Hermeneutics of Pope Francis' First Encyclical and its Relevance to the Philippine Settings

HERMENEUTICS OF POPE FRANCIS’ FIRST ENCYCLICAL AND IT’S RELEVANCE TO THE PHILIPPINES SETTINGS

RUBELYN R. CAGAPE AB-English January 2014

Chapter I INTRODUCTION Roman Catholic Church is the world largest organization. It has billion of members worldwide. As the Catechism of the Church (1994) stated that Roman Catholic is the sole Church of Christ which is in the creed and profess to be one, holy catholic and apostolic. Catholics believe that the pope is guided by God and Holy Spirit, therefore the pope has the full and immediate power in the church. Through encyclicals, the teachings of the pope were being sent worldwide.

In the past years, it was difficult for most people to know what was written in the encyclical because they did not appear in the public forum, no available copy in bookstores and even online version. However, it is really important to say that any person can read encyclical, even if not baptized or not Catholic. Therefore, it is expected to read more critically the content of the encyclical letter.

Papal encyclical were sent by popes to provide instructions to clergy, Catholic faithful or other “men of goodwill� outside the Church.

Consequently, one of the popes who wrote encyclical is Pope Francis, the Present supreme Pontiff of Catholic. He wrote encyclical in order to commemorate the Year of Faith.

Furthermore, this papal letter of Pope Francis is Lumen Fidei. This encyclical must be read more comprehensively to understand the teachings as well as its importance to the Catholic.

The objectives of this study are to analyze the content, to identify the primary theme and to relate the teachings to the Philippines settings.

Statement of the Problem This study aims to analyze the first encyclical letter of Pope Francis. It will also answer the following questions.

1.)What is the primary theme of the encyclical?

2.)What are the set of recommendations and pastoral exhortations toward the improvement of human condition?

3.)What is the relevance of encyclical of Pope Francis to the Philippine setting?

Scope and Limitation This research deals on Lumen Fidei. It is the first encyclical letter of Pope Francis which was signed on June 29, 2013 on the solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul.

Significance of the Study The result of the study will be beneficial to Catholics, believers, unbelievers, and most importantly to Archbishops, deacons and priests to whom this encyclical letter is addressed.

Conceptual framework

Content Analysis Content •Main Theme •Set of Recommendations from the papacy Relevance of encyclicals and other pastoral letter to the Philippines Settings

Lumen Fidei “The Light of Faith”

Hermeneutics

The Paradigm of the study focuses on the encyclical Lumen Fidei of Pope Francis. The study is the analysis of the content through hermeneutics and content analysis focuses on the theme, the set of recommendations from the letter of the papacy and its relevance to the Philippines setting (e.g Reproductive Health, LGBT, Economics and other social issues)

Chapter III METHODOLOGY This chapter reveals the research design, the corpus of the study and research procedures.

Research Design This qualitative type of research aims to analyze the content of the first encyclical letter of Pope Francis.

Corpus of the Study The corpus of this research is the first encyclical letter of Pope Francis released on July 5, 2013. This encyclical letter contains of five parts; the introduction, Chapter one (We have Believed in Love), Chapter two (Unless You Believe you will understand), Chapter three (I delivered to you what I also received) and chapter four (God Prepares a City for them).

Research Procedure This study is a discourse analysis dealing on the content analysis.

The content will be read and analyze to extract the main theme of the letter. The study also identifies the relevance of the encyclical and other pastoral letter to the Philippine Setting (e.g. Reproductive Health, LGBT, economic and other social issues).

This encyclical will be reviewed and analyzed critically.

Bibliography Flick, U. (2006). An Introduction to Qualitative Research. Alden Press.

Web Articles Moylan, B. (2013). News in 140 Characters: A Content Analysis of U.S. News Outlets on Twitter. Retrieved from http://www.american.edu/soc/communication/upload/RebeccaMoylan-capstone.pdf on January 8, 2013

Murai, H & Tokosumi, A (no date indicated). A Network Analysis of Hermeneutic Documents Based on Bible Citations. Retrieved from http://csjarchieve.coqsci.rpi.edu/proceedings/2005/docs/p15,65.pdf.

Types of Document. Retrieved from http://www.catholicaustralia.com.au/page.php?pg=churchdocstypesofdocuments on January 8, 2014 Westfall, C. (no date indicated). The Structure of Hebrews: The Relationship between Form and Meaning. Retrieved from http://www.hebrews.unibas.ch/documents/2006Westfall.pdf on January 28