Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 7-March 22,1979
Official Text Of “Redemptor Hominis”
NC News Service
Text of Pope John Paul IVs first
encyclical, “Redemptor Hominis”
(Redeemer of Man).
Venerable brothers and dear sons, greetings
and apostolic blessings:
INHERITANCE
1. At the Close of the Second Millennium
The Redeemer of Man, Jesus Christ, is the
center of the universe and of history. To him go
my thoughts and my heart in this solemn
moment of the world that the church and the
whole family of present-day humanity are now
living. In fact, this time, in which God in his
hidden design has entrusted to me, after my
beloved predecessor John Paul I, the universal
service connected with the chair of St. Peter in
Rome, is already very close to the year 2000.
At this moment it is difficult to say what mark
that year will leave on the face of human
history or what it will bring to each people,
nation, country and continent, in spite of the
efforts already being made to foresee some
events. For the church, the people of God
spread, although unevenly, to the most distant
limits of the earth, it will be the year of a great
jubilee. We are already approaching that date,
which, without prejudice to all the corrections
imposed by chronological exactitude, will recall
and reawaken in us in a special way our
awareness of the key truth of faith which St.
John expressed at the beginning of his Gospel:
“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”
(1) ; and elsewhere: “God so loved the world
that he gave his only son, that whoever believes
in him should not perish but have eternal life”
(2) .
We also are in a certain way in a season of a
new Advent, a season of expectation: “In many
and various ways God spoke of old to our
fathers by the prophets; but in these last days
he has spoken to us by a son ...” (3), by the
son, his Word, who became man and was born
of the Virgin Mary. This act of redemption
marked the high point of the history of man
Within God’s loving plan. God entered the
history of humanity and, as a man, became an
actor in that history, one of the thousands of
millions of human beings but at the same time
unique! Through the Incarnation, God gave
human life the dimension that he intended man
to have from his first beginning; he has granted
that dimension definitively - in the way that is
peculiar to him alone, in keeping with his
eternal love and mercy, with the full freedom
of God - and he has granted it also with the
bounty that enables us, in considering the
original sin and the whole history of the sins of
humanity, and in considering the errors of the
human intellect, will and heart, to repeat with
amazement the words of the sacred liturgy: “0
happy fault . . . which gained us so great a
redeemer!” (4).
2. The First Words of the New Pontificate
It was to Christ the Redeemer that my
feelings and thoughts were directed on Oct. 16
of last year, when, after the canonical election,
I was asked: “Do you accept?” I then replied:
“With obedience in faith to Christ, my Lord,
and with trust in the mother of Christ and of
the church, in spite of the great difficulties, I
accept.” Today I wish to make that reply
known publicly to all without exception, thus
showing that there is a link between the first
fundamental truth of the Incarnation, already
mentioned, and the ministry that, with my
acceptance of my election as bishop of Rome
and successor of the apostle Peter, has become
my specific duty in his See.
I chose the same names that were chosen by
my beloved predecessor John Paul I. Indeed, as
soon as he announced to the Sacred College on
Aug. 26, 1978, that he wished to be called John
Paul - such a double name being unprecedented
in the history of the papacy - I saw in it a clear
presage of grace for the new pontificate. Since
that pontificate lasted barely 33 days, it falls to
me not only to continue it but in a certain
sense to take it up again at the same starting
point. This is confirmed by my choice of these
two names. By following the example of my
venerable predecessor in choosing them, I wish
like him to express my love for the unique
inheritance left to the church by Popes John
XXIII and Paul VI and my personal readiness to
develop that inheritance with God’s help.
Through these two names and two
pontificates I am linked with the whole
tradition of the Apostolic See and with all my
predecessors in the expanse of the 20th century
and of the preceeding centuries. I am
connected, through one after another of the
various ages back to the most remote, with the
line of the mission and ministry that confers on
Peter’s See an altogether special place in the
church. John XXIII and Paul VI are a stage to
which I wish to refer directly as a threshold
from which I intend to continue, in a certain
sense together with John Paul I, into the future,
letting myself be guided by unlimited trust in
and obedience to the Spirit that Christ
promised and sent to his church. On the night
before he suffered he said to his apostles: “It is
to your advantage that I go away, for if I do
not go away, the Counselor will not come to
you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (5).
“When the Counselor comes, whom I shall send
to you from the Father, even the Spirit of
truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will
bear witness to me; and you also are witnesses,
because you have been with me from the
beginning” (6). “When the Spirit of truth
comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for
he will not speak on his own authority, but
whatever he hears he will speak, and he will
declare to you the things that are to come” (7).
