It may have come as a surprise to many: an ageing theologian known for his conservative stance on sex exploring a highly controversial subject for the Roman Catholic Church — love.
And yet, Pope Benedict XVI’s first encyclical letter, far from being a moralistic list of dos and don’ts, offers an enlightened insight into how Christianity views this noblest of emotions.
”Deus caritas est [God is love]” draws from the teachings of the Old Testament, from ancient Greek and modern-day philosophers, to drive home the point that Catholics should treat love as a multifaceted, complex feeling that cannot be reduced to its more bland expressions.
”Today, the term ‘love’ has become one of the most frequently used and misused of words,” Benedict writes in his 70-page document.
The 78-year-old pope does not ignore critics who see the church as taking a morally negative stance towards sex.
”Nowadays Christianity of the past is often criticised as having been opposed to the body; and it is quite true that tendencies of this sort have always existed,” the pope says.
But did the church, ”with all her commandments and prohibitions, really destroy Eros?”, the pope asks.
And indeed, while he defends the importance of monogamous marriage as corresponding ”to the image of a monotheistic God”, he objects to ”the contemporary ways of exalting the body”.
”Eros reduced to pure ‘sex’,” the pope writes, ”becomes a commodity, a mere ‘thing’ to be bought and sold.”
But while this kind of reasoning may appear familiar to those who have repeatedly heard the former head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith lash out at condoms, homosexuality or sex before marriage, the pope’s exploration of Christian love makes for interesting reading to even the most cynic of critics.
Concepts of love
The pope looks at the relationship between two ancient Greek concepts of love, erotic love (”eros”) and spiritual and selfless love (”agape”), and argues that the two should not be separated.
”The more the two, in their different aspects, find a proper unity in the one reality of love, the more the true nature of love in general is realised.”
Eros without agape is ”a caricature or at least an impoverished form of love”, he says.
He notes that love cannot be reduced to a mere sentiment, which is transient by nature.
Instead, it is characteristic of mature love ”that it calls into play all man’s potentialities; it engages the whole man … it engages both our will and our intellect”.
According to Sandro Magister, an Italian church expert, Benedict is attempting to show that Catholics don’t have a problem with sex per se.
”Benedict isn’t opposing Christian love with sex. Instead, he is arguing that religion can actually enrich our idea of love,” Magister said.
This view is shared by Alceste Santini, another Vatican expert.
Santini argued that Benedict fully appreciates the fact that eroticism is ”part of human nature”.
”What he is trying to argue is that the love of God is so great that it can transform erotic love into spiritual and selfless love.”
Moreover, both experts noted that Benedict is using his first encyclical to bring the church back to its roots.
”Here we have a great theologian who is placing the teaching of Christianity’s core message at the centre of his papacy,” said Magister, who writes for Italian weekly L’Espresso.
‘Universal pastor’
A similar view was expressed earlier this week by the Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Francis George.
”This is the pope as theologian and now as universal pastor,” George said.
Commenting on the encyclical, George suggested the pope was aiming to distance himself from his reputation as an uncompromising disciplinarian and was instead casting himself as a pastor.
”[The encyclical] has a very pastoral theme; it shows that side of him which was always there but perhaps he was not able to express as easily in his former work,” George said.
The encyclical’s second part looks at the idea of charity. In essence, it seeks to apply a practical use to the concept of Christian love.
While insisting that ”charitable activity must be independent of parties and ideologies”, it attacks the Marxist idea that anyone who engages in charitable initiatives inevitably ends up preserving the status quo by ”making it appear at least to some extent tolerable”.
This is ”an inhuman philosophy”, the pope argues.
”One does not make the world more human by refusing to act humanely here and now,” the pope points out.
In addition, the pope argues that charity cannot be used as a means of winning over souls.
”Love is free; it is not practised as a way of achieving other ends,” he writes. — Sapa-dpa