Since his election in 1978, Pope John Paul II has intrigued millions of people, both inside the Catholic Church and outside. A prolific writer and speech-giver, he had discoursed on a wide range of religious and moral topics. In an effort to bring his theology within manageable confines, and to focus on his most formal statements, I have studied his seven encyclicals. Though these statements do not exhaust the range of his interests, and though their genre (a universal letter, with the style and content of previous popes’ encyclicals casting a large shadow over it) can be inhibiting, nonetheless they comprise a portion of John Paul II’s theology that is both representative and grave. I shall proceed here by first surveying the content of the order, the encyclicals and then assessing their assets and liabilities. In chronological order, the encyclicals of John Paul II are: Redemptor Hominis (March 4, 1979); Dives in Misericordia (November 30, 1980); Laborem Exercens (September 14, 1981); Slavorum Apostoli (June 2, 1985); Dominum et Vivificantem (May 30, 1986); Redemptoris Mater (March 25, 1987); and Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (December 30, 1987).

Redemptor Hominis

John Paul II’s first encyclical, written in the first year of his pontificate, lays out many of the themes that have dominated both his later discourses and his practical governance of the Catholic church. The introductory section notes the approach of the third millenium of Christianity in the year 2000. Considering this, the pope found his mind turning to Christ the redeemer, the source of Christian hope. Paying homage to his immediate predecessors, Pope Paul VI and John Paul I, John Paul II strives for a balance yet firm position concerning the turmoil that has wracked the church since the close of the Second Vatican Council. While he admits a proper place for criticism, his stronger emphasis is to limit such criticism, because excesses obscure the grace at the center of the church that should always stir great gratitude. The legacy from Vatican II that stands out includes the collegiality of the bishops. In the Council and the more recent Episcopal Synod, evangelization and ecumenism have emerged as compelling agenda.

The second part of Redemptor Hominis begins a sustained reflection on the mystery of redemption. The person and work of Christ are seen to be the form or focus clarifying God’s way of responding to human needs. In Christ, the love of God that is both creative and restorative has touched human confusion and pain, to make it penultimate. Both physical creation and human culture are included. The greatest need that human beings suffer, however, is for freedom, which John Paul II conceives to be essentially religious. A reference to Catholics and others suffering the curtailment of their religious rights under atheistic political regimes seems obvious. Implied as well is a criticism of materialism, Communist and Western alike, that chokes the human spirit.

The third part of Redemptor Hominis discusses the situation of redeemed humanity in the modern world. Here John Paul II proposes a christic anthropocentrism, such that humanity can serve Christian faith as the center and summary of the issues it must consider to estimate current global problems correctly. The Pope feels able to make humanity the measure of such assessments, because of Christ’s approach to each human being. From this perspective, the modern problems that most stand out are alienation, fear, social disorder, and infringement of human rights. The many people who lack a clear sense of God, who live under the threat of nuclear war, who inhabit societies with unconscionable gaps between the rich and the poor, and who lack the dignity provided by the right to work, to decent housing, to education, to adequate health care, and the like are groaning for the redemption clarified in Christ.

The fourth and last part of Redemptor Hominis deals with the Church’s mission in face of Christ’s redemption and humanity’s destiny. Here the view of the church that emerges makes it the champion of humanity’s vocation to fulfillment in God and through Christ. The church is also responsible for the basic truths about the human condition, especially humanity’s divine source and goal. The Pope then turns aside to sketch a reform of current aberrations within the Catholic church, stipulating a strict construction of the docility theologians ought to show the magisterium, the indissolubility of marriage, the binding force of clerical and religious vows of celibacy, the rules for celebrating the Eucharist, and the regulations for administering the sacrament of penance. Here there is no doubt that the Pope wants an end to experimentation and novelty, a return to the letter and (conservative) spirit of Vatican II and subsequent church rules. The first encyclical ends with an assimilation of the work of the church to the three-fold office of Christ as priest, prophet, and king, and a petition of Mary as the mother of all the faithful.

In retrospect, Redemptor Hominis emerges as a catchall. John Paul II has moved from a fascination with the redemptive activity of Christ to survey the current needs of both the modern and the catholic church, concluding that Christian faith, construed quite traditionally and ascetically, is the panacea.

