alt Hacker NewsThe Roman Catholic Church has a lot of things wrong with it, now and in the past, but it’s a human institution older than almost any other, and it’s composed of a lot of very intelligent people. Agree or disagree with them, but a papal encyclical is almost always worth reading and understanding.
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There are so many encyclicals, apostolic letters, etc. One could spend years reading just a fraction of them, depending on reading and comprehension speed, of course, which varies by person.
Two I recommend, from the last 40 years:
Veritatis splendor, John Paul II, 1993
Argues that Christian freedom is fulfilled, not limited, by objective moral truth: some acts are intrinsically evil regardless of intention or circumstance, conscience must be formed by divine law rather than self-authorization, and the Church must faithfully teach this moral truth as the path to authentic human flourishing in Christ.
https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/d...
Fides et Ratio, John Paul II, 1998
Argues that faith and reason are complementary paths to truth: reason needs faith to avoid skepticism, relativism, and reductionism, while faith needs reason to express, defend, and deepen its understanding of divine revelation and the human search for meaning.
https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/d...
The Roman Catholic Church is an institution that went to war to try to prevent people from being able to read the bible in their own languages, that executed dissenters who challenged the doctrine on which it based its power, from scientists to Protestants. If it had never lost power in western Europe, it's quite possible the enlightenment and industrial revolution would never have happened, and humanity would still be living in the dark ages.
Indeed. And because of it’s age and outlook its view is very far back and very far forward.
The casual reference to a 135 year old encyclical that dealt with the seismic shift of industrialisation took me quite aback for a number of reasons.