Where to find papal encyclicals

Below is a description of the major types of Papal documents, with those of greater solemnity near the top of the list for more on "weight" of magisterial documents, see Creative Fidelity: Weighing and Interpreting Documents of the Magisterium.

More details on some of these documents may also be found in the New Catholic Encyclopedia. It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This website works best with modern browsers such as the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results. Catholicism - General Resources: Papal documents Find authoritative sources that cover a broad range of topics in Catholicism.

Atla Religion Database. Types of Papal documents Papal addresses and documents fall into certain recognized categories with levels of authority relative to each other. Apostolic Constitutions Apostolic constitutions apostolicae constitutions are considered the most solemn papal documents and concern weighty doctrinal or disciplinary matters that are published as either universal or particular law of the Church. Encyclicals encyclica epistola are papal letters of a pastoral nature, used in their current form since These letters offer counsel and shed light on existing doctrine as part of the Holy Father's ordinary teaching authority.

Motu proprio is a legislative, apostolic letter written and signed by the pope on his own initiative. Originally used to settle the affairs of the Curia and administer the Papal States, they now handle legislative matters which are significant but do not merit a constitution. Dominicae Cenae. Dum Multa. Ecclesia de Eucharistia. Ecclesia Dei. Ecclesia in Africa. Ecclesia in America.

Ecclesia in Asia. Ecclesia in Europa. Ecclesia in Oceania. Ecclesia in Urbe. Ecclesiae Fastos. Ecclesiam Suam. Editae Saepe. E Supremi. Etsi Cunctas. Etsi Nos. Euntes in Mundum Universum. Europae Orientalis. Evangelica Testificatio. Evangelii Nuntiandi. Evangelii Praecones. Evangelium Vitae. Evangelization of the New World. Ex Corde Ecclesiae. Exeunte Iam Anno. Familia a Deo Instituta. Familiaris Consortio. Fausto Appetente Die. Fidei Depositum. Fidei Donum.

Fidentem Piumque Animum. Fides et Ratio. Fin dal Principio. Firmissimam Constantiam. Fulgens Corona. Fulgens Radiatur. Gaudete in Domino. Grande Munus. Grata Recordatio. Graves de Communi Re. Gravissimo Officii Munere. Haerent Animo. Humanae Salutis. Humanae Vitae. Humani Generis.

Humani Generis Redemptionem. Humanum Genus. Hungary: Millennium. Il Fermo Proposito. Il religioso convegno. Immortale Dei. In Amplissimo. In Fructibus Multis. Inde a Pontificatus. Inde a Primis. Indulgentiarum Doctrina. Ingravescentibus Malis. Ingruentium Malorum. In Hac Tanta. Inimica Vis. In Ipso. Iniquis Afflictisque. In Multiplicibus Curis. In Plurimis. In Praeclara Summorum. Inscrutabili Dei Consilio. Inter Graves. Inter Munera Academiarum. Invicti Athletae.

Iucunda Sane. Iucunda Semper Expectatione. Jubilee Pilgrimages. Laborem Exercens. Labour Office of the Apostolic See. To see things in this way brings the joyful realization that no one people, culture or individual can achieve everything on its own: to attain fulfilment in life we need others. An awareness of our own limitations and incompleteness, far from being a threat, becomes the key to envisaging and pursuing a common project.

Thanks to regional exchanges, by which poorer countries become open to the wider world, universality does not necessarily water down their distinct features. In some areas of our cities, there is still a lively sense of neighbourhood. Each person quite spontaneously perceives a duty to accompany and help his or her neighbour. In places where these community values are maintained, people experience a closeness marked by gratitude, solidarity and reciprocity.

The neighbourhood gives them a sense of shared identity. Yet the spirit of individualism also affects relations between countries. The danger of thinking that we have to protect ourselves from one another, of viewing others as competitors or dangerous enemies, also affects relations between peoples in the same region.

Perhaps we were trained in this kind of fear and mistrust. There are powerful countries and large businesses that profit from this isolation and prefer to negotiate with each country separately.

On the other hand, small or poor countries can sign agreements with their regional neighbours that will allow them to negotiate as a bloc and thus avoid being cut off, isolated and dependent on the great powers. Today, no state can ensure the common good of its population if it remains isolated. The development of a global community of fraternity based on the practice of social friendship on the part of peoples and nations calls for a better kind of politics, one truly at the service of the common good.

