New encyclical ‘simple and powerful cure’ to many societal issues, U.S. bishops say

With the encyclical Dilexit Nos, the head of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops says Pope Francis has offered a “simple and powerful” cure to many of the problems that plague modern society.

“The ills of modern society can read like a litany of incurable diseases: Consumerism, secularism, partisanism. Today, Pope Francis offers a simple and powerful cure: The Sacred Heart of Jesus,” Archbishop Timothy Broglio said in an Oct. 24 statement. “In his latest encyclical Dilexit Nos, the Holy Father teaches us that devotion to the heart of Jesus can open our own hearts to renewed ways we can love and be loved.”

“We need this timely counsel,” said Broglio, head of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA.

Pope Francis published Dilexit Nos (“He loved us”), on Oct. 24. The 28,000 word encyclical, the pontiff’s fourth, focuses on the human and divine love of Jesus Christ, underlining the social dimension of Christ’s love and caring for others as an extension of a personal, intimate relationship of love with God.

Devotion to the heart of Jesus, Broglio said, creates an encounter with the living heart of Jesus, and has the power to “bring us together as children of God.

“Pope Francis writes, ‘love, in the end, is the one reality that can unify.’ This is why he says, ‘all of us need to rediscover the importance of the heart,’” Broglio said, adding that the Holy Father’s message affirms a message from the National Eucharistic Revival that “in the Eucharist we discover ‘the immense love of the heart of Christ.’”

Broglio also invites Catholics to pray with the new encyclical.

“As he writes, ‘Jesus is now waiting for you to give him the chance to bring light to your life,’” Broglio said. “Then, share that light in service to others. ‘Speak of Christ, by witness or by word, in such a way that others seek to love him,’ Pope Francis encourages us.”