Issue 70 - The Pilgrim - April 2018 - The newspaper of the Archdiocese of Southwark

The Pilgrim April 2018
What do you know about
Papal documents?
Fr David Gibbons, parish priest of St Thomas of Canterbury
in Sevenoaks, continues is series in which he provides
a duffer’s guide to some of the basics of Catholicism.
Feature
Papal documents appear all the
time, some short, some long (e.g.
Amoris Laetitia is longer than any of
the Gospels), and of course often
using Church jargon which isn’t
always immediately clear. How do
we know which are the most
important? Is there a hierarchy of
documents? Yes, although it is not
always that simple.
Apostolic Constitutions represent
the highest level of papal
documents, which concern the
promulgation of doctrine or specify
legislation for the whole Church.
Two Marian doctrines, designating
her Immaculate Conception
(Ineffabilis Deus of Pope Pius IX in
1854) and Assumption (Pope Pius
XII’s Munificentissimus Deus of
1950), were proclaimed through
Apostolic Constitutions.
Pope St John Paul II established
the revised Code of Canon Law in
1983 (Sacrae Disciplinae Leges) and
the Catechism of the Catholic
Church in 1992 (Fidei Depositum).
Pope Benedict XVI implemented the
personal Ordinariates for former
Anglicans in the Apostolic
Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus
in 2009. The Vatican II document on
the Liturgy (Sacrosanctum
Concilium) of 1963 is another
example.
Next come Encyclicals, which
slightly confusingly can be
Encyclical Letters – to the entire
church - or Encyclical Epistles – to a
particular group. The former are
circular letters addressed to all
Catholics, all people of good will, or
all the Bishops.
An example of an epistle is Pope
Pius XI’s Mit Brennender Sorge,
written in German in 1937
expressing his concern about Hitler’s
Germany. Since Pope Leo XIII issued
Rerum Novarum in 1891, over 150
Encyclicals have been produced by
successive popes.
Perhaps the most controversial
Encyclical is Pope Paul VI’s Humanae
Vitae in 1968, reaffirming Church
teaching against artificial
contraception but also on marriage
and procreation. Encyclicals rank
after Apostolic Constitutions, but
are usually issued about important
issues.
Ranking third are Apostolic
Exhortations, the most recent of
which, Pope Francis’ Amoris
Laetitia, has also proved quite
controversial. These often follow
Synods of Bishops (when they are
known as Post-synodal Apostolic
Exhortations), and are not dogmatic
definitions or legislative documents
but contain reflections on a
particular topic. An example is Pope
Francis’ Evangelii Gaudium in 2013.
However, there are other ways of
categorising Papal documents, and
here it gets more complex. Letters
of less solemn authority than
Encyclicals are Apostolic Letters,
e.g. Pope St John Paul II’s Tertio
Millennio Adveniente of 1994
announcing the Great Jubilee in
2000.
A Motu Proprio (“by one’s own
initiative”) is a legislative document
or decree issued by a pope on his
own initiative, such as Pope St John
Paul II’s Misericordia Dei in 2002
emphasising the importance of
Confession.
A Papal Bull is a decree by a
pope; the word bull refers to the
lead seal, bulla in Latin, attached
to the document to authenticate it.
Since the sixth century hundreds of
Papal Bulls have been issued.
Some interesting historical ones
include Pope St Pius V’s Regnans in
Excelsis in 1570 (declaring Elizabeth
of England a heretic and releasing
her subjects from loyalty to her
reign), Pope Gregory’s Bull of 1582
(establishing the Gregorian calendar),
and Pope Pius IX’s Universalis
Ecclesiae (refounding the Catholic
hierarchy in England & Wales in
1850). In 1910 Pope St Pius X decreed
in Quam Singulari that children
should receive their first Confession
and Holy Communion at the age of
reason, about seven years-old.
The importance of these last
three categories varies. Regnans in
Excelsis clearly no longer applies,
whereas Quam Singulari is very
much in force. Some are out of
date, while others retain the force
of law until a pope changes it.
If you want you can find all Papal
documents online, from Acerba
Animi of 1932 to Youth of 1978
(there is no document beginning
with z): visit www.vatican.va/
offices/papal_docs_list.html. The
Latin names, incidentally, used as
titles are taken from the first words
of each document, known as the
incipit.
Pope John Paul II signs the new Code of Canon Law in the Vatican in 1983. With him are Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger and Venezuelan Archbishop Rosalio Jose Castillo Lara, chairman of the Vatican commission that
had spent two decades revising the code.
Page 5