Spokane Bishop William S. Skylstad, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said that the first encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI is “evidence of both his great scholarship and his profound spiritual insight.”
Bishop Skylstad called the encyclical, released today and titled Deus Caritas Est (God Is Love), “a profound meditation on the meaning of Christian love and the place of charity in the life of the Church.”
He singled out the encyclical’s affirmation that “the Church cannot neglect the service of charity any more than she can neglect the Sacraments and the Word,” noting that this affirmation follows “a reflection in depth on the meaning of love as it appears in Sacred Scripture.”
Bishop Skylstad also drew attention to the Holy Father’s discussion of the relationship between justice and charity and between faith and politics. He points out that Pope Benedict cautions that the Church should not take on the political task of building a just society, leaving this to the state and its institutions. But he notes that the Holy Father adds that “the Church is duty-bound to offer, through the purification of reason and through ethical formation, her own specific contribution towards understanding the requirements of justice and achieving them politically.”
He also notes that Pope Benedict says that the Church's charitable activity “must be independent of parties and ideologies” and that it “cannot be used as a means of engaging in what is nowadays considered proselytism.”
Bishop Skylstad concluded his statement by commending the encyclical “to all the Catholic people and indeed to all men and women of good will.”
Click here to read the English text of the Pope's encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God Is Love).
- (This update is courtesy of US Conference of Catholic Bishops.)
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