{"id":47213,"date":"2019-12-26T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-26T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www1.romereports.com\/2019\/12\/26\/most-common-papal-documents-explained\/"},"modified":"2019-12-26T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-26T14:00:00","slug":"most-common-papal-documents-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/2019\/12\/26\/most-common-papal-documents-explained\/","title":{"rendered":"Most common papal documents explained"},"content":{"rendered":"

FULL VIDEO, HERE:<\/strong><\/p>\n

 https:\/\/www.romereports.tv\/vatican-unseen\/videos\/most-common-papal-documents-explained<\/a> <\/p>\n

To respond to constantly changing needs around the world and in the Church, popes issue a variety of documents. They can show the limits of the Catholic faith, challenge controversial opinions, encourage or discourage different initiatives in the Church and clarify the pope's priorities.<\/p>\n

However, not all documents carry the same weight. Among the most important are apostolic constitutions, encyclicals and apostolic exhortations, followed by other apostolic letters, motu proprios, papal rescripts, decretal letters and apostolic briefs.<\/p>\n

MSGR. JUAN IGNACIO ARRIETA<\/strong>
\n Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts<\/strong>
\n \u201cThey're all acts from the pope, so they carry the authority of being the pope's acts. The content of all these documents isn't always normative. They aren't always laws. Sometimes they're, as I say, doctrinal things.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cApostolic constitutions\u201d are important in creating new policies or laws. They deal with doctrinal or disciplinary matters concerning a local church or the Church as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cEncyclicals\u201d are longer reflections on important topics. They are meant to be read widely by all men of goodwill, not just Catholics. Encyclicals by Pope Francis include \u201cLaudato Si'\u201d and \u201cLumen Fidei.\u201d<\/p>\n

MSGR. JUAN IGNACIO ARRIETA
\n Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts
\n \u201cEncyclicals are letters usually of pastoral or theological content. The pope directs them to the whole world.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cApostolic exhortations\u201d are often confused with encyclicals because both deal with similar themes. The difference lies more in the target audience and doctrinal weight of the two.<\/p>\n

MSGR. JUAN IGNACIO ARRIETA<\/strong>
\n Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts<\/strong>
\n \u201cApostolic exhortations are for example, all those the pope makes after all bishops' synods. FLASH. In theory, it is of a lower doctrinal level than an encyclical.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cApostolic letters\u201d are written in response to a specific need or addressed to a specific group of people. They are not legislative, but pastoral in nature and usually deal with social concerns. An example is Pope Francis' recent apostolic letter on the meaning of the Nativity scene, \u201cAdmirabile Signum.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

A \u201cmotu proprio,\u201d translating to \u201cby one's own initiative,\u201d is a legislative document or decree dealing with specific issues relevant to the Church in a given time in history. They are made on the initiative of the pope himself.<\/p>\n

MSGR. JUAN IGNACIO ARRIETA<\/strong>
\n Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts<\/strong>
\n \u201cThe reason for this, for the law is explained with different articles. It deals with a certain theme, for example, motu proprio 'Vos estis lux mundi'.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPapal rescripts\u201d usually answer a petition placed before the Roman Curia or the pope himself. They are meant to make new laws or modify existing ones. In response to petitions from victims of sexual abuse, Pope Francis recently issued a rescript to abolish the pontifical secret in such cases involving minors. <\/p>\n

MSGR. JUAN IGNACIO ARRIETA<\/strong>
\n Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts<\/strong>
\n \u201cIt's a law the pope formally makes. Normally, the cardinal goes to the pope and presents him with a document. The pope signs the document to approve it, and that's it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cDecretal letters\u201d are reserved for solemn matters, such as dogmatic definitions and canonizations.<\/p>\n

Lowest on the hierarchy are \u201capostolic briefs.\u201d They deal with relatively less important matters. For example, a brief could be a simple greeting to an organization.<\/p>\n

With the pope's countless daily activities, it's not surprising that he rarely writes the documents himself. Instead, they might be drafted by a committee and then approved by the pope. <\/p>\n

Although not officially part of the collection of papal documents, the pope's tweets seem to be the most widely read of his writings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

December 26th, 2019. From encyclicals to motu proprios, here's all you need to know to understand what the pope asks of Christians and the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":19072,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"acf":{"video":"","video_descarga":"http:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bprpapaldocumentseng.mp4","international_url":"http:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/bprpapaldocumentsint.mp4","type":"rrp","newsletter":"si"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47213"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}