Dives in Misericordia

The second encyclical of John Paul II is more sharply focused than the first. Meditating on the God who is rich in mercy, the pope shows how mercy is the form that divine love takes, when it ministers to human need. The tone of this encyclical is more positive than that of Redemptor Hominis, primarily because the bulk of its reflection deals with God’s largess rather than human failure or need. Thus, the first part deals with the revelation of mercy in the incarnation of the divine Son. Here the closeness of divinity to humanity is heartwarming. The second part considers the messianic overtones of mercy, recalling how the healing and teaching of Jesus expressed his father’s tender love.

Part three deals with the Old Testament’s views of mercy, emphasizing the fidelity of the Lord to the covenant, despite Israel’s sons. The Lord shows that his mercy exceeds his justice, and the mystery of his election of Israel reposes within his mercy. Part four offers an exegesis of homiletic exposition of the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15). The pope takes this story as an analogy of the divine love and stresses the dignity that the divine love bestows on human beings. The exegesis is more commonsensical and pious than literary or scholarly, but it brings out the amazing goodness of the prodigal father. Part five considers how the divine mercy is displayed in the paschal mystery, making the cross and resurrection of Christ the revelation that love is more powerful than sin and death. The pope locates Mary, the merciful mother, in this paschal context. Part six is the most concrete or applied, relating the divine mercy to such current human problems as the stockpiling of nuclear weapons and the divisions between the world’s rich and poor. Only by embracing a mercy that goes beyond justice will contemporary human beings be able to overcome their problems and remove their deep uneasiness.

Part seven describes how mercy functions in the mission of the church, both its proclamation and its practice. If the church can sponsor a merciful appreciation of what is at stake in human relationships, it will fulfill the promise of Vatican II. The last part of Dives in Misericordia urges ardent prayer, to appeal to the mercy of God for all that human beings need. In its love for humanity, the church can do nothing better than mediate the divine mercy that human beings most need. Overall, then, the second encyclical amounts to faith-filled, at times passionate and lyrical, reflection on the goodness of God, as the divine mercy makes it plain. The failings of human beings, and even their personal or cultural needs, are secondary in this work. Primary is the love of God that gives the church its reason to be.

Laborem Exercens

The third encyclical, on labor, begins by commemorating the ninetieth anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, the first of the "social encyclicals" so significant in modern Catholic theology. After noting this anniversary, and suggesting how the church’s doctrine has evolved since Leo, John Paul II claims that work is the key to the "social question" (the entire matter of economic and political relationships).

To explain the Catholic position on the social question, John Paul begins part two with a reflection on the teaching of the first chapters of Genesis. Here we find the dignity of human beings established, and their vocation to subdue the earth. (The pope ignores the ominous overtones that ecologists find in Genesis 1:28). Technology has aided human beings, but it has also complicated their lives, often dehumanizing their work. Work exists for the workers. Only secondarily does it exist to produce goods or benefit employers. The pope then speaks of the solidarity of all workers (a pregnant term in 1981, when the Polish union Solidarity was fighting for its life). He also underscores the personal dignity that work ought to respect and enhance, as well as the integrity of the family and the genius of the given nation. Clearly, them, work is taken humanistically, as an expression of men and women made in the image and likeness of God. Any purely economic interpretation of work would be reductionist, missing the true nature of all workers.

Part three of Laborem Exercens considers the conflict between labor and capital. Here John Paul II makes his strongest statement: labor always has the priority. Against what the pope calls "economism" and materialism, right order demands that the primacy of the worker be honored. The pope encourages situations in which workers would share in ownership, and he defies "capital" as the fruits of labor, undercutting any notion that capital stands over-against labor or as an independent, equal entity.

Part four deals with the rights of workers. Distinguishing between "direct" and "indirect" employers (bosses and the surrounding milieu), John Paul II calls both to respect workers’ rights. These include the right to employment, to fair wages and to unionize. Disabled workers have rights, and immigrant workers should be treated as well as natives. In this section the pope also takes up the question of working women, pleading that women’s special nature (their ties to motherhood and home life) be respected. Feminists have found this plea troublesome.

The last part of Laborem Exercens sketches a spirituality of work. Among its key elements are the notion that workers become co-creators with God, and that work is intrinsically good-not a curse (though it has its painful aspects) but a means for human beings to fulfill themselves and grow. John Paul reflects on Christ the worker, who dignified human toil, and by its conclusion this encyclical stands as a strong challenge to any who would subordinate human labor to profits or political ends.

