Charity in Truth

Pope Benedict announced today that he has signed his latest encyclical, Caritas in veritate . The document will “outline the goals and values that the faithful must defend to ensure solidarity among all peoples.” The new archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, was also on hand to receive the pallium from the pope. Rocco Palmo reports:

At the noontime Angelus following this morning’s Pallium Mass, the Pope announced that, as expected, he had signed his third encyclical earlier in the day — a long-awaited, long-delayed text which, indeed, bears the title Caritas in Veritate (“Love in Truth”).

“Recalling the social themes contained in Populorum Progressio ” — the 1967 encyclical of Paul VI — B16 said that “this document . . . intends to focus on some aspects of the integral developments of our time, in the light of love in truth.

“I entrust to your prayers this latest contribution the church offers to humanity,” he added, “in its task of sustainable progress, with full respect for human dignity and the real circumstances of all.”

Leaking what it claimed to be some of the document’s key grafs, a weekend report in Italy’s Corriere della Sera said the text is expected to drop on either 6 or 7 July, just before the Bel Paese hosts the G8 Summit in L’Aquila, at whose close the pontiff will receive President Obama in a private audience on the late afternoon of the 10th.