Redemptor Hominis

Background and Occasion

Karol Wojtyła was elected pope on 16 October 1978, the first non-Italian pope in over four centuries. Less than five months later, on the first Sunday of Lent 1979, he published Redemptor Hominis. It is less a treatment of one topic than a statement of the themes of the whole pontificate. The encyclical’s opening words give its thesis: the Redeemer of man, Jesus Christ, is the centre of the universe and of history.

John Paul II writes with the year 2000 already in view, calling the years leading up to it a new Advent, a time of expectation. He also writes as one of the Fathers of Vatican II, and much of the encyclical is a commentary on Gaudium et Spes 22, which he had helped draft: only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man become clear.

Structure

The encyclical has four chapters: Inheritance; The Mystery of the Redemption; Redeemed Man and His Situation in the Modern World; and The Church’s Mission and Man’s Destiny.

Central Teaching

Inheritance

The first chapter places the new pontificate in continuity with John XXIII and Paul VI, whose names his predecessor John Paul I had joined, and with the Council. It speaks of the Church’s growing self-awareness, of collegiality, and of ecumenism, which the Pope calls an obligation that cannot be abandoned despite the difficulties.

The mystery of the Redemption

The second chapter is the theological centre. Creation, wounded by sin, is restored in Christ. In the Redemption, the Pope says, the love of the Father is revealed: the Cross shows that God’s love is more powerful than sin and death. The divine dimension of the Redemption is God’s faithfulness to his love; its human dimension is that man rediscovers in Christ the greatness, dignity and value of his own humanity.

The most famous passage follows. Man cannot live without love; he remains incomprehensible to himself, his life senseless, if love is not revealed to him and he does not encounter it and make it his own. This is why Christ the Redeemer fully reveals man to himself. Anyone who wishes to understand himself thoroughly must draw near to Christ with his whole self, and so the Redemption calls forth not only adoration but deep wonder at oneself.

Redeemed man in the modern world

The third chapter applies this to the actual human situation. The Church’s concern is each concrete person, every human being, each of whom is included in the mystery of the Redemption. Man is the primary route that the Church must travel in fulfilling her mission.

The Pope then describes the fear that afflicts modern humanity. Its own works, technology, production and power, threaten to turn against it. He calls for the priority of ethics over technology, of persons over things and of spirit over matter. He criticises consumerism, the arms race and the inequality between rich and poor nations, and he treats human rights as the measure of social justice, insisting that religious freedom is basic among them.

The Church’s mission

The final chapter presents the Church as sharing in the threefold office of Christ, prophet, priest and king. It emphasises responsibility for the truth: the Church must guard and teach revealed truth faithfully, and theologians serve her in doing so. It speaks of the Eucharist and Penance as the centre of the Church’s life, insisting on personal confession of sins, and of each Christian’s personal vocation. It ends by entrusting the Church to Mary, Mother of the Church.

Theological Significance

Redemptor Hominis opened a trilogy on the Trinity: it was followed by Dives in Misericordia (1980), on the Father, and Dominum et Vivificantem (1986), on the Holy Spirit. Its Christ-centred anthropology runs through John Paul II’s later teaching: his social encyclicals ground human dignity in the Redemption, Veritatis Splendor (1993) presents the moral life as the following of Christ, and Evangelium Vitae (1995) defends life on the ground that each person is willed and loved by God.

Theologically, the encyclical joins two things the manual tradition often treated separately. Christology and soteriology are not only about who Christ is and what he did; they also disclose what it means to be human. In this the Pope draws on the Thomistic principle that grace perfects nature: redemption restores and elevates the humanity created in God’s image.

For readers of this site, Redemptor Hominis is a natural companion to the tracts on Christology and Soteriology, and to the course’s lessons on the Incarnation and the Redemption.