Laborem Exercens received ore attention than the first two encyclicals. Though they were interesting because they suggested how the new pope thought and would proceed, the third encyclical’s strong support of labor and frank criticism of capitalist abuses were more riveting.

Slavorum Apostoli

The fourth encyclical stands apart from the other six and has received little attention. The occasion for it was the eleventh centenary of the death of St. Methodius. With his brother Cyril, Methodius evangelized the Slavs and was named a co-patron saint of Europe. After explaining this occasion, John Paul II provides a biographical sketch of the two saints, stressing their service of the Slavs and their obedience to the sees of both Rome and Constantinople. Part three notes their translation of the scriptures and the liturgy into Slavonic, as well as Cyril’s invention of an alphabet for the Slavic tongue. The striking aspect of these reflections is John Paul’s strong endorsement of local cultures and traditions. Apparently, he views the inspiration of local cultures as the great challenge and potential of the Christian gospel. Part four praises Byzantine and Slavic culture, openly seeking warm relations with the Eastern Orthodox. (Throughout the encyclical John Paul is candid about his own Slavic roots and the wonder that a son of Poland should have become pope).

Part five reflects on the Catholic sense of the church that meshes with the view of culture suggested in part three, while part six returns to the implications of the saints’ having translated Christianity into Slavic idioms and so helped it take root in new fields. Part seven ruminates about the significance of the millennium in the Slavic world, recalling the baptism of Vladimir in 988 that opened the Ukraine and Russia to Christianity. Here John Paul displays his Eurocentrism. He is fascinated by the marriage between European traditions and Christianity, and he sees what Cyril and Methodius accomplished as a model for planting the gospel in new cultures. In conclusion, the pope offers a long prayer for the past and future of the Slavs and Europe, revealing the considerable emotion these topics arouse in him.

Dominum et Vivificantem

The fifth encyclical, dealing with the Holy Spirit, is another inspired by John Paul II’s millennial sensibilities. The year 2000 will complete two millennia of the Spirit’s guidance of the church. The reflections that this symbolic event provokes in the pope create the most impressive theology in his letters. They complete Redemptor Hominis and Dives in Misericordia, and they suggest that the uncreated gift of the Spirit can be the church’s unfailing sustenance.

The first of the encyclical’s three parts deals with the nature of the Spirit, who belongs to both the Father and the Son. Here the pope ventures a sustained exegesis of John 14-17, calling forth the richness of those texts (the Trinitarian relations), though drawing little from recent biblical scholarship, John Paul takes Jesus’ farewell discourse quite literally, noting the Trinitarian, messianic, and other aspects of the Spirit they describe.

The second part treats the Spirit’s convincing the world of sin. Here the point seems to be how the Spirit sustains Christians in truth and supports a right conscience-one that sees human deviance for what it is. An exegesis of Genesis shows the originality of sin, and John Paul interprets the sin against the Holy Spirit as the refusal of forgiveness.

Part three concerns the Spirit who gives life. Such life is primarily God’s own vitality, yet it is also the power of "spirit" to prevail over "flesh". The pope thinks of the church as the sacrament of the intimate union with God that the Spirit enables, and he concludes with a prayer of the Spirit and the Bride that God’s kingdom come.

This encyclical offers few practical applications of its theology of the Holy Spirit. Even so, I find it curious that so ambitious and occasionally profound a piece of papal theology has received little attention. Specialists no doubt will find little new or impressive in John Paul’s pneumatology, but the warmth and ultimacy of the spirituality that he exposes deserves much respect. The movement of the Spirit in our depths anchors all our Christian hopes, and I admire John Paul’s efforts to publicize it.

Redemptoris Mater

The sixth encyclical, on Mary, is like the fifth in being mainly a theological or spiritual reflection. Once again the purported occasion is a millennial anniversary, this time that of the birth of Mary. John Paul recalls the teaching of Vatican II on Mary, and then he follows the lead of the Council by reflecting on Mary’s place in the mystery of Christ. Here the keynote is her grace of motherhood. Accepting this vocation, she became a model of faith, and the pope underscores her obedience. The key to this part is an exegesis of Luke 2, done in the same common-sensical fashion as the pope’s prior exegesis of Genesis 1-3 and John 14-17. John Paul is drawn to Jesus’ gift of Mary to the apostle John and the church, which leads him to meditate on her intercession for human beings, as that was prefigured by her intercession at the wedding feast at Cana.

