Book Review: God Is Love. The First Encyclical Letter of Pope Benedict XVI

God Is Love shows us that peace in the world depends on knowing the truth about God and ourselves and living the truth once we know it. Pope Benedict encourages us to live out this truth through charity toward our neighbor and participation in the political process. Politics needs to be based on objective reason informed by faith. Furthermore, the Church is uniquely qualified to contribute to social justice through charitable service, and she must be free to serve.

P>KNOXVILLE, TN (Catholic Online) - For Pope Benedict XVI, hatred and violence in the world are related to a false notion of God and love, and he confronts this issue in his first encyclical, God Is Love. It is divided into two parts. In the first part he explains what authentic Christian love is. In the second part he gives us a guideline for expressing this love in the world through charitable service and participation in the political process. The following is a summary.

In part one, Pope Benedict contrasts the secular view of love with the Christian view. The dominant secular view throughout history reduces love to eroticism and associates its intoxication with an experience of the eternal and divine. But this narrow view of love is false. It distorts the truth about eros and leads to a multiplicity of perversions that degrade the person. The Christian view of love embraces the whole of human existence, body and spirit. True eros is more than self-seeking. It raises us beyond ourselves and into a caring union with another person.

However, only God could raise eros to its full stature. Because of God's passionate love for us, he became one of us and died for us. By doing this, He purified and ennobled eros making it one with agape, the love of God. Agape enables us to love justly and unites us with God.

Our union with God is not a private matter. It subsists in His Mystical Body and the share He has given us in His sacramental life through the Eucharist. The Eucharist unites us with all others who are united with God. Consequently, agape does not just perfect the love between man and woman, but it also perfects man's relationship with his neighbor. Thus, the love of God and neighbor are inseparable. The Apostle John wrote, "If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar. . ." (1 Jn 4:20). Herein lies the connection between the individual and society and the basis for social justice and Christian charity.

In part two, Pope Benedict states that the just ordering of society and the state is the responsibility of politics but that politics needs to be based on objective reason informed by faith, and the political process must allow citizens to participate to the extent that they are able. Unfortunately, the politics of our age defines justice almost exclusively in terms of materialism and is becoming resistant to participation from sources other than the state bureaucracy. This situation demeans the person and undermines justice. Social justice can only exist where there is love, and love can only express itself effectively in a society that is based on the principle of subsidiarity. 

Pope Benedict states that the Church is uniquely qualified to contribute to social justice through charitable service, and she must be free to serve. Although it is not the Church's proper role to utilize the political process in her desire to work toward a more just society, it is proper and necessary for the lay faithful, as citizens, to work toward a more just society through the political process.

Furthermore, Pope Benedict reminds us that we must not try to do it without God. He says, ". . .we are only instruments in the Lord's hands. . . . It is God who governs the world, not we" (35). If we presume we can solve the world's problems without God, we risk "falling into an arrogant contempt for man" (36).

God Is Love shows us that peace in the world depends on knowing the truth about God and ourselves and living the truth once we know it. Pope Benedict encourages us to live out this truth through charity toward our neighbor and participation in the political process. In his concluding paragraphs, he informs us that in order to live the truth, we need to pray always and imitate the saints, especially Mary, the Mother of God and the greatest of all saints.
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Michael Terheyden was born into a Catholic family, but that is not why he is a Catholic. He is a Catholic because he believes that truth is real, that it is beautiful and good, and that the fullness of truth is in the Catholic Church. However, he knows that God's grace operating throughout his life is the main reason he is a Catholic. He is greatly blessed to share his faith and his life with his beautiful wife, Dorothy. They have four grown children and three grandchildren.

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