3. Trust in the Spirit of Truth and Love
Entrusting myself fully to the Spirit of truth,
therefore, I am entering into the rich
inheritance of the recent pontificates. This
inheritance has stuck deep roots in the
awareness of the church in an utterly new way,
quite unknown previously, thanks to the
Second Vatican Council, which John XXIII
convened and opened and which was later
successfully concluded and perseveringly put
into effect by Paul VI, whose activity I was
myself able to watch from close at hand. I was
constantly amazed at his profound wisdom and
his courage and also by his constancy and
patience in the difficult postconciliar period of
his pontificate. As helmsman of the church, the
bark of Peter, he knew how to preserve a
providential tranquility and balance even in the
most critical moments, when the church
seemed to be shaken from within, and he
always maintained unhesitating hope in the
church’s solidity. What the Spirit said to the
church through the council of our time, what
the Spirit says in this church to all the churches
(8) cannot lead to anything else - in spite of
momentary uneasiness - but still more mature
solidity of the whole people of God, aware of
their salvific mission.
Paul VI selected this present-day
consciousness of the church as the first theme
of his fundamental encyclical beginning with
the words “Ecclesiam Suam.” Let me refer first
of all to this encyclical and link myself with it
in this first document that, so to speak,
inaugurates the present pontificate. The
church’s consciousness, enlightened and
supported by the Holy Spirit and fathoming
more and more deeply both her divine mystery
and her human mission, and even her human
weaknesses - this consciousness is and must
remain the first source of the church’s love, as
love in turn helps to strengthen and deepen her
consciousness. Paul VI left us a witness of such
an extremely acute consciousness of the
church. Through the many things, often causing
suffering, that went to make up his pontificate
he taught us intrepid love for the church, which
is, as the council states, a “sacrament or sign
and means of intimate union with God, and of
the unity of all mankind” (9).
4. Reference to Paul Vi’s First Encyclical
Precisely for this reason, the church’s
consciousness must go with universal openness,
in order that all may be able to find in her “the
unsearchable riches of Christ” (10) spoken of
by the Apostle of the Gentiles. Such openness,
organically joined with the awareness of her
own nature and certainty of her own truth, of
which Christ said: “The word which you hear is
not mine but the Father’s who sent me” (11), is
what gives the church her apostolic, or in other
words her missionary, dynamism, professing
and proclaiming in its integrity the whole of the
truth transmitted by Christ. At the same time
she must carry on the dialogue that Paul VI, in
his encyclical “Ecclesiam Suam” called “the
dialogue of salvation,” distinguishing with
precision the various circles within which it was
to be carried on. (12) In referring today to this
document that gave the program of Paul Vi’s
pontificate, I keep thanking God that this great
predecessor of mine, who was also truly my
father, knew how to display “ad extra,*’
externally, the true countenance of the church,
in spite of the various internal weaknesses that
affected her in the postconciliar period. In this
way much of the human family has become, it
seems, more aware, in all humanity’s various
spheres of existence, of how really necessary
the church of Christ, her mission and her
service are to humanity. At times this awareness
has proved stronger than the various critical
attitudes attacking “ab intra,” internally, the
church, her institutions and structures, and
ecclesiastics and their activities. This growing
critism was certainly due to various causes and
we are furthermore sure that it was not always
without sincere love for the church.
Undoubtedly one of the tendencies it displayed
was to overcome what has been called
triumphalism, about which there was frequent
discussion during the council. While it is right
that, in accordance with the example of her
Master, who is “humble in heart” (13), the
church also should have humility as her
foundation, that she should have a critical sense
with regard to all that goes to make up her
human character and activity, and that she
should always be very demanding on herself,
nevertheless criticism too should have its just
limits. Otherwise it ceases to be constructive
and does not reveal truth, love and thankfulness
for the grace in which we become sharers
principally and fully in and through the church.
Furthermore such criticism does not express an
attitude of service but rather a wish to direct
the opinion of others in accordance with one’s
own, which is at times spread abroad in too
thoughtless a manner.
Gratitude is due to Paul VI because, while
respecting every particle of truth contained in
the various human opinions, he preserved at the
same time the providential balance of the bark’s
helmsman (14). The church that I - through
John Paul I - have had entrusted to me almost
immediately after him is admittedly not free of
internal difficulties and tension. At the same
time, however, she is internally more
strengthened against the excesses of
self-criticism: she can be said to be more critical
with regard to the various thoughtless
criticisms, more resistant with respect to the
various “novelties,” more mature in her spirit
of discerning, better able to bring out of her
everlasting treasure “what is new and what is
old” (15), more intent on her own mystery,
and because of all that more serviceable for her
mission of salvation for all: God “desires all
men to be saved and to come to the knowledge
of the truth” (16).