Part two of Redemptoris Mater continues the pope’s reflection on the motherhood of Mary, which he finds central to the existence of the pilgrim church. John Paul notes the presence of Mary in the upper room at Pentecost, when the church was born. He also adverts to the numerous Marian shrines – centers of pilgrimage, where the faithful can nourish their devotion. The veneration of Mary so strong in Eastern Orthodoxy furnishes an ecumenical tie, and the pope singles out the eastern use of Marian Icons. The last reflection in this part bears on Mary’s Magnificat, where the pope underscores a preferential love for the poor. (He does not develop the revolutionary or activist potential that some liberation theologians find.

Part three concerns the maternal mediation of Mary. John Paul admires her self-designation, "handmaid of the Lord," and he repeats his earlier stress on Mary’s generous acceptance of God’s will. He links her motherhood to her virginity, seeing the latter as the source of the complete self-giving that led to her willingness to bear the Redeemer. Throughout the encyclical John Paul pays heed to the sufferings that Mary’s obedience entailed. In this part they contribute to her ability to stand as a figure for the maternity of the church, to be a mother to all the faithful, and to offer women the great model for feminine faith. The concluding paragraphs include a striking assessment of the Incarnation that Mary served: "How clearly he [God] has bridged all the spaces of that infinite ‘distance’ which separates the Creator from the creature! If in himself he remains ineffable and unsearchable, still more ineffable and unsearchable is he in the reality of the Incarnation of the Word, who became man through the Virgin of Nazareth" (51). This is the best hint one gets of how the apophatic and kataphatic aspects of the divine mystery cohere in John Paul’s thought.

Sollicitudo Rei Socialis

The seventh and latest of John Paul II’s encyclical returns to the ground worked in Laborem Exercens, though here the focus is more international. Part one is introductory, noting the twentieth anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio, which extended the concern of the Second Vatican Council for social justice. Part two reflects on the originality of Paul’s vision. He stepped back to look at underdevelopment in global perspective, proposing that "development" becomes the new name for peace. In the course of this project, Paul lamented especially the waste of money on military arms. Resources that could have alleviated much misery around the world were being spent instead on weapons of enormous destruction.

Part three brings John Paul to survey the contemporary world. He finds that Paul’s hopes for development have not been realized. Indeed, by many indices things have worsened, as though the world’s increasing interdependence had exacerbated the problems of its suffering people. Thus poverty, illiteracy, homelessness, unemployment, international debt, and a host of other problems have revealed the dysfunctions of the current economic and social order. The cause of this dysfunction on which John Paul chooses to focus is the division of the world into two blocs (the First and Second Worlds). Commentators debate whether the pope criticizes these two bloc or systems (liberal capitalism and Marxist collectivism) evenhandedly, but it is clear that John Paul finds both systems inadequate. Both are materialist, denying that human beings are only fulfilled by the priority of spiritual over material goods. Together, the blocs have conspired to create a culture of death. Military arms, terrorism, demographic disorders inviting forced eugenics, abortion, and euthanasia-all pass before the pope’s gaze as products of the competition between the First and Second worlds. This part also contains three paragraphs on the ecological crisis, by far the fullest recognition in any of John Paul II’s encyclicals.

Part four, discoursing on authentic human development, attacks the super development, the excesses, of the wealthy Western nations, where consumerism twists both individuals and cultures out of shape. This plays into the disproportionate distribution of the world’s goods, which contradicts the intention of the Creator. The goods of the earth ought to serve all the earth’s people. Here John Paul II’s travels seem influential; he has seen the patterns of global poverty at first hand.

Development is more than an economic matter, however. All involved should also respect the cultural aspects of development and protect people’s native traditions. The major moral imperative that emerges from the pope’s reflections on authentic development is the duty to work in a spirit of solidarity, seeking the freedom and flourishing of the less fortunate. Solidarity, then, may be taken as a watchword, suggesting the key to the pope’s sense of how to ameliorate global social problems.

