Why I Don’t Read Papal Encyclicals

The first papal encyclical I remember reading—or attempting to read—was Ecclesia de Eucharistia (2003), the last encyclical by Pope John Paul II. Published three days before I was baptized into the Catholic Church, it discusses one of the most important topics in the Catholic Faith, that of the Holy Eucharist. I won’t bore you with slogans, but if you are a devout Catholic, few things are of greater importance than the Eucharist. Naturally, being a new member of the Church, I eagerly sought and read the encyclical.

The only thing that I can recall from that document was the vague impression that it could have been written much, much better than it was. (I know, I know: another convert complaining about a document I could not possibly read in its original language.) I knew that Karol Wojtyla was a philosopher, but I had never read anything he had written. And what I discovered only much later is that the late pontiff wrote in what might be called the style of “continental philosophy,” which turned out to be the reason for my confusion.

By “continental philosophy” I mean that 20th-century branch of philosophy popular in Europe (hence “continental”) which, following the lead of thinkers such as Martin Heidegger, decided that the best way to capture the reality of the complex and difficult world that we live in was to write about it in the most impenetrable gibberish imaginable. The works these kinds of philosophers produce appear more like the effusions of a mystery cult than the reasoned reflection on reality that philosophy is traditionally supposed to be. (Which is perhaps why their devotees so often act like members of a cult.)

John Paul II no doubt wrote in this manner because he wished to speak to the contemporary world on its own terms. Laudable though this attempt may have been, I found much more congenial the lucidity of his successor, Benedict XVI. Still, when I read his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, I remember thinking that perhaps my faith was not as it should be, since I did not feel as if I was getting much out of even Benedict XVI’s blessedly readable prose. What was the matter?

I never quite finished Benedict XVI’s second encyclical, and I simply don’t remember anything about his or his predecessor’s encyclicals (I did read one or two others by John Paul II thereafter). But the more I read, the less I cared; and I wondered if there might be something wrong with me. Around that time, I recall reading somewhere (I don’t remember where, though it might have been Benedict XVI himself) that while the general theological principles articulated in papal encyclicals were authoritative (binding), the particular judgments about politics or other social commentary were not.

Upon hearing this, I thought to myself, “Why do I need to read these then?” After all, I reasoned, an educated lay Catholic ought to be familiar with the theological principles he is invoking, which I was already. If the only takeaway from these encyclicals is the pope’s peculiar judgments on social issues, do I really need to read them?

The conclusion I came to was that, no, I didn’t really need to read them, and nothing was really wrong with me if I didn’t. And I have not read one since.

I say all this because you may have heard—more accurately, you could not help having heard—that Pope Leo XIV has issued his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. You are likely aware that the topic his encyclical addresses is that of Artificial Intelligence—indeed, you can hardly escape such awareness. Not to ruin the suspense, dear reader, but no, I will not be reading this one either. Nor will I be discussing its contents in the remainder of my reflections.

What I would rather discuss is this: What is the purpose of papal encyclicals? Why does the pope issue them, and why do Catholics at large expect him to do this? Popes did not always do this. Popes in earlier centuries issued encyclicals, but these weren’t even the most important papal documents. That distinction is probably best given to papal “bulls,” which were more common before the modern era.

The practice of popes issuing numerous encyclicals is a modern one, beginning in the 19th century. In particular, Pope Leo XIII—the current pontiff’s namesake—made it a staple of papal reigns to issue encyclicals on “social issues” of the day, which in his era meant things like “the labor question.”

You might think this is a normal and natural thing for the popes to do, but then why did they not do this prior to the late 19th century? The answer is the Church did not need to spell out its “position” on “social issues” when European society was still Christian and mostly Catholic. But after the upheavals of that era and the loss of the Papal States, the Vatican needed some way to get the secularizing states of Europe to take the Church seriously. The solution they hit upon is an ingenious one: talk so much (i.e., issue documents like encyclicals) that they can’t ignore you. Thus, the Vatican shrewdly put into practice the observation of a 19th-century British politician that the world “is not governed by wisdom, but by talk.”

This only works if you have something else to offer besides words. What the Vatican has to offer the secular world is numbers—or rather one single number, 1.4 billion to be exact. In a world governed by opinion surveys, having those kinds of numbers is a golden ticket. If you can convince secular leaders that even a bare plurality of baptized Catholics genuinely supports whatever it is the Vatican is proposing, they will almost certainly have to listen.

This is no mean feat. No other religious institution in the world carries the demographic or symbolic weight of the papacy, and the ability to gain the world’s attention, however tenuous that may be, is not to be sniffed at. I say this because the world mostly ignores Christianity, and religion in general, most of the time. This ability to get the world to pay attention is crucial to the Church’s mission of spreading the Gospel.

But there are dangers with this approach. The need to ensure its message is heard swallows every other consideration at times, and one can argue the content of such a statement is less important than maintaining its ability to gain the world’s attention. Nothing drove this home to me more than the last pontificate, which demonstrated that the papacy cannot be ignored when it manages to get the attention of the secular media, even when its message is harmful to the Faith and the interests of the Church.

Moreover, because getting attention depends upon the Catholic Church being a “mass institution,” the Church operates what is, in effect, an attention “economy of scale,” meaning it can bring secular media attention to bear in order to drown out things the Vatican doesn’t want people to hear. This can be a good thing; John Paul II used the attention of the secular media to drown out theological dissent during his reign. Unfortunately, it also means the Vatican can drown out legitimate criticism when it errs, as in its handling of sexual abuse cases.

In a more subtle way, the Vatican’s attention economy contributes to the idea that belief or practice X is widespread enough that X can appear to the faithful (or even the hierarchy) as something definitively Catholic, without it actually being a permanent or even important part of the Church’s faith. This overwhelming focus on the papacy distracts Catholics from all the beautiful sources of the Christian Faith that can help us through this vale of sorrow, denying us the spiritual riches of the great Tradition that originally attracted some of us to the Catholic Church in the first place.

Unfortunately, this attention economy operates the same way whether the occupant of the throne of Peter is conscientious in fulfilling his duties as pontiff or not. This, in turn, feeds the idea that the pope is a demigod on earth whose every utterance is infallible, an unfortunate effect of how the modern papacy has developed.

I know that, especially as a lay Catholic, there is not much one can do about this state of affairs. The papacy is a complex institution, and it would be impossible to alter something so crucial to its functioning, nor am I suggesting that anyone should. You simply have to accept that sometimes it will use this great power in harmful ways. It is simply something you have to accept as part of the Church’s basic structure, warts and all.

Nor am I suggesting that reading papal encyclicals is bad or that a newly baptized convert who reads the new papal encyclical is somehow deficient in their faith. But if there comes a point where reading papal documents doesn’t appeal to you anymore, you are not a heretic or losing your faith. And if it sounds silly that I even mention such a thing, that is because the excessive attention paid to every single thing the pope does and says is apt to produce such thoughts in the minds of the devout.

One can insist that clergy and theologians should read encyclicals, given their differing levels of responsibility in the Church. But given their state in life, it is not really necessary for most of the laity. One’s time is better spent in meditating on Scripture or praying before a holy icon than scrutinizing papal pronouncements. Catholics do not live by bread alone, but neither do they live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the current pontiff. Simply placing one’s attention elsewhere is a perfectly fine, and certainly Catholic, thing to do.