Pope Francis calls for a ‘theology of love’

By Christopher Wells

“Theology is indeed a significant and necessary ecclesial ministry,” Pope Francis said on Friday as he met with members of the International Network for Societies for Catholic Theology (INSeCT).

Composed of some thirty member societies and affiliated groups, INSeCT aims at “fostering academic theology and theological research” around the world.

The importance of theology today

In his prepared remarks, Pope Francis noted three reasons why theology is important today.

First, he said, “it is part of our Catholic faith to explain the reason for our hope to all who ask.” The Pope noted that this hope is not an emotion, but the very Person of Jesus Christ.

Then, the “epochal changes” faced by an increasingly pluralistic society must be “critically assessed” in order to foster human fraternity and care for creation.

And third, the rapid progress of science and technology—he offered the example of artificial intelligence—requires us to work toward “a common understanding of what it means to be human.”

Guidelines for theology

The Holy Father went on to suggest three guidelines for theology, beginning with “creative fidelity to tradition.”

“Theology is living,” he insisted, and so must continue to grow and “incarnate the Gospel in every land and in all cultures.”

This requires “a cross-disciplinary” approach, the second guideline, which is not a “fad” but a demand of theology that requires listening to the results of human sciences, and, in return, offering Christian wisdom for their proper development.

The necessary collaboration within theology and among the other sciences is a responsibility that “necessarily calls for “collegiality and synodality.”

A theology of love

Finally, Pope Francis noted that the “service” of theology “cannot be carried out without the recovery of “the sapiential character of theology.” He explained that knowledge must be pursued in the light of wisdom, “uniting faith and virtue, critical reasoning and love.”

He concluded, “A sapiential theology is thus a theology of love, because ‘whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.”