Cardinal says new encyclical helps explain God's love, human love

Published: 2006-01-24

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Understanding human life as a totally free gift of God's love and love as a gift that seeks nothing in return, people can learn to love one another without fear and without exploitation, said Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago. In writing his encyclical, "Deus Caritas Est" ("God Is Love"), Pope Benedict XVI was trying to help modern men and women understand the greatness of God's love and of human love, the cardinal said. Cardinal George offered theological reflections on the pope's encyclical Jan. 24 during the closing session of a Vatican conference on the encyclical organized by the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, which promotes and coordinates Catholic charitable activity. The cardinal is a member of the council. The cardinal told conference participants that love has to be seen in the light of "God's self-revelation if the message of the encyclical is to be clearly understood." The Trinity itself is "a unity created by the total self-giving of the three divine persons, each to the others, for the others, in the others," the cardinal said. The pope's new encyclical was scheduled to be released Jan. 25.

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