5. Collegiality and Apostolate
In spite of all appearances, the church is now
more united in the fellowship of service and in
the awareness of apostolate. This unity springs
from the principle of collegiality, mentioned by
the Second Vatican Council. Christ himself
made this principle a living part of the apostolic
College of the Twelve with Peter at their head,
and he is continuously renewing it in the
College of the Bishops, which is growing more
and more over all the earth remaining united
with and under the guidance of the successor of
St. Peter. The council did more than mention
the principle of collegiality: it gave it immense
new life, by - among other things - expressing
the wish for a permanent organ of collegiality,
which Paul VI founded by setting up the Synod
of the Bishops, whose activity not only gave a
new dimension to his pontificate but was also
later clearly reflected in the pontificate of John
Paul I and that of his unworthy successor from
the day they began.
The principle of collegiality showed itself
particularly relevant in the difficult
post-conciliar period, when the shared
unanimous position of the College of the
Bishops - which displayed chiefly through the
synod, its union with Peter’s successor - helped
to dissipate doubts and at the same time
indicated the correct ways for renewing the
church in her universal dimension. Indeed, the
synod was the source, among other things, of
that essential momentum for evangelization
that found expression in the apostolic
exhortation “Evangelii Nuntiandi” (17), which
was so joyously welcomed as a program for
renewal which was both apostolic and also
pastoral. The same line was follwed in the work
of the last ordinary session of the Synod of the
Bishops, held about a year before the death of
Pope Paul VI and dedicated, as is known, to
catechesis. The results of this work have still to
be arranged and enunciated by the Apostolic
See.
As we are dealing with the evident
development of the forms in which episcopal
collegiality is expressed, mention must be made
at least of the process of consolidation of
national episcopal conferences throughout the
church and of other collegial structures of an
international or continental character.
Referring also to the centuries-old tradition of
the church, attention should be directed to the
activity of the various diocesan, provincial and
national synods. It was the council’s idea, an
idea consistently put into practice by Paul VI,
that structures of this kind, with their centuries
of trial by the church, and the other forms of
collegial collaboration by bishops, such as the
metropolitan structure - not to mention each
individual diocese - should pulsate in full
awareness of their own identity and, at the
same time, of their own originality within the
universal unity of the church. The same spirit
of collaboration and shared responsibility is
spreading among priests also, as is confirmed by
the many councils of priests that have sprung
up since the council. That spirit has extended
also among the laity, not only strengthening the
already existing organizations for lay apostolate
but also creating new ones that often have a
different outline and excellent dynamism.
Furthermore, lay people conscious of their
responsibility for the church have willingly
committed themselves to collaborating with the
pastors and with representatives of the
institutes of consecrated life, in the spheres of
the diocesan synods and of the pastoral
councils in the parishes and dioceses.
I must keep all this in mind at the beginning
of my pontificate as a reason for giving thanks
to God, for warmly encouraging all my brothers
and sisters and for recalling with heartfelt
gratitude the work of the Second Vatican
Council and my great predecessors, who set in
motion this new surge of live for the church, a
movement that is much stronger than the
symptoms of doubt, collapse and crisis.
6. The Road to Christian Unity
What shall I say of all the initiatives that have
sprung from the new ecumenical orientation?
The unforgettable Pope John XXIII set out the
problem of Christian unity with evangelical
clarity as a simple consequence of the will of
Jesus Christ himself, our master, the will that
Jesus stated on several occasions but to which
he gave expression in a special way in his prayer
in the upper room that night before he died: “I
pray . . . Father . . . that they may all be one”
(18). The Second Vatican Council responded
concisely to this requirement with its decree on
ecumenism. Pope Paul VI, availing himself of
the activities of the Secretariat for Promoting
Christian Unity, began the first difficult steps
on the road to the attainment of that unity.
Have we gone far along that road? Without
wishing to give a detailed reply, we can say that
we have made real and important advances.
And one thing is certain: we have worked with
perseverance and consistency, and the
representatives of other Christian churches and
communities have also committed themselves
together with us, for which we are heartily
grateful to them. It is also certain that in the
present historical situation of Christianity and
the world the only possibility we see of
fulfilling the church’s universal mission, with
regard to ecumenical questions, is that of
seeking sincerely, perseveringly, humbly and
also courageously the ways of drawing closer
and of union. Pope Paul VI gave us his personal
example for this. We must therefore seek unity
without being discouraged at the difficulties
that can appear or accumulate along that road;
otherwise we would be unfaithful to the word
of Christ, we would fail to accomplish his
testament. Have we the right to run this risk?
