Dilexit Nos: Getting to the Heart of the Matter with Pope Francis

Greg Marcar is a senior researcher at the Nathaniel Bioethics Centre for Bioethics, Te Kupenga, and a research affiliate at the Centre for Theology and Public Issues (CTPI), University of Otago (New Zealand). He is a coeditor of Søren Kierkegaard: Theologian of the Gospel (Wipf & Stock 2021) and Security, Religion, and the Rule of Law: International Perspectives (Routledge 2023). This post is based on Marcar’s contribution to The Nathaniel Report 74 (2024).

Almost 20 years ago, Pope Benedict XVI published his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est (“God Is Love”) (DC 2005). In this encyclical, Benedict XVI referred to a Christian faith as one that “sees the love of God revealed in the pierced heart of Jesus on the Cross” and “gives rise to love” (DC, para. 39). In his latest encyclical, Dilexit Nos (“He Loved Us”) (DN) published on 24 October 2024, Pope Francis continues his predecessor’s focus on divine and human love, as revealed most clearly in the heart of Jesus.

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Infinite, Finite, and Definite Dignity: Reflections on the Catholic Church’s Dignitas Infinita

Vatican, Rome – Conciliazione street

In April 2024, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (the Holy See’s institution responsible for the religious discipline of the Catholic Church) published the declaration Dignitas Infinita. The document contributes to the theological argumentation of human dignity as an ontological feature of every human being and clarifies the teachings of the Catholic Church on dignity-related issues, including those traditionally the subject of the Holy See’s focus (such as family ethics, poverty, and war) and those that are virtually new (such as human dignity and digital technologies).

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Dignitas Infinita—Infinite Dignity. A Compendium of Catholic Ethics—and a Missed Chance

Ingeborg G. Gabriel is a professor emerita at the University of Vienna.

The declaration Dignitas Infinita (DI) was issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith with the explicit approval of the Pope on 8 April 2024. It had been in preparation for five years and was intended to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) on 10 December 2023. Its belated publication was due to an ecclesial process of discernment described in the “presentation” at the beginning of the document.

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