Encyclical

Encyclical

Controlling authority	The Roman Pontiff exercising his teaching and pastoral office
Juridical character	Papal teaching form; doctrinal weight is proposition-specific and intention-sensitive

Encyclical is a papal letter ordinarily used to teach, exhort, or address a question of broad ecclesial importance to bishops, the faithful, and sometimes all people of good will.

Authority level: Authoritative doctrine

Overview

An encyclical was originally a circular letter sent to all the churches of a particular area in the ancient Roman Church. At that time, the word could be used for a letter sent out by any bishop. The word comes from the Late Latin encyclios (originally from the Latin encyclius, a Latinization of Greek ἐγκύκλιος (enkyklios), meaning "circular", "in a circle", or "all-round", also part of the origin of the word encyclopedia).

The term is now primarily associated with papal encyclicals in the Catholic Church, letters outlining the church's perspective on a topic. Still, it is also used among Anglicans and the Eastern Orthodox Church.

A letter for broad teaching

The modern Encyclical commonly offers extended papal teaching on faith, morals, social life, mission, devotion, or Christian unity. Its addressees and purpose appear in the heading and opening, while its incipit supplies the conventional title. Unlike a General Decree, it is not defined by canon law as legislation, though an encyclical can recall law, direct pastoral action, or announce decisions implemented elsewhere.

The form belongs especially to the Papal Magisterium. Encyclicals develop doctrine, apply permanent principles to new circumstances, settle disputed questions, encourage reception of prior teaching, and propose pastoral judgments. They must be read as authoritative ecclesial acts, not as private essays by a prominent theologian.

Address and scope

An encyclical may address the Catholic hierarchy, the whole faithful, or a wider human audience. Broad address does not dilute Catholic teaching, and narrow address does not automatically increase it. The scope shows whom the pope seeks to teach or exhort; authority still depends on subject, intention, continuity, and manner of proposal.

Magisterial weight

Humani generis rejects the idea that encyclical teaching may be dismissed merely because the pope does not ordinarily exercise the supreme teaching power in that form. Lumen gentium likewise requires Religious Submission of Intellect and Will to authentic papal teaching, discerned especially from the document's character, repetition, and expression. This is real authority even when a statement is not definitive.

An Encyclical can restate Dogma or Definitive Doctrine, teach non-definitively, make prudential applications, report history, and offer spiritual counsel in the same text. Repetition of an already infallible doctrine does not mean the encyclical created its infallibility. Conversely, absence of a new definition does not make its authentic teaching optional.

No automatic ladder by title

It is unsafe to say that every encyclical ranks above every Apostolic Letter or declaration. A shorter document can definitively confirm settled teaching, while an encyclical can contain reformable prudential judgments. Grades of Magisterial Teaching attach to propositions as proposed by competent authority, not to a stationery hierarchy.

Responsible use

Articles citing an encyclical should identify the numbered passage and state whether it teaches a doctrinal principle, applies social or moral reasoning, gives discipline, or offers pastoral judgment. Summaries must preserve qualifications and connections rather than extracting an isolated phrase as though it were a stand-alone definition.

Reception means reading the Encyclical within Sacred Tradition and the Church's living Magisterium. Later authoritative clarification can explain an ambiguous application without treating previous teaching as disposable. The proper Catholic posture combines docility, precision, and the distinctions the document itself demands.

Catholic usage

Although the term "encyclical" originally meant a circulating letter, it acquired a more specific meaning within the Catholic Church. In 1740, Pope Benedict XIV wrote a letter titled Ubi primum, which is generally regarded as the first encyclical.

For the modern Catholic Church, a papal encyclical is a specific category of papal document, a kind of pastoral letter concerning Catholic doctrine, sent by the pope and usually addressed especially to patriarchs, primates, archbishops and bishops who are in communion with the Holy See. The form of the address can vary widely and may concern bishops in a particular area or designate a wider audience. Papal encyclicals usually take the form of a papal brief because of their more personal nature as opposed to the formal papal bull.

