{"id":314,"date":"2007-11-30T06:55:38","date_gmt":"2007-11-30T06:55:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/11\/spe-salvi-1.html"},"modified":"2007-11-30T06:55:38","modified_gmt":"2007-11-30T06:55:38","slug":"spe-salvi-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/11\/spe-salvi-1.html","title":{"rendered":"Spe Salvi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Got your new encyclical right here..<\/a>
\n(Zenit has it up as well, including a pdf version, which might be helpful if you want to print it out.<\/a> Because you have to take read it on the run today. Because you have to condense it by…oh, don’t remind me.)
\nJohn Allen on the press conference introducing the document:<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking this morning at a Vatican news conference, Cardinal Georges Cottier, a Dominican and the former theologian of the papal household under Pope John Paul II, said that the encyclical argues that the virtue of hope is “decisive for culture and for an authentic humanism.”
\nCottier said the encyclical also illustrates how Christian hope is not a “flight from the world,” but rather a force that impels Christians into active service to others and to the world.
\nDuring the news conference, television screens played images of the pope signing the new encyclical this morning.
\nThroughout the encyclical, Benedict weaves familiar themes for those who know his mind. Repeatedly, for example, he insists that the claims of the Christian faith do not place limits on human freedom or on the free exercise of reason, but rather point freedom and reason to their ultimate fulfillment. He also returns once more to what he describes as the “fundamental error” of Marxism, placing its hope exclusively in materialism.
\nBenedict wanted this encyclical to appear in the Christmas season, since Christmas is the great feast of the Incarnation, traditionally understood as the principal symbol of Christian hope. On Saturday, the church enters the period of Advent, pointing towards Christmas.
\nWith Spe Salvi<\/em>,, Benedict solidifies his profile as a \u201cpope of the basics\u201d \u2013 determined to accent the core principles of the Christian faith.
\nEarly indications suggest that Spe Salvi<\/em> may succeed in appealing to a wide cross-section of Catholics; even the German reform group \u201cWir Sind Kirche,\u201d for example, one of Joseph Ratzinger\u2019s harshest critics over the years, issued a statement today calling the encyclical \u201cimpressive and engaging.\u201d
\nMoreover, the focus on love and hope for his first two encyclicals also serves the pope\u2019s ecumenical purposes, since Christians have not been divided historically on these two virtues. Competing understandings of the faith, on the other hand, have been far more explosive.
\nThe Feast of St. Andrew is also the patronal feast of the Patriarch of Constantinople, offering another ecumenical dimension. Cottier said this morning that the text could be a “document of unity” for the different Christian confessions. Cottier also noted that Benedict quotes the Protestant Biblical scholar Helmut Koester approvingly in the encyclical.
\nJesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesperson, said this morning in a Rome news conference that the encyclical is \u201cabsolutely and personally\u201d a work of Benedict XVI. As a matter of fact, Lombardi said, papal advisors had been working on another encyclical on social themes, and were \u201csurprised\u201d when Benedict chose to bring this project to completion first, virtually exclusively the work of his own hand during the Easter season and his summer period at Castel Gandolfo.
\nLombardi said that work on the social encyclical will continue.
\nIn the text of Spe Salvi<\/em>, Benedict cites a series of recent saints and Catholic heroes, from Mother Josephine Bakhita to \u201cthe unforgettable Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan,\u201d the late Vietnamese prelate who spent 13 years in a Communist prison, and who wrote a book on the experience titled Prayers of Hope.<\/em>
\nBenedict also reflects at length on various Biblical passages related to hope. Among other things, he tackles the much-disputed question of how to understand the Greek term hypostasis<\/em> in Hebrews 11, which reads that \u201cfaith is the substance of things hoped for.\u201d Benedict argues that this \u201csubstance\u201d is not, as Martin Luther suggested, merely a subjective sensation within the individual believer, but rather an objective reality based on the truth of the Christian faith.
\nBenedict also rejects an individualistic interpretation of hope, arguing that Christian hope points toward a \u201ccommunitarian salvation\u201d leading the believer \u201cout of the prison of the ego.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(I have to read this today and turn around a treatment of it by tomorrow, so….see ya!)
\nZadok is reading through it and making observations as he goes..<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Got your new encyclical right here.. (Zenit has it up as well, including a pdf version, which might be helpful if you want to print it out. Because you have to take read it on the run today. Because you have to condense it by…oh, don’t remind me.) John Allen on the press conference introducing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nSpe Salvi - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/11\/spe-salvi-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Spe Salvi - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Got your new encyclical right here.. (Zenit has it up as well, including a pdf version, which might be helpful if you want to print it out. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}