ABSTRACT
This brings me to the title of my remarks, 'new ways of speaking with love and mercy'. These words are taken from the third paragraph of the recent encyclical Venturis Splendor} In the initial paragraphs, the authors of the encyclical offer general remarks about the character and importance of teaching in the Church, asserting, as have Paul and Augustine, that the answer to all our questions, both religious and moral, is not simply given by Jesus, but is Jesus Christ himself (§2). In the third chapter, the text explicitly relates the priority of Jesus to the teaching itself: the source of the Church's educative power is 'not so much in doctrinal statements and pastoral appeals to vigilance, as in constantly looking to the Lord Jesus' (§85). We do not have to cast about looking for or inventing what needs to be said. Rather, it has been said, it has been given to us, by the mercy of God and for the renewal of our minds, as Paul puts it in Rom. 12:1-2. It is this basic conviction which will guide my reading of this document. I will not, however, focus primarily on the content of its teaching, but rather on the path it takes through reflection on five modes of teaching. Whether intentionally or not, the text correctly passes through a range of activities which can adequately address the need for 'examining the signs of the times and interpreting them in the light of the gospel' (§2).
