The Encyclical Letters of Pope Benedict XVI

“To reveal God to men”: this, Pope Benedict XVI declared in the inaugural homily of his papacy, is the purpose of the Christian life. The encounter with the living God in Christ marks life’s true beginning: it is the condition for knowing what life is, who man is, and why he is. In his three papal encyclicals—Deus caritas est, Spe salvi, and Caritas in veritate—Benedict XVI strove to fulfill the apostolic mission: to proclaim the love which God mysteriously and gratuitously lavishes upon man, to testify to the hope that love bestows, and elucidate the responsibility to live the truth, in love, and thereby arrive at eternal life and communion with God, who “is himself Truth and Love.”

Clear, concise, and accessible to a universal audience, the encyclical letters of Pope Benedict XVI exemplify the effort and inspiration with which the 265th Vicar of Christ labored to feed Christ’s sheep, to guard the precious treasure of tradition and revelation, and to steer the Church through a sea of darkness toward the unwavering light of God’s own truth.

God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. (1 John 4:16)
Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. (Ephesians 4:15)
In hope we have been saved. (Romans 8:24)

Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) served as Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church from 2005 to 2013. A brilliant, contemplative theologian, he wrote dozens of books, including the enormously influential Introduction to Christianity and the Jesus of Nazareth trilogy, as well as numerous other scholarly and spiritual works.

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Paperback: 224pp.