Like most papal documents, the title of the encyclical is usually taken from its first few words (its incipit). They are usually written in Latin unless particularly addressed to the Bishops or the church of one region. Titles are generally written in sentence case, as is typical for Latin. Papal encyclicals not in Latin include the 1892 French Au milieu des sollicitudes to rally French Catholics to accept the legitimacy of the French Third Republic; the 1931 Italian Non abbiamo bisogno against Italian fascist suppression of groups like Catholic Action; and the 1937 German Mit brennender Sorge against the Nazi idolization of race and nation. In recent decades, popes prefer addressing local churches with apostolic letters or exhortations instead of encyclicals, though even those are rare. Pope Francis' Laudato si' and Fratelli tutti were addressed to the universal Church, yet used non-Latin titles despite their editio typica (authoritative versions published in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis) being in Latin because their incipits were quotes from the medieval Italian works of the saint that Pope Francis named his pontificate after, St. Francis of Assisi. In 2025, Pope Leo XIV clarified in his promulgation of the Regolamento Generale della Curia Romana (Regulations Governing the Roman Curia) that curial institutions shall draft their acts in Latin or another language, formalizing the contemporary practice of drafting documents such as encyclicals in vernacular languages. Some non-regional encyclicals drafted in modern languages are Pacem in terris in Italian; Fratelli tutti and Dilexit nos in Spanish; and Populorum progressio in French.

Papal use

In the encyclical Humani generis, Pope Pius XII held that papal encyclicals, even when they are of ordinary magisterium, can nonetheless be sufficiently authoritative to end theological debate on a particular question:

It is not to be thought that what is set down in Encyclical letters does not demand assent in itself, because in this the popes do not exercise the supreme power of their magisterium. For these matters are taught by the ordinary magisterium, regarding which the following is pertinent: "He who heareth you, heareth Me." (Luke 10:16); and usually what is set forth and inculcated in Encyclical Letters, already pertains to Catholic doctrine. But if the Supreme Pontiffs in their acts, after due consideration, express an opinion on a hitherto controversial matter, it is clear to all that this matter, according to the mind and will of the same Pontiffs, cannot any longer be considered a question of free discussion among theologians.

Anglican usage

Amongst Anglicans, the term encyclical was revived in the late 19th century. It is applied to circular letters issued by the English primates.

Eastern Orthodox usage

In Eastern Orthodoxy encyclicals can be issued by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Synods of Bishops, and even by individual bishops.

Important Eastern Orthodox encyclicals

• Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs (1848)
• Patriarchal encyclical of 2012

See also

• Apostolic constitution
• Apostolic exhortation
• Ecclesiastical letter
• Apostolic letter (disambiguation)

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Encyclical (Lat. Litteræ Encyclicæ).—According to its etymology, an encyclical (from the Greek ἐγκύκλιος, κὐκλος meaning a circle) is nothing more than a circular letter. In modern times, usage has confined the term almost exclusively to certain papal documents which differ in their technical form from the ordinary style of either Bulls or Briefs, and which in their superscription are explicitly addressed to the patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops of the Universal Church in communion with the Apostolic See. By exception, encyclicals are also sometimes addressed to the archbishops and bishops of a particular country. Thus this name is given to the letter of Pius X (January 6, 1907) to the bishops of France, in spite of the fact that it was published, not in Latin, but in French; while, on the other hand, the letter "Longinqua Oceani" (January 5, 1895) addressed by Leo XIII to the archbishops and bishops of the United States, is not styled an encyclical, although in all other respects it exactly observes the forms of one. From this and a number of similar facts we may probably infer that the precise designation used is not intended to be of any great significance. From the nature of the case encyclicals addressed to the bishops of the world are generally concerned with matters which affect the welfare of the Church at large. They condemn some prevalent form of error, point out dangers which threaten faith or morals, exhort the faithful to constancy, or prescribe remedies for evils foreseen or already existent. Inform an encyclical at the present day begins thus—we may take the encyclical "Pascendi" on Modernism as a specimen:

"Sanctissimi Domini Nostri Pii Divinae, Providentiae Papae X Litterae Encyclicae ad Patriarchas, Primates, Archiepiscopos, Episcopos aliosque locorum Ordinarios pacem et communionem cum Apostolicae Sede habentes de Modernistarum Doctrinis. Ad Patriarchas, Primates, Archiepiscopos, Episcopos aliosque locorum Ordinarios, pacem et communionem cum Apostolicae Sede habentes, Pius PP. X., Venerabiles Fratres, saluted et apostolicam benedictionem. Pascendi dominici gregis mandatum", etc.

