What a Real Encyclical Looks Like

Now that everyone's "Independence" Day hangover ought to have passed and I've gotten some decent feedback on my brief soundcloud rant concerning it, I felt I should follow up with something a little more intellectual than a rant laced with historical references.  It's also a chance to offer an olive branch to those that were upset that I would be so critical of Pope Francis' non-encylclical.

Toady's resource suggestion is another Catholic-oriented one: Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae.  An encyclical indicting the heresy of Americanism.

As is typically the case with encyclicals, it draws a surprising but undeniable connection between two apparently disparate phenomena.  In this case, it's the vocations crisis and the dropout rate of young Catholics being a result of the American radical liberal understanding of freedom.  While there are allusions to the flawed Thomistic definition of freedom, the argument presented is compatible with more reasonable definitions.
Unlike Laudato Si, Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae is addressed to the Catholic world and upholds doctrinal integrity against the mistaken views of the pagan world.


Well worth a read.