Sadly, politics today often takes forms that hinder progress towards a different world. Lack of concern for the vulnerable can hide behind a populism that exploits them demagogically for its own purposes, or a liberalism that serves the economic interests of the powerful.

In both cases, it becomes difficult to envisage an open world that makes room for everyone, including the most vulnerable, and shows respect for different cultures.

As a result, they have lost whatever value they might have had, and have become another source of polarization in an already divided society. Nowadays it has become impossible for someone to express a view on any subject without being categorized one way or the other, either to be unfairly discredited or to be praised to the skies. There are social phenomena that create majorities, as well as megatrends and communitarian aspirations.

Men and women are capable of coming up with shared goals that transcend their differences and can thus engage in a common endeavour. Then too, it is extremely difficult to carry out a long-term project unless it becomes a collective aspiration. Unless they are taken into account — together with a sound critique of demagoguery — a fundamental aspect of social reality would be overlooked. Here, there can be a misunderstanding.

Rather, it is a mythic category… When you have to explain what you mean by people, you use logical categories for the sake of explanation, and necessarily so. Yet in that way you cannot explain what it means to belong to a people. To be part of a people is to be part of a shared identity arising from social and cultural bonds. The service they provide by their efforts to unite and lead can become the basis of an enduring vision of transformation and growth that would also include making room for others in the pursuit of the common good.

Or when, at other times, they seek popularity by appealing to the basest and most selfish inclinations of certain sectors of the population. This becomes all the more serious when, whether in cruder or more subtle forms, it leads to the usurpation of institutions and laws.

A living and dynamic people, a people with a future, is one constantly open to a new synthesis through its ability to welcome differences.

In this way, it does not deny its proper identity, but is open to being mobilized, challenged, broadened and enriched by others, and thus to further growth and development.

Another sign of the decline of popular leadership is concern for short-term advantage. One meets popular demands for the sake of gaining votes or support, but without advancing in an arduous and constant effort to generate the resources people need to develop and earn a living by their own efforts and creativity. The biggest issue is employment. This is the finest help we can give to the poor, the best path to a life of dignity. Work gives us a sense of shared responsibility for the development of the world, and ultimately, for our life as a people.

The benefits and limits of liberal approaches. One speaks of respect for freedom, but without roots in a shared narrative; in certain contexts, those who defend the rights of the most vulnerable members of society tend to be criticized as populists.

The notion of a people is considered an abstract construct, something that does not really exist. But this is to create a needless dichotomy. Charity, on the other hand, unites both dimensions — the abstract and the institutional — since it calls for an effective process of historical change that embraces everything: institutions, law, technology, experience, professional expertise, scientific analysis, administrative procedures, and so forth.

True charity is capable of incorporating all these elements in its concern for others. In the case of personal encounters, including those involving a distant or forgotten brother or sister, it can do so by employing all the resources that the institutions of an organized, free and creative society are capable of generating. Even the Good Samaritan, for example, needed to have a nearby inn that could provide the help that he was personally unable to offer.

Love of neighbour is concrete and squanders none of the resources needed to bring about historical change that can benefit the poor and disadvantaged.

At times, however, leftist ideologies or social doctrines linked to individualistic ways of acting and ineffective procedures affect only a few, while the majority of those left behind remain dependent on the goodwill of others. This demonstrates the need for a greater spirit of fraternity, but also a more efficient worldwide organization to help resolve the problems plaguing the abandoned who are suffering and dying in poor countries.

It also shows that there is no one solution, no single acceptable methodology, no economic recipe that can be applied indiscriminately to all. Even the most rigorous scientific studies can propose different courses of action. Everything, then, depends on our ability to see the need for a change of heart, attitudes and lifestyles.

Otherwise, political propaganda, the media and the shapers of public opinion will continue to promote an individualistic and uncritical culture subservient to unregulated economic interests and societal institutions at the service of those who already enjoy too much power. My criticism of the technocratic paradigm involves more than simply thinking that if we control its excesses everything will be fine. The bigger risk does not come from specific objects, material realities or institutions, but from the way that they are used.

Concupiscence is not a flaw limited to our own day. It has been present from the beginning of humanity, and has simply changed and taken on different forms down the ages, using whatever means each moment of history can provide.

Concupiscence, however, can be overcome with the help of God. Education and upbringing, concern for others, a well-integrated view of life and spiritual growth: all these are essential for quality human relationships and for enabling society itself to react against injustices, aberrations and abuses of economic, technological, political and media power.