Part five essays a theological reading of modern problems. Here the emphasis falls on the moral dimension of development. The two opposing blocs imperil the common good, which makes them noxious. They reveal how sin has become structural-driven by distorted human choices but operating through institutions that block progress and justice. The concentration of the blocs on profit and power has led to such structural distortions. The remedy is to bring interdependence and solidarity to bear on the reform of distorted motives. The Trinity is the most profound model of unity that Christian reflection can provide.

The sixth and last part of Sollicitudo Rei Socialis makes it clear that the church does not offer a third path, between liberal capitalism and Marxist collectivism and that the church’s expertise is not economic or political. Rather, the church brings theological reflection to bear on world problems, developing what it knows about God’s design for humanity’s flourishing. John Paul proposes a truly international outlook, stressing a preferential love of the poor. He notes the limits that the church has traditionally placed on the right to private property, and he calls for a reform of the systems of trade and finance currently mismanaging world affairs. Finally, he urges that political regimes all move toward democracy and the fuller participation of their citizens. The encyclical concludes with another mention of how structural sins create the great obstacles to proper development, with a plea that the means to progress be peaceful, and with reflections on the Eucharist and Mary (as places where Christians may seek the help necessary for authentic development).

Summary Reflections

Taken as a whole, the seven encyclicals constitute a peculiar corpus. Four are theological meditations: Redemptor Hominis, Dives in Misericordia, Dominum et Vivificantem, and Redemptoris Mater. Of these the latter three are purer than the first, which is burdened with John Paul’s program for redisciplining the church. Two encyclicals are social: faith applied to the economic and international orders. Laborem Exercens is quite radical about the priority of labor over capital and the dignity of the worker as the crux of a healthy economic order. Sollicitudo Rei Socialis is striking for rejecting liberal capitalism and Marist collectivism in the same breath, for analyzing the structural aspects of sin, and for making solidarity the virtue demanded by present-day global interdependence. Slavorum Apostoli is the odd man out among the seven encyclicals. Indeed, one suspects that the pope only gave this work encyclical status because he wanted to spotlight his fellow Eastern Europeans and win good will from the Eastern Orthodox.

The themes that run through this body of papal teaching include human need for the redemption offered by the merciful God in Christ; the answer that Christ and Christian culture can be for the world’s deepest questions; the adequacy and imperative character of traditional Catholic faith and morals; and the moral dimension that the church’s mission and competence lead it to emphasize, when it considers current social and cultural problems.

Assets

The theology and piety that one finds in these encyclicals claim rootage in Vatican II. The pope renders the conservative dimension of the conciliar documents into a solid restatement of what Roman Catholicism has taught and felt about redemption and the role of the church. Almost always this rendition is intelligent-not merely laden with footnotes, but clearly the product of a mind trained in neoscholastic categories and familiar with the bible and church statements. John Paul II sees redemption as the central theological category. His first instinct is to marshal his feelings about his pontifical work under the aegis of Christ the redeemer of humankind. This implies that humankind is in heavy labor for redemption, a thought both Pauline and ever apposite. The theology of redemption that the pope sketches is not new but it is completely relevant. For anyone with faith, the daily headlines scream about humanity’s need for the restorative grace of God.

A second asset of this corpus is the depth of its reflections on the mercy of God, the Holy Spirit, and the role of the Virgin Mary. These reflections are not new, but they are deep. And because they go to the heart of the gospel, of the Christian sense of God, and of the economy of salvation, they present the pope as a man immersed in the mysteries of divine providence. John Paul II loves to contemplate the symbols of God’s care for human beings. For him these become windows onto a reality eye has not seen and ear not heard, a reality almost too good to be believed. Often his mind seems typological, in the tradition of the allegorical fathers. He does not spell out such typologies, but he does prefer to speak of the church and its doctrines in ideal rather than empirical terms, as though he dwelt habitually with the heavenly side of the economy of redemption. Though this tendency has its problems, it reminds us that God has all the priority in salvation, and that whenever we neglect such priority we fail to see the human situation correctly.

