Encyclical "Lumen Fidei" (on the unity of faith)

[quiet52]

So catechists and RCIA leaders, what do you think?

1. The unity of the Church in time and space is linked to the unity of the faith: “there is one body and one Spirit… one faith” (Eph 4:4-5). These days we can imagine a group of people being united in a common cause, in mutual affection, in sharing the same destiny and a single purpose. But we find it hard to conceive of a unity in one truth. We tend to think that a unity of this sort is incompatible with freedom of thought and personal autonomy. Yet the experience of love shows us that a common vision is possible, for through love we learn how to see reality through the eyes of others, not as something which impoverishes but instead enriches our vision. Genuine love, after the fashion of God’s love, ultimately requires truth, and the shared contemplation of the truth which is Jesus Christ enables love to become deep and enduring. This is also the great joy of faith: a unity of vision in one body and one spirit. Saint Leo the Great could say: "If faith is not one, then it is not faith"…
2. Since faith is one, it must be professed in all its purity and integrity. Precisely because all the articles of faith are interconnected, to deny one of them, even of those that seem least important, is tantamount to distorting the whole. Each period of history can find this or that point of faith easier or harder to accept: **hence the need for vigilance in ensuring that the deposit of faith is passed on in its entirety **(cf. 1 Tim 6:20) and that all aspects of the profession of faith are duly emphasized. Indeed, inasmuch as the unity of faith is the unity of the Church, to subtract something from the faith is to subtract something from the veracity of communion…

Pope Francis’ 1st encyclical released
catholicculture.org/news/…?storyid=18369

Encyclical: Lumen Fidei (Pope Francis, 6/29/2013)
vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20130629_enciclica-lumen-fidei_en.html

 

[MarcoPolo]

If there are dissenters whose hearts are not hardened, I pray that paragraphs 47-48 help complete their faith. For hard hearts, I pray they are unhardened.

The media will probably not like his paragraph 52 either:“The first setting in which faith enlightens the human city is the family. I think first and foremost of the stable union of man and woman in marriage. This union is born of their love, as a sign and presence of God’s own love, and of the acknowledgment and acceptance of the goodness of sexual differentiation, whereby spouses can become one flesh (cf. Gen 2:24) and are enabled to give birth to a new life, a manifestation of the Creator’s goodness, wisdom and loving plan.”Other sample paragraphs

 

[quiet52]

If there are dissenters whose hearts are not hardened, I pray that paragraphs 47-48 help complete their faith. For hard hearts, I pray they are unhardened.

Amen.

The media will probably not like his paragraph 52 either:“The first setting in which faith enlightens the human city is the family. I think first and foremost of the stable union of man and woman in marriage. This union is born of their love, as a sign and presence of God’s own love, and of the acknowledgment and acceptance of the goodness of sexual differentiation, whereby spouses can become one flesh (cf. Gen 2:24) and are enabled to give birth to a new life, a manifestation of the Creator’s goodness, wisdom and loving plan.”Other sample paragraphs

I have no faith in the mainstream media liking much of anything the Catholic Church proclaims. But I do hope our Catholic leaders – pastors and other clergy, and other instructors of the faith, take Pope Francis’s messages in this encyclical to heart. Too many have soft-pedaled and even ignored much of the Gospel message.

 

[MarcoPolo]

I have no faith in the mainstream media liking much of anything the Catholic Church proclaims. But I do hope our Catholic leaders – pastors and other clergy, and other instructors of the faith, take Pope Francis’s messages in this encyclical to heart. Too many have soft-pedaled and even ignored much of the Gospel message.

Yes. I only mentioned the media not like it because they have had a certain fondness for Pope Francis, due perhaps to a disdain for Pope Benedict. But over time, many of them, I continue to predict, will turn from Pope Francis as he continues to echo Church teaching.