Some liberal approaches ignore this factor of human weakness; they envisage a world that follows a determined order and is capable by itself of ensuring a bright future and providing solutions for every problem. The marketplace, by itself, cannot resolve every problem, however much we are asked to believe this dogma of neoliberal faith. Whatever the challenge, this impoverished and repetitive school of thought always offers the same recipes.

Financial speculation fundamentally aimed at quick profit continues to wreak havoc. The fragility of world systems in the face of the pandemic has demonstrated that not everything can be resolved by market freedom.

In some closed and monochrome economic approaches, for example, there seems to be no place for popular movements that unite the unemployed, temporary and informal workers and many others who do not easily find a place in existing structures. Yet those movements manage various forms of popular economy and of community production.

The effective distribution of power especially political, economic, defence-related and technological power among a plurality of subjects, and the creation of a juridical system for regulating claims and interests, are one concrete way of limiting power. Still, such an authority ought at least to promote more effective world organizations, equipped with the power to provide for the global common good, the elimination of hunger and poverty and the sure defence of fundamental human rights.

Courage and generosity are needed in order freely to establish shared goals and to ensure the worldwide observance of certain essential norms. Providentially, many groups and organizations within civil society help to compensate for the shortcomings of the international community, its lack of coordination in complex situations, its lack of attention to fundamental human rights and to the critical needs of certain groups.

Here we can see a concrete application of the principle of subsidiarity, which justifies the participation and activity of communities and organizations on lower levels as a means of integrating and complementing the activity of the state.

These groups and organizations often carry out commendable efforts in the service of the common good and their members at times show true heroism, revealing something of the grandeur of which our humanity is still capable.

For many people today, politics is a distasteful word, often due to the mistakes, corruption and inefficiency of some politicians. There are also attempts to discredit politics, to replace it with economics or to twist it to one ideology or another. Yet can our world function without politics? Can there be an effective process of growth towards universal fraternity and social peace without a sound political life?

Thinking of those who will come after us does not serve electoral purposes, yet it is what authentic justice demands. Global society is suffering from grave structural deficiencies that cannot be resolved by piecemeal solutions or quick fixes. Much needs to change, through fundamental reform and major renewal. Only a healthy politics, involving the most diverse sectors and skills, is capable of overseeing this process.

Recognizing that all people are our brothers and sisters, and seeking forms of social friendship that include everyone, is not merely utopian. It demands a decisive commitment to devising effective means to this end.

Any effort along these lines becomes a noble exercise of charity. Nonetheless, there are attempts nowadays to reduce persons to isolated individuals easily manipulated by powers pursuing spurious interests. Good politics will seek ways of building communities at every level of social life, in order to recalibrate and reorient globalization and thus avoid its disruptive effects. Charity, with its impulse to universality, is capable of building a new world.

Charity needs the light of the truth that we constantly seek. Yet it also respects the development of the sciences and their essential contribution to finding the surest and most practical means of achieving the desired results. For when the good of others is at stake, good intentions are not enough.

Concrete efforts must be made to bring about whatever they and their nations need for the sake of their development. If someone helps an elderly person cross a river, that is a fine act of charity. The politician, on the other hand, builds a bridge, and that too is an act of charity. While one person can help another by providing something to eat, the politician creates a job for that other person, and thus practices a lofty form of charity that ennobles his or her political activity.

This charity, which is the spiritual heart of politics, is always a preferential love shown to those in greatest need; it undergirds everything we do on their behalf. That gaze is at the heart of the authentic spirit of politics. It sees paths open up that are different from those of a soulless pragmatism.

Education serves these by making it possible for each human being to shape his or her own future. Here too we see the importance of the principle of subsidiarity , which is inseparable from the principle of solidarity. These considerations help us recognize the urgent need to combat all that threatens or violates fundamental human rights.

Such is the magnitude of these situations, and their toll in innocent lives, that we must avoid every temptation to fall into a declarationist nominalism that would assuage our consciences. We are still far from a globalization of the most basic of human rights. That is why world politics needs to make the effective elimination of hunger one of its foremost and imperative goals. At the same time, tons of food are thrown away.

This constitutes a genuine scandal. Alongside these basic needs that remain unmet, trafficking in persons represents another source of shame for humanity, one that international politics, moving beyond fine speeches and good intentions, must no longer tolerate. These things are essential; they can no longer be deferred. Political charity is also expressed in a spirit of openness to everyone.

