[Question:]{.underline} Is it good for laymen, untrained in theology and philosophy, to read Papal encyclicals?
[Answer:]{.underline} It is certainly true that the encyclicals of the Popes are addressed to the Bishops throughout the world, indicating what they must teach their flocks. The reason for this is that the bishops make up the official teaching Church.
However, this does not mean that they are so complex that they cannot be readily understood by the well educated Catholic layman. For a Catholic who has studied his catechism in depth has already sufficient of a summary of theology to be able to understand Papal encyclicals. Although they do contain theological concepts that only the theologian can fully understand, their teachings are generally expressed in a way that any educated man can understand, technical terms being explained as necessary. Consequently, they are not exclusively for the bishops, but with the intention that their teachings be passed on, which is most accurately and well done by the simple publication of the encyclical letter.
In fact, the fundamental reason why the Papal encyclicals ought to be studied by all Catholics, in this age when the text is readily available, is that they are the usual expression of the Popes’ Ordinary Magisterium or teaching authority. Without being infallible statements (in general), they hand down the Deposit of Faith contained in Scripture and Tradition, adapting it to the times in which we are living, resolving conflicts and disputes, and condemning modern errors. They must, therefore, be accepted and consented to. This is clearly stated by Pope Pius XII: “Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such Letters the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their teaching Authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: ‘He who heareth you, heareth Me’ (Lk 10:16) and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already for other reasons appertains to Catholic doctrine (Humani generis, §20).
If at all times the instructed Catholic could not, therefore, afford to be ignorant of the content of Papal encyclicals, this is all the more the case since the time of the French revolution, in which liberal errors infiltrating the Church have been constantly and repeatedly condemned in Papal encyclicals. This is the reason why Archbishop Lefebvre instituted for his seminarians, entering into the first year of their Seminary studies, before beginning the study of Philosophy and Theology, a course called Acts of the Magisterium, a brief study of the most important liberal errors condemned by the Popes over the 150 years up until Vatican II.
This course of study has been published as the book Against the Heresies, in the introduction to which Archbishop Lefebvre has this to say: “Why study the Acts of the Church’s Magisterium? Quite simply, in order to grasp the situation of the Church today. One notices, in fact, that for nearly three centuries the popes have always condemned the same errors, those which they themselves called ‘the modern errors’” (p. xviii).
A Catholic who wants to save his soul, avoid modern errors, and combat the perversion of liberals, must read the Papal encyclicals. Otherwise, he will never understand the errors of Vatican II, the evil of the New Mass, the infiltration of liberalism into the Church, and that modernism is truly “the synthesis of all heresies” (Pascendi §39). It is for this reason that the statutes of the Third Order of the Society of Saint Pius X make it an obligation even for lay people to study the Acts of Saint Pius X, which means principally his 14 encyclicals.
[Question:]{.underline} Is it good for laymen, untrained in theology and philosophy, to read Papal encyclicals?
[Answer:]{.underline} It is certainly true that the encyclicals of the Popes are addressed to the Bishops throughout the world, indicating what they must teach their flocks. The reason for this is that the bishops make up the official teaching Church.
However, this does not mean that they are so complex that they cannot be readily understood by the well educated Catholic layman. For a Catholic who has studied his catechism in depth has already sufficient of a summary of theology to be able to understand Papal encyclicals. Although they do contain theological concepts that only the theologian can fully understand, their teachings are generally expressed in a way that any educated man can understand, technical terms being explained as necessary. Consequently, they are not exclusively for the bishops, but with the intention that their teachings be passed on, which is most accurately and well done by the simple publication of the encyclical letter.
In fact, the fundamental reason why the Papal encyclicals ought to be studied by all Catholics, in this age when the text is readily available, is that they are the usual expression of the Popes’ Ordinary Magisterium or teaching authority. Without being infallible statements (in general), they hand down the Deposit of Faith contained in Scripture and Tradition, adapting it to the times in which we are living, resolving conflicts and disputes, and condemning modern errors. They must, therefore, be accepted and consented to. This is clearly stated by Pope Pius XII: “Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such Letters the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their teaching Authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: ‘He who heareth you, heareth Me’ (Lk 10:16) and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already for other reasons appertains to Catholic doctrine (Humani generis, §20).
If at all times the instructed Catholic could not, therefore, afford to be ignorant of the content of Papal encyclicals, this is all the more the case since the time of the French revolution, in which liberal errors infiltrating the Church have been constantly and repeatedly condemned in Papal encyclicals. This is the reason why Archbishop Lefebvre instituted for his seminarians, entering into the first year of their Seminary studies, before beginning the study of Philosophy and Theology, a course called Acts of the Magisterium, a brief study of the most important liberal errors condemned by the Popes over the 150 years up until Vatican II.
This course of study has been published as the book Against the Heresies, in the introduction to which Archbishop Lefebvre has this to say: “Why study the Acts of the Church’s Magisterium? Quite simply, in order to grasp the situation of the Church today. One notices, in fact, that for nearly three centuries the popes have always condemned the same errors, those which they themselves called ‘the modern errors’” (p. xviii).
A Catholic who wants to save his soul, avoid modern errors, and combat the perversion of liberals, must read the Papal encyclicals. Otherwise, he will never understand the errors of Vatican II, the evil of the New Mass, the infiltration of liberalism into the Church, and that modernism is truly “the synthesis of all heresies” (Pascendi §39). It is for this reason that the statutes of the Third Order of the Society of Saint Pius X make it an obligation even for lay people to study the Acts of Saint Pius X, which means principally his 14 encyclicals.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.