There are people who in the face of the
difficulties or because they consider that the
first ecumenical endeavors have brought
negative results would like to turn back. Some
even express the opinion that these efforts are
harmful to the cause of the Gospel, are leading
to a further rupture in the church, are causing
confusion of ideas in questions of faith and
morals and are ending up with a specific
indifferentism. It is perhaps a good thing that
the spokesmen for these opinions should
express their fears. However, in this respect
also, correct limits must be maintained. It is
obvious that this new stage in the church’s life
demands of us a faith that is particularly aware,
profound and responsible. True ecumenical
activity means openness, drawing closer,
availability for dialogue, and a shared
investigation of the truth in the full evangelical
and Christian sense; but in no way does it or
can it mean giving up or in any way diminishing
the treasures of divine truth that the church has
constantly confessed and taught. To all who,
for whatever motive, would wish to dissuade
the church from seeking the universal unity of
Christians the question must once again be put:
Have we the right not to do it? Can we fail to
have trust - in spite of all human weakness and
all the faults of past centuries - in our Lord’s
grace as revealed recently through what the
Holy Spirit said and we heard during the
council? If we were to do so, we would deny
the truth concerning ourselves that was so
eloquently expressed by the apostle: “By the
grace of God I am what I am, and his grace
towards me was not in vain” (19).
What we have just said must also be applied -
although in another way and with the due
differences - to activity for coming closer
together with the representatives of the
non-Christian religions, an activity expressed
through dialogue, contacts, prayer in common,
investigation of the treasures of human
spirituality, in which, as we know well, the
members of these religions also are not lacking.
Does it not sometimes happen that the firm
belief of the followers of the non-Christian
religions - a belief that is also an effect of the
Spirit of truth operating outside the visible
confines of the Mystical Body - can make
Christians ashamed at being often themselves so
disposed to doubt concerning the truths
revealed by God and proclaimed by the church
and so prone to relax moral principles and open
the way to ethical permissiveness. It is a noble
thing to have a predisposition for understanding
every person, analyzing every system and
recognizing what is right; this does not at all
mean losing certitude about one’s own faith
(20) or weakening the principles of morality,
the lack of which will soon make itself felt in
the life of whole societies, with deplorable
consequences besides.
II
THE MYSTERY OF THE REDEMPTION
7. Within the Mystery of Christ
While the ways on which the council of the
century has set the church going, ways
indicated by the late Pope Paul VI in his first
encyclical, will continue to be for a long time
the ways that all of us must follow, we can at
the same time rightly ask at this new stage:
How, in what manner shall we continue? What
should we do, in order that this new advent of
the church connected with the approaching end
of the second millenium may bring us closer to
him whom sacred Scripture calls “Everlasting
Father,” Pater futuri saeculi? (21) This is the
fundamental question that the new pope must
put to himself on accepting in a spirit of
obedience in faith the call corresponding to the
command that Christ gave Peter several times,
“Feed my lambs,” (22) meaning: Be the
shepherd of my sheepfold, and again, “And
when you have turned again, strengthen your
brethren.” (23)
To this question, dear brothers, sons and
daughters, a fundamental and essential response
must be given. Our response must be: Our spirit
is set in one direction, the only direction for
out intellect, will and heart is - toward Christ
our redeemer, toward Christ, the redeemer of
man. We wish to look toward him - because
there is salvation in no one else but him the Son
of God - repeating what Peter said: “Lord, to
whom shall we go? You have the words of
eternal life.” (24)
Through the church’s consciousness, which
the council considerably developed, through all
levels of this self-awareness, and through all the
fields of activity in which the church expresses,
finds and confirms herself, we must constantly
aim at him “who is the head,” (25) “through
whom are all things and through whom we
exist,” (26) who is both “the way and the
truth,” (27) and “the resurrection and the life,”
(28) seeing whom, we see the Father, (29) and
who had to go away from us (30) - that is, by
his death on the cross and then by his ascension
into heaven - in order that the Counsellor
should come to us and should keep coming to
us as the Spirit of Truth. (31) In him are “all
the tresures of wisdom and knowledge,” (32)
and the church is his body. (33) “By her
relationship with Christ, the church is a kind of
sacrament or sign and means of intimate union
with God, and of the unity of all mankind,”
(34) and the source of this is he, he himself, he
the redeemer.