Government leaders should be the first to make the sacrifices that foster encounter and to seek convergence on at least some issues. They should be ready to listen to other points of view and to make room for everyone. Through sacrifice and patience, they can help to create a beautiful polyhedral reality in which everyone has a place. Here, economic negotiations do not work. Something else is required: an exchange of gifts for the common good.

At a time when various forms of fundamentalist intolerance are damaging relationships between individuals, groups and peoples, let us be committed to living and teaching the value of respect for others, a love capable of welcoming differences, and the priority of the dignity of every human being over his or her ideas, opinions, practices and even sins.

Even as forms of fanaticism, closedmindedness and social and cultural fragmentation proliferate in present-day society, a good politician will take the first step and insist that different voices be heard. Disagreements may well give rise to conflicts, but uniformity proves stifling and leads to cultural decay. May we not be content with being enclosed in one fragment of reality. Apart from their tireless activity, politicians are also men and women. They are called to practice love in their daily interpersonal relationships.

Less and less will people be called by name, less and less will this unique being be treated as a person with his or her own feelings, sufferings, problems, joys and family. Politics too must make room for a tender love of others. It is love that draws near and becomes real.

All this can help us realize that what is important is not constantly achieving great results, since these are not always possible. Consequently, if I can help at least one person to have a better life, that already justifies the offering of my life.

We achieve fulfilment when we break down walls and our hearts are filled with faces and names! No single act of love for God will be lost, no generous effort is meaningless, no painful endurance is wasted. For this reason, it is truly noble to place our hope in the hidden power of the seeds of goodness we sow, and thus to initiate processes whose fruits will be reaped by others.

Good politics combines love with hope and with confidence in the reserves of goodness present in human hearts. Viewed in this way, politics is something more noble than posturing, marketing and media spin.

These sow nothing but division, conflict and a bleak cynicism incapable of mobilizing people to pursue a common goal. If we want to encounter and help one another, we have to dialogue. There is no need for me to stress the benefits of dialogue. I have only to think of what our world would be like without the patient dialogue of the many generous persons who keep families and communities together. Unlike disagreement and conflict, persistent and courageous dialogue does not make headlines, but quietly helps the world to live much better than we imagine.

Some people attempt to flee from reality, taking refuge in their own little world; others react to it with destructive violence.

Dialogue between generations; dialogue among our people, for we are that people; readiness to give and receive, while remaining open to the truth. Dialogue is often confused with something quite different: the feverish exchange of opinions on social networks, frequently based on media information that is not always reliable.

These exchanges are merely parallel monologues. They may attract some attention by their sharp and aggressive tone. But monologues engage no one, and their content is frequently self-serving and contradictory.

It becomes easier to discredit and insult opponents from the outset than to open a respectful dialogue aimed at achieving agreement on a deeper level. Worse, this kind of language, usually drawn from media coverage of political campaigns, has become so widespread as to be part of daily conversation. Discussion is often manipulated by powerful special interests that seek to tilt public opinion unfairly in their favour.

This kind of manipulation can be exercised not only by governments, but also in economics, politics, communications, religion and in other spheres. Lack of dialogue means that in these individual sectors people are concerned not for the common good, but for the benefits of power or, at best, for ways to impose their own ideas.

Round tables thus become mere negotiating sessions, in which individuals attempt to seize every possible advantage, rather than cooperating in the pursuit of the common good.

The heroes of the future will be those who can break with this unhealthy mindset and determine respectfully to promote truthfulness, aside from personal interest.

God willing, such heroes are quietly emerging, even now, in the midst of our society. Based on their identity and experience, others have a contribution to make, and it is desirable that they should articulate their positions for the sake of a more fruitful public debate. When individuals or groups are consistent in their thinking, defend their values and convictions, and develop their arguments, this surely benefits society.

Yet, this can only occur to the extent that there is genuine dialogue and openness to others. It keeps different sectors from becoming complacent and self-centred in their outlook and their limited concerns. There is a growing conviction that, together with specialized scientific advances, we are in need of greater interdisciplinary communication. Although reality is one, it can be approached from various angles and with different methodologies. There is a risk that a single scientific advance will be seen as the only possible lens for viewing a particular aspect of life, society and the world.

Researchers who are expert in their own field, yet also familiar with the findings of other sciences and disciplines, are in a position to discern other aspects of the object of their study and thus to become open to a more comprehensive and integral knowledge of reality.