Third, there is a profound anthropocentrism in such encyclicals as Laborem Exercens and Redemptor Hominis. The pope is able to configure Christian belief about God’s activity in terms of humanity’s religious, economic, social, and cultural nature and that local cultures can be elevated by grace. He may typologize theology but he does not flee from the world. Related to this anthropocentrism is a thoroughly positive evaluation of human work. By extension, one could write a lyrical endorsement of art, science, and all the other ways that human beings strive to express themselves, as well as to meet their physical needs. Unlike an analyst such as Michael Novak, John Paul II does not beat the drum that humanity is sinful and so realistic only when it structures social relations to restrain human deviance. The pope certainly laments human sins, assigning to the Holy Spirit the crucial task of convincing the world that it fails divine standards, but his incarnational faith is almost utopian in assuming that God can enable human beings to do better than such half-loaves as liberal capitalism or Marxist collectivism.

Fourth, and relatedly, John Paul sketches a cultural vision that, even though fettered to ideals of Christendom, reminds the reader of what an integral, fully healthy socio-spiritual life would be like. This vision incorporates human suffering, making it meaningful on several levels (union with the redemptive Christ and his coredemptive Mother; struggle to make the dignity of humanity prevail over the forces that would blunt or abuse it; solidarity with the world’s poor). It also makes the church a profound lover and servant of humanity (even though often the language used to express this conviction seems triumphalist).

Finally, the pope’s defense of the world’s poor and attack on the great divisions between haves and have nots are stirring. He considers the current disparities between rich and poor a great sin against social justice. Moreover, he lays much of the blame on the nations’ preoccupation with warfare. So, in a combined rebuke, he makes injustice and warfare the enemies of the divine will. All who seek moral support for their instinct that such current global patterns as the North/South division into rich nations and poor nations are sinfully wrong will find John Paul II a powerful ally.

Overall, then, I find much faith in these encyclicals. Often I dislike the style and sensibility of this faith, but I have to admire its depth and power. Come from a traditionally Catholic Christian land, where pre-conciliar (in some ways pre-modern) faith has been the staff of life in perilous times, the pope establishes solid credentials for asking his fellow Christians to cling to their traditions. No fair-minded person could fail to be challenged by this request, and most theologians willing to engage this encyclical theology will find themselves thinking they would need a book’s length to elaborate the implications of its matches and mismatches with their own sense of what the world needs now from Christian spokespersons.

Liabilities

In all my summarizing and assessments, I have abridged terribly a large body of papal thought. The topics that John Paul II covers are so disparate, and his typical style is so diffuse or circular, that it is hard to be confident about the deficiencies of his encyclical theology than about its objective content or assets. This is because most of the liabilities I find are so consistent that they seem completely characteristic.

For example, there is no humor in any of the encyclicals. True, "encyclical" is not a literary form from which one expects humor, but not to find in the hundreds of pages we have surveyed the slightest reference to or evocation of the lighter side of human existence of human existence, of the delight and playfulness essential to the judgement of the Creator that what he (or, to step outside John Paul’s horizons, she) had made was very good, as to raise serious questions about the realism and humanity of this body of work.

Second, there is a persistent illogic to these writings. The most theological letters, such as that on the Holy Spirit, do best on the score logic, but even there one does not find a clear map and so cannot be confident that the writer knows the relations among the matters being discussed. Granted, the divine mysteries do not admit of neat mapping. Always they are too rich for human compression and alignment. But some things are more fundamental than others, and good exposition exploits this truism to make its thought sufficiently linear to make progress. (A darker possibility is that the logic is deliberate: a rejection of the "hierarchy of truths" postulated in Vatican II’s decree on ecumenism, so as to buttress the Vatican’s campaign to keep theologians and the faithful from picking and choosing.)

Third, the language of the encyclicals is unremittingly sexist and their theology is entirely innocent of feminist thought, to their great loss and discredit. Indeed, the most devastating critique of Sollicitudo Rei Socialis that I have found comes not from a conservative mastadon furious at the possible equation of capitalism and communism (an equation I don’t find made), but from a feminist who shows that, because it completely neglects the role of women in global economics (work, poverty) and politics, the encyclical’s analyses are hopelessly out of date.

