In all of the encyclical madness last week, we kept coming around the question of who’s this for? and the "Catholic scholars" don’t care…should we? and Aren’t encyclicals just for bishops anyhoo?

Well, the most direct argument against the contention that this is all just a volley for the inner sanctum is the plain fact that in Italy, this encyclical was published in a magazine that is distributed to grocery stores, restaurants, and so on. And that in that same magazine, (published by the Society of St. Paul, related, of course, to the Daughters of St. Paul, whom we all know and love over here) the Pope wrote a letter introducing the encyclical to the general reader. I’ve not seen the entire letter translated so far, but this news report says:

"At the beginning, in fact the text might appear to be a bit difficult and theoretical," the Pope writes. "But when you move ahead with the reading it is clear that I only wanted to answer a few very concrete questions regarding Christian life."

Isn’t it interesting that this Pope is so committed to engaging the laity in the ongoing theological reflection of the Church? Won’t the folks who like to call for us to be treated as "adult" and "thinking" Catholics be pleased? Won’t they?

Ah yes, the Catholic Outsider provides his own translation of the Pope’s letter:

And finally there is the question:  with his commandments and prohibitions is not the Church making bitter the joy of the Eros, of being loved, that pushes us to the other in the desire to become a union?

In the encyclical I have tried to demonstrate that the deeper promise of the eros can grow only when we don’t seek to grab a sudden happiness. On the contrary, we find together the patience of discovering the other in a deeper way, in the fullness of body and soul, in a way that, at the end, the other’s happiness becomes more important than mine one. Then we not only want to grab, but to give, and is in this liberation from the self that man finds himself and becomes fulfilled with joy. In the encyclical ’encyclical I speak of a road of purification and growth that are necessary to fulfill the true promise of the eros. The language of our tradition has call it “education for Chastity”, which at the end, it doesn’t mean anything else but the learning of full love in the patience of growing up.

What a negative, joy-denying fellow. My, oh, my.