The conclusion takes the following form: Nos vero, pignus caritatis Nostrae divinique in adversis solatii, Apostolicam Benedictionem vobis, cleris, populisque vestris amantissime impertimus. Datum Romae, apud Sanctum Petrum, die VIII Septembris MCMVII, Pontificatus Nostri anno quinto. Pius PP. X."

Although it is only during the last three pontificates that the most important utterances of the Holy See have been given to the world in the shape of encyclicals, this form of Apostolic Letter has long been in occasional use. Almost the first document published by Benedict XIV after his election was an "Epistola encyclica et commonitoria" on the duties of the episcopal office (December 3, 1740). Under Pius IX many momentous utterances were presented in this shape. The famous pronouncement "Quanta cura" (December 8, 1864), which was accompanied by a Syllabus (q.v.) of eighty anathematized errors, was an encyclical. Another important encyclical of Pius IX, described as an "Encyclical of the Holy Office", was that beginning "Supremae" (August 4, 1856) in condemnation of Spiritualism. Leo XIII published a series of encyclicals on social and other questions which attracted universal attention. We may mention especially "Inscrutabilis" (April 21, 1878) on the evils of modern society; "Aeterni Patris" (August 4, 1879) on St. Thomas Aquinas and Scholastic philosophy; "Arcanum divinae sapientiae" (February 10, 1880) on Christian marriage and family life; "Diuturnum illud" (June 29, 1881) on the origin of civil authority; "Immortale Dei" (November 1, 1885) on the Christian constitution of states; "Libertas praestantissimum" (June 20, 1888) on true liberty; "Rerum novarum" (May 16, 1891) on the labor question; "Providentissimus Deus" (November 18, 1893) on Holy Scripture; "Satis cognitum" (June 29, 1896) on religious unity. Pius X has shown the same favor for this form of document, e.g. in his earnest commendation of catechetical instruction "Acerbo nimis" (April 15, 1906) his address on the centenary of St. Gregory the Great (March 12, 1904), his first letter to the clergy and faithful of France, "Vehementer nos" (February 11, 1906), his instructions on intervention in politics to the people of Italy, and in the pronouncement on Modernism already mentioned.

Two officials presiding over separate bureaux still count it among their duties to aid the Holy Father in the drafting of his encyclical letters. These are the "Segretario dei brevi ai Principi" assisted by two minutanti, and the "Segretario delle lettere Latine" also with a minutante. But it was undoubtedly the habit of Leo XIII to write his own encyclicals, and it is plainly within the competence of the sovereign pontiff to dispense with the services of any subordinates.

As for the binding force of these documents it is generally admitted that the mere fact that the pope should have given to any of his utterances the form of an encyclical does not necessarily constitute it an ex-cathedra pronouncement and invest it with infallible authority. The degree in which the infallible magisterium of the Holy See is committed must be judged from the circumstances, and from the language used in the particular case. In the early centuries the term encyclical was applied, not only to papal letters, but to certain letters emanating from bishops or archbishops and directed to their own flocks or to other bishops. Such letters addressed by a bishop to all his subjects in general are now commonly called pastorals. Amongst Anglicans, however, the name encyclical has recently been revived and applied, in imitation of papal usage, to circular letters issued by the English primates. Thus the reply of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to the papal condemnation of Anglican Orders (this condemnation, "Apostolici Curse", took the form of a Bull) was styled by its authors the Encyclical "Saepius officio".

External links

• List of papal documents at the Theology Library Archived 2016-03-30 at the Wayback Machine
• Papal Encyclicals at GCatholic
• www.papalencyclicals.net, texts of most of the encyclicals from recent centuries

Bibliography

• The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd. ed.), p. 545.