for its usage to be restricted. We will therefore ask the Synod to examine the issue of permitting unrestricted the practice of both vernacular and Latin Masses, with the proviso that no parish shall restrict its Masses to only one method. That is, masses in both Latin and the vernacular shall be offered in every parish, on a schedule that provides the Faithful with the opportunity to choose the Mass that brings them the greatest spiritual union with the great Sacrifice of Christ.
We are well aware of how this will affect other aspects of the Church’s most important activities—catechesis and the training of clergy among them. Nonetheless, we believe that with the now-widespread advent of modern information and communications tools, the Church is ready to restore this valuable and edifying tradition without losing the power of the vernacular. We will be able to return the study and usage of Latin to a broader range of our clergy and lay scholars, preserve traditions and scholarship that stand in danger of being lost today.
The great investment of resources needed to address the issues of education arising from this change will take a generation or more. We promise our personal attention to the garnering and growth of resources to fulfill this dream, but we must also extend our appeal outward, throughout the entire body of the Church, to all the Faithful. The education required for catechesis is the basis of all of the rest of our teaching. If this education is to reach from the forests of Tanah Burung to the space cities of Valinon, we must ensure that every church, every mission, every school has the tools needed to educate the young, nurture vocations and train clergy, and promote the scholarship and study that illuminates the great Truths of our Faith for all.
This is only one of the traditions that the Church has been in danger of losing. We can recall, in the days of our youth, when we traveled through many nations, seeing a constant condition everywhere we went: Wherever there was a substantial community of Catholics, there were institutions devoted to the cardinal works of mercy—those corporal expressions of Faith that provide us with temporal means to make over our souls into the image the Creator designed for them. In every place where there was a community of Catholics, there were not only schools, but hospitals, facilities for care of the destitute elderly and orphaned children, and refuges to help those whose lives had been ruined by sin and weakness.
In the past century or two, the rise of national governments who have taken greater and greater responsibility for the well-being of their citizens has been one of the true triumphs of human progress. Yet in the turmoil of today’s world, we see this progress eroding, in danger of being lost, in all too many areas. It is time to reassert the Church’s tradition of moral leadership by renewing the institutions that served as beacons for human progress in the past. We believe that this aspiration can help us revive yet another tradition, and preserve some of our Church’s greatest resources: the religious orders of sisters and brothers who undertake this work.
We will be asking the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life to establish a Commission, in conjunction with the Pontifical Commission for the Laity, to examine the institutions of oblate brotherhood and sisterhood, and develop plans for including more of our laity in the work of our religious Orders, to increase their ability to undertake these works of mercy. We especially hope that there will emerge new ways for our Catholic youth to enter into this work as part of their regular education. We know that the experience of participating in this work can open hearts and minds, and bring in ever greater resources of charity and support for this important work.
Our care for the well-being of our Clergy cannot be understated. Our vineyards are at risk. Some have too few workers, some workers are not adequately trained and supported, and in many places the workers in our vineyards do so at the risk of life and limb. In our very first Apostolic Letter, we proposed a great Symposium to address this issue, to be followed by a Summit Discussion with representatives from our brothers and sisters of other churches and faiths to address the broader issues of Divine service. We would draw the attention to all of our Bishops, Abbots, and pastoral Ordinaries to this Symposium and again ask your assistance in soliciting the suggestions and queries from our clergy to assist in preparing for this great endeavor.
The matter of reconciling the paradox of tradition with change recurs forcibly when we contemplate the role of the Church in the international affairs of today. With the millennia of experience in human affairs and conditions that our holy Mother the Church has gained, we have unique resources of wisdom to offer in promoting peace and stability. Yet that very experience has taught us another paradox: The forcible attempt to transfer that wisdom results, inevitably, in its very opposite—folly and misery.
How then, do we work in the arena of international affairs to bring about the Kingdom of God? How do we promote the growth of freedom of conscience and the respect for human rights in a world full of nations increasingly threatened by these very things? For without freedom of conscience, the spread of true and heartfelt Faith in God is stifled; and without human rights, the practice of Christian ideals becomes an endeavor too heroic for universal application. And heartfelt faith and the practice of the Christian life are the keys to the Kingdom of God.
The solution of my predecessor, beloved Sixtus, was to devote the Church to providing moral example. To this I would add but one thing: Communication. We must not only excel at providing a moral example of Faith and works of mercy, but we must be constantly willing to engage the Church in dialogue with the nations of the world to promote understanding. Willingness to engage is not a forcible process, and dialogue is not compulsion. We make no pledge to respect that, which is morally repugnant to the Church, nor to remain silent in the face of injustice. But we believe that the willingness to discourse can transcend and enlighten communications, and, through the power of the Holy Spirit, have a transformative effect even upon those who would oppose the coming of the Kingdom of God.
Therefore, we will solicit the reception of diplomatic communication—both through the formal establishment of Nunciatures, and through the reception of informal emissaries, among the many nations active in our universe today. It is our fervent hope that by increasing the opportunities for communication, we will open more and greater channels for the Holy Spirit to work among the affairs of creation.
Given in the Vatican City, at St. Peters, this ____ Day of _____, in the first year of our Pontificate.