Fourth, the exegesis of scripture that plays a significant role in several encyclicals (Dominum et Vivificantem and Mater Redemptoris stand out, but the pope depends regularly on a "dominative" reading of the creation account in Genesis) is amateur, in both senses of this charged word. The pope loves the scriptural images that he is elaborating, but little if any of the complexity or literary richness that contemporary biblical scholars illumine in such texts enhances these encyclicals. Throughout the reading in commonsensical, if not literal. This reminds us that the Bible is the book of the church, even more than the book of scholars, and that lectio divina (the pious use of Scripture) has solid rights. But it undermines the authority of the theological mind behind the encyclicals and misses an opportunity to proffer much richer readings of God’s word.

Fifth, there is very little self-criticism. The pope seldom adverts to the failures of the church, past or present, and he does little with the theme that the church is full of sinners and needs always to be reformed. This opens the encyclicals to a charge of triumphalism, or naivete, or dishonesty. It seems related to a tendency to quote only scripture, the church fathers, Vatican II, and prior papal statements. Citations of "outside" sources are minimal. It also seems related to a lack of interest in Protestant thought. Whereas Eastern Orthodoxy is on the pope’s mind in several letters, Protestantism makes few appearances. But Protestantism has been the heroic carrier of self-criticism, under the twofold conviction that the church has always to be reformed and that God alone deserves our unreserved allegiance.

Sixth, there is little negative theology. This is not a corpus in which the bedrock truth that God ids more unlike than like what we say about him or her has great influence. The pope is entranced by the mysteries of salvation, and he makes it clear that they are richer than we can appreciate. But his sense of the divine mysteriousness does not relativize his statements, as one would expect from a man who wrote a dissertation on John of the Cross. Certainly, the teaching office of the church is precious for the indefectible truths it provides. But God is always greater than these truths, let alone the historically conditioned formulas in which we express them. In a time when the physical sciences are absorbed with the nearly unimaginable mysteriousness of the universe, of life, and of human consciousness, the lack of a powerfully negative theology makes these encyclicals seem cloistered or premodern. The overwhelming fact of current life is how much we don’t know, and Christian theology should exploit this fact mystagogically, making it evoke the constant presence of a God we must love beyond our understanding. When it does not, Christian theology seems less religious than what our contemporary culture demands.

Seventh, ecological consciousness plays a very minor role, only emerging in force in the most recent encyclical. But one can make an impressive argument that the ecological crisis is our most profound challenge, because it threatens the matrix of life itself and shows how unnatural our present economies and cultures have become. As well, it challenges the anthropocentrism of Western thought, asking implicitly that Christian theology rework its incarnational convictions so as to include all of creation. Because he does not take up the theological implications of the ecological crises, John Paul II appears not to be up to speed. Were he to elaborate a profoundly Christian humanism in dialogue with current ecological thought, he might offer an immense service. However, these writings give slight hope that such a humanism will come forth soon.

Eighth, there is a Eurocentrism to this theology. The culture that shapes John Paul’s vision is, understandably, that of his own native milieu. This emerges most clearly in Slavorum Apostoli, but on reflection it seems operative elsewhere. The pope needs to engage more positively with American thought, both Northern and Southern, and also with African and Asiatic thought. Relatedly, he needs to do more with non-Christian religions, which complement his views on some points but contest them deeply on others. Otherwise, his desire to speak to the whole world will remain more crippled than it need be.

Ninth, this encyclical theology usually dwells apart from ordinary, daily life. This is a judgment I cannot make as precise as I would like, but in thinking about the intuitions behind it I was reminded of Bernard Coole’s fine new book The Distancing of God. Cooke traces the history of Christianity’s move away from the naturalness of faith, the immediacy of God, that one senses prevailed in the early Christian decades. We have so mediated contact with god, in all aspects of Christian life- thought, worship, polity, culture- that the One in whom we live and move and have our being seems a stranger. We are not spontaneously intimate with the risen Christ or the indwelling Spirit, least of all when we gather in groups. So we need a theology sophisticated enough to produce a second naivete-a theology focused on what in near, dear, ordinary, familiar, both painful and comforting.

