Today's Marists Volume 6, Issue 2

The Central Focus of Three
Encyclicals and the Pastoral
Vision of Pope Francis
by Ted Keating, SM
Our themes for the recent and present
editions of Today’s Marists attempt to stay
focused on the reality of our lives in these
difficult times: the Pandemic which has
tested and challenged so many areas of
our lives; the fairly sudden reawakening
to the racial dynamics of our society
with fresh understandings of how they
touch all our lives in this country; the
difficulties in our political climate in the
US; the so-called “populism” emerging
in so many nations surfacing elements
again of fascism and violent styles in
politics; the frightening predictions of
growing climate change around us that
lead to anxious concern for our children
and young people; and the reemergence
of dangerous superstate confrontations
not seen since the Cold War. We have not
seen these levels of profound challenge to
our world all at once in many decades (if
ever?).
Providentially, we have Pope Francis
who can hold in his large imagination
and heart all of these various sources
of concern for humanity and so many
aspects of our life together “in our
common home” (Laudato Sí’, “Praise
be to You”); sources of concern about
inequality, poverty, and 60 million
refugees on the move (Fratelli Tutti,
“All Our Brothers and Sisters”); and the
hungers of the human heart seeking
a deeper life than the dehumanizing
superficiality of so much of present
culture (Gaudete et Exultate, “Rejoice
and be glad”). He does this coming from
a common center of Catholic thought
since Vatican II - integral humanism.
He did not invent the term, but he has
enriched it thoroughly by applying
it so brilliantly to the many difficult
challenges of our times that sometimes
seem beyond solution when looked at
separately. He is calling “all humanity”
to accountability for the condition of the
world in a global movement of integral
development to which all can commit
because it is humanity itself that is at
issue in all of them. I would like to break
the phrases down a bit and help to unfold
them in these few words because it will
also provide the focus for the topics and
articles in this issue.
Early in Christian History the great
theologian St. Irenaeus said that “the
glory of God is humanity full alive.”
That phrase centers on the centrality
of humanity to God’s purposes in
history. It is a fairly easy jump from the
very meaning of Jesus Christ coming
among us for our liberation from evil
and our salvation as a full human being.
Jesus, as God, could not become fully
human unless there was something
divine in humanity already that could
be seen as dimly awaiting the coming
of Jesus as fully human yet God for the
transformation of all humanity.
St. Paul says:
“For creation awaits with eager
expectation the revelation of the
children of God…. We know that all
creation is groaning in labor pains
even until now; and not only that, but
we ourselves, who have the first fruits
of the Spirit, we also groan within
ourselves as we wait for adoption,
the redemption of our bodies.”
(Romans 8:19)
We also know that for three centuries
the early Church was torn in conflict
trying to understand the meaning of
Jesus coming among us as a human
being while remaining God. After
several Councils, the Church ended
up protecting the total reality of Jesus’
humanity against all efforts to distort,
qualify and weaken this mystery.
Whether Jesus needed all this effort to
be protected from distortion is a matter
for discussion, but even now historians
are seeing that what may have been at
issue in these Councils was the meaning
of humanity itself both in secular history
and in the Church. We would be living
in an entirely different Western world if
those efforts had gone astray weakening
our sense of the dignity of humanity.
Anyone quarrelling with the Church’s
clear social mission of the protection of
human dignity in all situations as a core
element of its proclamation of the Gospel
would have to contend with the weight of
these Councils of the early Church. The
reality of Jesus was at issue but so was His
and our humanity. The Eastern Church
is clearer in saying that the divinization
of humanity is at the center of Christian
spirituality because that is what Jesus is
about in his Incarnation. The Western
Church has other approaches to this
foundational mandate of human dignity
in its very destiny in God’s purposes for
creation. That is where the quote from St.
Paul is taking us in his statement and it
further explains the words of Irenaeus.
Paul takes us to the next step showing
that the nature and destiny of all of God’s
creation is at issue in our redemption.
This is central to Pope Francis’ Encyclical
Letter Laudato Sí’, but also to his whole
approach in each of his three Encyclicals.
It also is the unifying background of
this edition of Today’s Marists giving the
deeper meaning to every issue being
discussed here.
In Volume 3, Issue 2 of Today’s Marists,
we incorporated the Encyclical of Paul
VI just after the Second Vatican Council
On the Progress of Peoples, especially its
summary statement that “Dialogue is the
new word for Love,” a central theme of
the Encyclical making clear that without
dialogue there cannot be any real human
progress. Communication and freedom
are in the very nature of what it means
to be human. The protection of Jesus’
freedom in the last of the great Councils
4 Today’s Marists Magazine