The Encyclical Lumen Fidei comes under the authorship of Pope Francis, but is known it was written by the previous Pope, now Emeritus, Benedict XVI. Pope Francis clearly confesses : «I assume your precious work, limiting myself to add some contribution to the text».  As it should be, otherwise, it would not have the papal teaching seal. It would simply be a theological text by someone who was Pope once.

Benedict XVI wanted to write a trilogy on the cardinal virtues. He wrote on hope and love. But faith was missing, which now he does with small additions by Pope Francis.

The Encyclical brings no sensational novelty that calls the attention of the theological community, of the faithful as a whole or of the general public. It is a high theology text, with an over elaborate style and filled with quotations from the Bible and from the Holy Fathers. Curiously, Benedict quotes authors from Western culture such as Dante, Dostoievski, Buber, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Romano Guardini and the poet Thomas Elliot. It can be clearly seen the hand of Pope Benedict XVI, especially in refined discussions hard to comprehend even for theologians, handling Greek and Hebrew expressions, as a doctor and a teacher often do.

The text is addressed to the Church. Talks of the light of faith to those who already are inside the world illuminated by the faith. In this sense, it is an intra-systemic reflection.

It has a typical Western and European diction. Only European authorities speak in the text. Not considered are the teachings of continental churches, with their traditions, theologies, saints and witnesses of the faith. It is fitting to point out this solipsism, because only 24% of the Catholics live in Europe, the rest is outside, 62% of them in the so-called Third World and Fourth World. I can imagine a Catholic from South Korea, India, Angola, Mozambique or even an Andean Catholic reading this Encyclical. Possibly all of them will understand very little of what is written there, nor they will find themselves mirrored in that type of argumentation.

The line of theological argumentation is typical of the thinking of Joseph Ratzinger as a theologian: the preponderance of truth as theme, I would say, almost obsessive. In the name of that truth is frontally against modernity. Has difficulty to accept one of the most important themes of modern thinking: the autonomy of the subject and its use at the light of reason. Ratzinger sees it as a way of substituting the light of the faith.

It does not show that attitude so much recommended by Vatican Council II which would be: in facing the contemporary cultural, philosophical and ideological tendencies, it is important above all to identify the nuggets of truth in them; and from there organize the dialogue, the critique and the complimentary. It is a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit to imagine that the moderns have only thought lies and falsehoods.

To Ratzinger love itself has to be submitted to truth, without which would not overcome the isolation of the «I» (nº 27). However, we know that love has its own reasons and obeys a distinct logic, different, without being contrary to truth. Love cannot see with clarity, but sees reality with more profundity. Saint Augustine following Plato already said that we only comprehend that which we truly love. To Ratzinger, «love is the experience of truth» (n.27) and  «without truth, faith does not save» (nº 24).

This declaration is problematic in theological terms, because all Tradition, especially the Councils, has affirmed that only saves «that truth informed by charity» (fides caritate informata). Without love, truth is insufficient to reach salvation. In pedestrian language, I would say: what saves are not true preaching but effective praxis.

Every document from the Magisterium is done by many hands, seeking to contemplate the distinct acceptable theological tendencies. At the end, the Pope gives it its form and signs it. This is also applicable to this document. In its final part, probably from the hand of Pope Francis, there is a notable opening that does not match well with the previous parts, that are strongly doctrinal. In them is emphatically affirmed that the light of faith illuminates all dimensions of human life. In the final part, the attitude is more modest: «Faith is not a light that dissipates all our darkness, but a lantern that guides our steps in the night and that is enough for the journey» (nº 57). With theological precision affirms that «the profession of faith is not to assent to a group of abstract truths, but to make that life enters in plain communion with the living God» (45).

The richest part, in my opinion, is nº 45 when the Creed is explained. There it turns into an affirmation that goes over theology and touches philosophy: «the faithful affirms that the center of being, the most profound heart of all things is the divine communion» (nº 45). And completes: «God-communion is capable of embracing the history of man and introducing him in his dynamism of communion» (nº 45).

But in the Encyclical is seen a painful lagoon that takes away great part of its relevance: it does not touch the present crisis of faith of the human being, his/her doubts, questions that not even faith can answer: Where was God in the tsunami that decimated thousands of lives or in Fukushima? How to believe after the massacres of thousands of Native people at the hands of Christians throughout our history, of the thousands of tortured and murdered by military dictatorships from the years ‘970s to ‘980s? How to still have faith after the millions of dead in the Nazi concentration camps? The Encyclical does not offer a single element to answer these questions. To believe is always to believe in spite of… Faith does not eliminate the doubts and anguish of a Jesus who cries on the cross: “Father, why have you abandoned me?”. Faith has to go through this hell and become hope that for everything there is a sense, but hidden in God.  When will it be revealed?

Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Melina Alfaro, alfaro_melina@yahoo.com.ar,
done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

Over the last few years I have worked extensively on caring, above all in the books Knowing How to Care and The Necessary Caring. Caring, more than a technique or a virtue, is, among other things, an art and a new paradigm of respect – loving, diligent and participative – for nature and for human relationships. I have attended many gatherings and conferences of health professionals, with whom I have been able to talk and learn, because caring is the natural ethic of this sacred activity. I retake here some ideas relating to the attitudes that must be present in those who care for the sick at home or in a hospital. Let’s look at some of them.

Compassion: is the capacity of putting oneself in the place of the other and to feel with him/her, so that the sick person feels that s/he is not alone in his/her pain.

Essential caressing: to touch the other is to return to him/her the certitude that s/he belongs to humanity; the touch of a caress is a manifestation of love. Frequently the illness is a sign that the patient wants to communicate, to talk, to be listened to. The patient looks for meaning in the illness. The nurse and the physician, man or woman, can help the patient open up and talk. According to testimony of a nurse: “When I touch you, I care for you, when I care for you I touch you… If you are elderly I care for you when you are tired, I touch you when I embrace you; I touch you when you are crying, I care for you when you can no longer walk”.

Sensible assistance: The patient needs help and the nurse wants to care. The convergence of these two movements generates reciprocity and overcomes the sense of an unequal relationship. To create support that helps maintain a relative autonomy, assistance must be prudent: encouraging the patient to do what s/he can, and doing it or assisting the patient only when s/he cannot do it alone.

To return the trust in life: What the patient most desires is to recuperate the lost equilibrium and be healthy again. Hence one must be decisive, returning to the patient the trust in life, in his/her interior energies, physical, psychical and spiritual, because they act as true medicines. One must encourage symbolic gestures charged with affection. It is not rare that the drawings of a little girl elicit in her sick father as much energy and good spirit as if he had taken the best medications. Help the patient welcome the human condition: Normally the patient asks himself with surprise: Why did this happen to me now, when all was going so well for me? Why if I am still young has this grave illness attacked me? Why are family, social and labor relationships cut off by the illness? Such questioning is a humble reflection on the condition humaine, exposed at every moment to unexpected risks and vulnerabilities.

Any healthy person can fall ill.  And all illness refers to health, which is the principal point of reference. But we can not jump higher than our shadow, and there is no way but to welcome life as it is: in health and illness, strong and fragile, passionate for life and accepting of eventual illness and, finally, death itself. In those moments the patients make profound reflections on life. They are not satisfied by the purely scientific explanations (always necessary) given by physicians, but long for a meaning that comes from a profound dialogue with the Self, or from the wise word of a priest, pastor or spiritual person. They then retake the everyday values that previously went unnoticed, redefining their life plan and maturing. And in the end, they are at peace.

To accompany the patient in the great journey: There is an inevitable moment when everyone, even the most elderly person in the world, has to die. It is the law of life, being subject to death. It is a decisive journey.  One must be prepared for a life guided by generous, responsible and beneficial moral values. However, for the great majority, death is suffered as an assault and a kidnapping in the face of which one is impotent.  And finally one understands that everything must be relinquished.

The discreet, respectful presence of the nurse, offering a hand, whispering words of comfort, inviting the patient to embrace the encounter with the Light and go to the womb of God, who is Father and Mother of goodness, can help the moribund leave life serenely, with gratitude for the life one has lived.

If the patient has a religious orientation, whisper in the ear the consoling words of Saint John: If your heart accuses you, remember that God is greater than your heart (John 1, 3, 20). The patient can give him/herself up with tranquility to God, whose heart is pure love and mercy. To die is to fall into the arms of God.

Here caring reveals itself much more as an art than a technique, and presupposes in the health professional a density of life, spiritual meaning, and a vision that extends beyond life and death.

To reach that phase is the mission that nurses and physicians, men or women, must seek, in order to be fully the servants of life. There is value to all in these wise words: The tragedy of life is not death, but that we let ourselves die inside while we are still living.

Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Melina Alfaro, cybermelinaalfaro@bandalibre.com,
done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.