Whether one should call this an empirical theology is debatable, but any of the names that come to mind suggest its difference from the removed, lofty language and predominantly ideal reference of John Paul II’s encyclicals. To be sure, they speak eloquently about human suffering and need (less eloquently about human joy, though well about God’s amazing graces). Usually, though, such speech does not make God our mysterious familiar, our fully incarnational partner, our spouse in all the homey as well as ecstatic senses. The pope’s is not a theology that floods my heart with the welcome of God. (The closest he comes is Dives in Misericordia, especially its reflection on the parable of the prodigal son.) This is a subjective impression, worth little scientifically, but it squares with the ascetic, stern reading of John Paul II’s thought offered in George Hunston William’s The Mind of John Paul II. I do not find this encyclical theology as attractive, as winning, as I think the gospel must be, if it is to render the Jesus who caused the first Christians to publish their glad tidings. And this makes me sad, as it must make any Catholic wanting to be loyal and enthusiastic sad, because it clangs painfully of lost opportunities.

Last, what makes me angry about this theology is the ties one can conjecture between it and the current politics of Vatican theology. Such a conjecture is perilous, perhaps even illegitimate, but the places in these encyclicals (for example, the sections of Redemptor Hominis) where the pope deals with church problems seem prophetic of the retrograde Episcopal appointments, the oath of fidelity, the profession of faith, and the universal catechism stemming from the Vatican recently. These are only a portion of papal policy and politics, but their will to power angers me. Inasmuch as they give body to the spirit elaborated in John Paul’s encyclicals, they force a reconsideration of the encyclicals favoring a darker reading.

In such a reading, the pope preaches freedom to outsiders but does not encourage it within the church. The church stands by its obligation to witness to the truth and help the Spirit convict the world of sin, except concerning its own use of power and interpretation of the teaching office. There is a blockage, a scotosis, where the Spirit of truth, and often the Spirit of love (in any straightforward, unpretentious sense), is not to enter. And so the church is not a family of believers, warm and relaxed, but an organization, a set of power-relations and power-plays. I wish that this darker rereading were less persuasive, and I hope that the God rich in mercy will forgive all of us our responsibility for its plausibility.

(1) See two quite different collections of commentaries: Aspiring to Freedom, ed. Kenneth A. Myers (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988), and The Logic of Solidarity, ed. Gregory Baum and Robert Ellsberg (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1989).

(2) See Michael Novak, " The Development of Nations," in Aspiring to Freedom, pp. 67-109. Novak seems to regard the American founding fathers as high theological authorities and to take the American Declaration of Independence and Constitution as quasi-scriptural sources, without questioning whether their understanding of human nature squares with Catholic orthodoxy.

(3) For example, several authors represented in Aspiring to Freedom stress the pope’s endorsement of the right to economic initiative (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, #15). The authors in The Logic of Solidarity do not highlight this phrase or notion. They are more apt to develop the pope’s lines about love of preference for the poor, which the authors in Aspiring to Freedom leave underdeveloped. On the one hand, them, the encyclicals are rich and diverse enough to spark many different readings. On the other hand, they are obscure or inconsistent enough to seem illogical.

(4) See Maria Riley, O.P., "Feminist Analysis: A Missing Perspective," in The Logic of Solidarity, pp. 186-201.

(5) Bernard Cooke, The Distancing of God (Minneapolis: Augsburg/Fortress, 1990).

(6) George Hunston Williams, The Mind of John Paul II (New York: Seabury, 1981). Williams concentrates on the writings prior to the papal election, and in passing he often provides a useful reaction from a Protestant perspective. Richard John Neuhaus’s The Catholic Moment (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987) offers another somewhat outside reading of John Paul II, one quite literate but marred on occasion by a supercilious tone. Neither work makes the pope attractive to me. Both suggest an unflattering comparison with John XXIII. The interpretation of John Paul II’s thought that I have found most stimulating is Joe Holland’s "The Cultural Vision of Pope John Paul II: toward a Conservative/Liberal Postmodern Dialogue," in David Ray Griffin, William A. Beardslee, and Joe Holland, Varieties of Postmodern Theology (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), pp. 95-127. Holland fits John Paul II to his own typology, but this typology turns out to be quite illuminating, due to Holland’s deep immersion in the papal texts. Gregory Baum’s studies in The Logic of Solidarity, filling out his earlier work on Laborem Exercens (The Priority of Labor, New York: Paulist, 1982), are also very helpful. I was disappointed that otherwise insightful studies by john Coleman, Francisco Claver, and Ricardo Antoncich in The Logic of Solidarity did not deal with recent infra-church trends sponsored by the Vatican, because this made them seem uncritical.

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