The church does not cease to listen to his
words. She rereads them continually. With the
greatest devotion she reconstructs every detail
of his life. These words are listened to also by
non-Christians. The life of Christ speaks, also,
to many who are not capable of repeating with
Peter, “You are the Christ, the son of the living
God.” (35) He, the son of the living God,
speaks to people also as man: it is his life that
speaks, his humanity, his fidelity to the truth,
his all-embracing love. Furthermore, his death
on the cross speaks - that is to say the
inscrutable depth of his suffering and
abandonment. The church never ceases to relive
his death on the cross and his resurrection,
which constitute the content of the church’s
daily life. Indeed, it is by the command of
Christ himself, her master, that the church
unceasingly celebrates the Eucharist, finding in
it the “fountain of life and holiness,” (36) the
efficacious sign of grace and reconciliation with
God, and the pledge of eternal life. The church
lives his mystery, draws unwearyingly from it
and continually seeks ways of bringing this
mystery of her master and lord to humanity -
to the peoples, the nations, the succeeding
generations, and every individual human being
- as if she were ever repeating as the Apostle
did, “For I decided to know nothing among
you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
(37) The church stays within the sphere of the
mystery of the redemption, which has become
the fundamental principal of her life and
mission.
(Continued next issue)
FOOTNOTES
1. Jn. 1 :14.
2. Jn. 3:16.
3. Heb. 1 :12.
4. “Exsultet” at the Easter Vigil.
5. Jn. 16:7.
6. Jn. 15:26-27.
7. Jn. 16:13.
8. Cf. Rev. 2:7.
9. Vatican Council II: Dogmatic
Constitution on the Church “Lumen
Gentium,” 1: AAS 57 (1965) 5.
10. Eph. 3:8.
11. Jn. 14:24.
12. Pope Paul VI: encyclical letter
“Ecclesiam Suam”: AAS 56 (1964) 650 ff.
13. Mt. 11:29.
14. Mention must be made here of the
salient documents of the pontificate of Paul
VI, some of which were spoken of by himself
in his address during Mass on the Solemnity
of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in 1978:
encyclical “Ecclesiam suam”: A A 56 (1964)
609-659; apostolic letter “Investigabiles
Divitias Christi”: AAS 57 (1965) 298-301;
encyclical “Sacerdotalis Caelibatus”: AAS 59
(1967) 657-697; “Solemn Profession of
Faith”: AAS 60 (1968) 433-445; encyclical
“Humanae Vitae”: AAS 60 (1968) 481-503;
apostolic exhortation “Quinque lam Anni”:
AAS 63 (1971) 97-106; apostolic exhortation
“Evangelica Testification AAS 63 (1971)
497-535; apostolic exhortation “Peterna Cum
Senevolentia”: AAS 67 (1975) 5-23;
apostolic exhortation “Gaudete in Domino”:
AAS 67 (1975) 289-322; apostolic
exhortation “Evangelii Nuntiandi”: AAS 68
(1976) 5-76.
15. Mt. 13:52.
16. 1 Tim. 2:4.
17. Pope Paul VI: apostolic exhortation
“Evangelii Nuntiandi”: AAS 68 (1976) 5-76.
18. Jn. 17:21; cf. 17:11, 22-23; 10:16; Lk.
9:49:50, 54.
19. 1 Cor. 15:10.
20. Cf. Vatican Council I: Dogmatic
Constitution “Dei Filius,” Cap. Ill “De fide,”
can. 6: “Concilorum Oecumenicorum
Decreta,” Ed. Istituto per le Scienze
Religiose, Bologna 1973, p. 811.
21. Is. 9:6.
22. Jn. 21 :14.
23. Lk. 22:32.
24. Jn. 6: 68; cf. Acts 4:8-12.
25. Cf. Eph. 1:10, 22, 4:25; Col. 1:18.
26. 1 Cor. 8:6; Cf. Col. 1:17.
27. Jn.14:6.
28. Jn. 1 1 :25.
29. Cf. Jn. 14:9.
30. Cf. Jn. 16:7.
31. Cf. Jn. 16:7, 13.
32. Col. 2:3.
33. Cf. Rom. 12:5, 1 Cor. 6:15; 10:17;
12:12, 27; Eph. 1:23; 2:16; 4:4; Col. 1:24;
3:15.
34. Vatican Council II: Dogmatic
Constitution on the Church “Lumen
Gentium,” 1: AAS 57 (1965) 5.
35. Mt. 16:16.
36. Cf. Litany of the Sacred Heart.
37. 1 Cor. 2:2.
“The principle of collegiality
showed itself particularly relevant
in the difficult post - conciliar period...”