The internet, in particular, offers immense possibilities for encounter and solidarity. The solution is not relativism. Under the guise of tolerance, relativism ultimately leaves the interpretation of moral values to those in power, to be defined as they see fit. What is law without the conviction, born of age-old reflection and great wisdom, that each human being is sacred and inviolable? If society is to have a future, it must respect the truth of our human dignity and submit to that truth.

Murder is not wrong simply because it is socially unacceptable and punished by law, but because of a deeper conviction. This is a non-negotiable truth attained by the use of reason and accepted in conscience.

A society is noble and decent not least for its support of the pursuit of truth and its adherence to the most basic of truths. We need to learn how to unmask the various ways that the truth is manipulated, distorted and concealed in public and private discourse.

It is primarily the search for the solid foundations sustaining our decisions and our laws. This calls for acknowledging that the human mind is capable of transcending immediate concerns and grasping certain truths that are unchanging, as true now as in the past. As it peers into human nature, reason discovers universal values derived from that same nature.

Nor would a mere consensus between different nations, itself equally open to manipulation, suffice to protect them. We have ample evidence of the great good of which we are capable, yet we also have to acknowledge our inherent destructiveness.

Is not the indifference and the heartless individualism into which we have fallen also a result of our sloth in pursuing higher values, values that transcend our immediate needs? Relativism always brings the risk that some or other alleged truth will be imposed by the powerful or the clever.

What is now happening, and drawing us into a perverse and barren way of thinking, is the reduction of ethics and politics to physics. Good and evil no longer exist in themselves; there is only a calculus of benefits and burdens.

As a result of the displacement of moral reasoning, the law is no longer seen as reflecting a fundamental notion of justice but as mirroring notions currently in vogue. In the end, the law of the strongest prevails. In a pluralistic society, dialogue is the best way to realize what ought always to be affirmed and respected apart from any ephemeral consensus.

Such dialogue needs to be enriched and illumined by clear thinking, rational arguments, a variety of perspectives and the contribution of different fields of knowledge and points of view. Nor can it exclude the conviction that it is possible to arrive at certain fundamental truths always to be upheld. Acknowledging the existence of certain enduring values, however demanding it may be to discern them, makes for a robust and solid social ethics.

Once those fundamental values are acknowledged and adopted through dialogue and consensus, we realize that they rise above consensus; they transcend our concrete situations and remain non-negotiable. Our understanding of their meaning and scope can increase — and in that respect, consensus is a dynamic reality — but in themselves, they are held to be enduring by virtue of their inherent meaning.

If something always serves the good functioning of society, is it not because, lying beyond it, there is an enduring truth accessible to the intellect? Inherent in the nature of human beings and society there exist certain basic structures to support our development and survival.

Certain requirements thus ensue, and these can be discovered through dialogue, even though, strictly speaking, they are not created by consensus.

The fact that certain rules are indispensable for the very life of society is a sign that they are good in and of themselves.

There is no need, then, to oppose the interests of society, consensus and the reality of objective truth. These three realities can be harmonized whenever, through dialogue, people are unafraid to get to the heart of an issue.

The dignity of others is to be respected in all circumstances, not because that dignity is something we have invented or imagined, but because human beings possess an intrinsic worth superior to that of material objects and contingent situations.

This requires that they be treated differently. That every human being possesses an inalienable dignity is a truth that corresponds to human nature apart from all cultural change. For this reason, human beings have the same inviolable dignity in every age of history and no one can consider himself or herself authorized by particular situations to deny this conviction or to act against it. The intellect can investigate the reality of things through reflection, experience and dialogue, and come to recognize in that reality, which transcends it, the basis of certain universal moral demands.

To agnostics, this foundation could prove sufficient to confer a solid and stable universal validity on basic and non-negotiable ethical principles that could serve to prevent further catastrophes. As believers, we are convinced that human nature, as the source of ethical principles, was created by God, and that ultimately it is he who gives those principles their solid foundation.

Thus, room for dialogue will always exist. Each of us can learn something from others. No one is useless and no one is expendable. This also means finding ways to include those on the peripheries of life. For they have another way of looking at things; they see aspects of reality that are invisible to the centres of power where weighty decisions are made. It has to do with their desires, their interests and ultimately the way they live their lives.

This becomes an aspiration and a style of life. Call Number: BX C S Pontifical council for justice and peace. The nature of Catholic social teaching -- The human person -- The family -- The social order -- The role of the state -- The economy -- Work and wages -- Poverty and charity -- The environment -- The international community.