His Church

After nearly 14 months in office--a longer time than any of his 20th century predecessors waited--Pope Paul VI last week issued his first encyclical.* It was, as one Vatican official put it, "pure Paul." For Paul VI is an intellectual who likes to consider things long and hard from both sides, frequently has difficulty in making up his mind. And so it is with Ecclesiam Suam (His Church, meaning Christ's), the first two words of the encyclical, which by church custom become its title. In paragraph after paragraph--and Paul himself suggested that the encyclical might ultimately become most celebrated for its length--the key word seemed to be "but."

On the thorny question of reforming Catholic teachings and practices, which has divided the bishops of the Ecumenical Council between conservatives and progressives (and will go on dividing them during the coming session), the Pope kept the ambivalences dancing. "Naturally," he wrote, "it will be for the Council to suggest what reforms are to be introduced." But, he went on, "the reform cannot concern either the essential conception of the church or its basic structure." Change, though, is not necessarily bad: "It is not our intention to say that perfection consists in remaining changeless as regards the external forms." But on the other hand, "the Church will rediscover her renewed youthfulness not so much by changing her exterior laws as by interiorly assimilating her true spirit of obedience to Christ."

If the encyclical seemed mostly rumination--Paul confessed that he did not intend to "express ideas that are either new or fully developed"--it nonetheless made some firm points:

sbCOMMUNISM: Pleasing the conservatives, Paul denounced it by name. He called atheism "the most serious problem of our time." Yet he seemed to encourage keeping lines open to the Communists. "The Church should enter into dialogue with the world, in which she exists and labors," he wrote, and added that "we do not despair" that atheistic ideologies such as Communism might one day be able "to enter into a more positive dialogue with the Church."

sbPAPAL PRIMACY: "In reflecting on this subject, it distresses us" to see how the Pope is regarded by many non-Roman Catholic Christians as being a stumbling block to Christian unity: "Without the Pope, the Catholic Church would no longer be Catholic."

sbPEACE: "We shall be ready to intervene, where an opportunity presents itself, in order to assist the contending parties to find honorable and fraternal solutions for their disputes."

sbNONCHRISTIAN RELIGIONS: "We desire to join with them in promoting and defending common ideals of religious liberty, human brotherhood, good culture, social welfare and civil order," but Paul quickly added, "honesty compels us to declare openly our conviction that there is but one true religion, the religion of Christianity."

sbMODERNITY: "The word aggiornamento [updating], rendered famous by our predecessor of happy memory, Pope John XXIII, should always be kept in mind as our program of action."

Paul's own up-to-dateness was not in question for a moment with the crowd of 30,000 who assembled in the cathedral (and wine) town of Orvieto, 75 miles north of Rome. The day after the encyclical was issued, the 66-year-old Paul dropped nonchalantly out of the sky for a visit--the first Pope ever to ride in a helicopter (or as Pope John called it, a helicopterum).

* A letter from the Pope to the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church, setting forth his views on anything he chooses for serious consideration, but not necessarily an infallible document. This papal device has been much in use since 1891, when Leo XIII issued his influential Rerum Novarum, on the church's attitude toward labor.

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