When you have eliminated the impossible…

The Catholic News Service has an article online called “The Mystery of the Missing Encyclical”. No, we are not talking Pius XI’s encyclical against Nazism here (although that too is a “mystery” of sorts), but the other problem of the “third boot” we have been waiting to fall: The Encyclical on Faith.

I think CNS has got it basically right. The Pope will still write and issue the encyclical on faith – they’re just not saying which pope.

Same goes for the other, fourth “boot” yet to fall (“he’s got two one-legged friends, Min”) – the Post-Synodical Exhortation on the New Evangelisation. If it is Pope Scola or Pope Ouellet who finishes these two documents off, I expect that we will find it harder to do the “source criticism” on it than it was with “Deus Caritas Est”.

About Schütz

I am a PhD candidate & sessional academic at Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, Australia. After almost 10 years in ministry as a Lutheran pastor, I was received into the Catholic Church in 2003. I worked for the Archdiocese of Melbourne for 18 years in Ecumenism and Interfaith Relations. I have been editor of Gesher for the Council of Christians & Jews and am guest editor of the historical journal “Footprints”. I have a passion for pilgrimage and pioneered the MacKillop Woods Way.
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5 Responses to When you have eliminated the impossible…

  1. Peter says:

    I was aware that there had been “source criticism” on Caritas In Veritate but not Deus Caritas Est.

  2. Gareth says:

    On things Papal, I wonder how committed Catholics in the know will react if ‘Peter the Roman’ is actually elected

    • Peregrinus says:

      Surely whoever is elected will, by virtue of his election, be “Peter the Roman”? I’ve always regarded that particular “prophecy” as singularly devoid of content.

      • Gareth says:

        In fairness Pere you wont be at the upcoming conclave and I presume the men that will are well aware of its details, that one of the favoured Cardinals shares the precise nickname and that some Catholics do take such matters seriously.

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