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The Magisterium
Encyclicals, council documents, the Catechism, and Canon Law — each linked to its official source.
Council Document
The eighth ecumenical council (869–870) deposed Photius and addressed the Photian schism, upholding the authority of the Roman See and ecclesiastical order in the Eastern Church.
Read on en.wikipedia.org →Council Document
The twelfth ecumenical council (1215), convened by Innocent III, is among the most important of the Middle Ages. It used the term 'transubstantiation' of the Eucharist and required the faithful to confess and receive Communion at least once a year (the Easter duty).
Read on en.wikipedia.org →Encyclical
The encyclical of Pope Francis on fraternity and social friendship, calling for a culture of encounter, solidarity, and care for every person across all borders.
Read on vatican.va →Apostolic Exhortation
An apostolic exhortation on the call to holiness in today's world, offered not as a treatise but as a way of reproposing the universal call to holiness in a practical key. Its five chapters treat the saints next door and holiness lived in ordinary circumstances; two subtle enemies of holiness, the contemporary forms of gnosticism and pelagianism; the Beatitudes and Matthew 25 as the great criterion of a holy life; five marks of holiness in the modern world — perseverance, joy, boldness, community and constant prayer; and the necessity of spiritual combat, vigilance and discernment.
Read on vatican.va →Council Document
The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. The longest document of the Second Vatican Council. Treats the dignity of the human person, the community of mankind, human activity, the role of the Church in the modern world, and pressing problems (marriage and family, culture, economic and social life, political life, peace).
Read on vatican.va →Council Document
The Declaration on Christian Education. The Council affirms that every human being has an inalienable right to an education answering to his or her destiny, and that parents, having given life to their children, are the primary and principal educators, whose right to choose their children's school civil society must protect without imposing an unjust burden. The Church claims her own role in education because she must lead every one of her children to the fullness of Christian life, and the declaration therefore treats catechesis and moral formation, the mission and character of the Catholic school, the special place of the teacher's vocation, and Catholic universities and ecclesiastical faculties, asking that theology and the other sciences be pursued together so that faith and reason may be seen to meet in one truth.
Read on vatican.va →Encyclical
The encyclical on devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, given for the centenary of the extension of the feast to the universal Church by Pius IX. Against the suggestion that the devotion is a sentimental accretion, Pius XII shows its foundations in Scripture, from the covenant love of God in the Old Testament to the pierced side of the Crucified in Saint John, and in the Fathers and the Church's doctors. He explains what is honoured in the Heart of the Incarnate Word: a threefold love — the divine love he shares with the Father and the Spirit, the spiritual love of his human will, and the sensible love of his human affections — all resting on the hypostatic union, so that worship offered to his Heart is worship offered to the Person of the Word made flesh. The encyclical concludes with the practices of consecration and reparation and with the Heart of Jesus as the school of charity for the whole Church.
Read on vatican.va →Encyclical
Pope Paul VI's encyclical on the regulation of birth, reaffirming the Church's teaching that each and every marriage act must remain open to the transmission of life. Condemns contraception, sterilization, and abortion as intrinsically disordered.
Read on vatican.va →Encyclical
The encyclical of Pope Pius XII concerning false opinions threatening to undermine the foundations of Catholic doctrine, addressing evolution, relativism, and the limits of theological speculation.
Read on vatican.va →Papal Bull
Inter caetera was a papal bull issued by Pope Alexander VI on 4 May 1493, which granted to the Catholic Monarchs King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile all lands to the "west and south" of a pole-to-pole line 100 leagues west and south of any of the islands of the Azores or the Cape Verde islands.
Read on mjp.univ-perp.fr →Council Document
The Decree on the Media of Social Communications, promulgated on the same day as Sacrosanctum Concilium at the close of the Council's second session — the first two documents Vatican II gave the Church. In two short chapters the Council sets out the Church's teaching on the press, cinema, radio and television: the moral order governs their use, the faithful have a right to information that is true and complete, the demands of art never dispense from the moral law, and readers, viewers and listeners bear real responsibility for what they choose. The second chapter turns to pastoral action, asking bishops and the faithful to support a Catholic press and Catholic broadcasting, to form consciences in the right use of the media, and to keep an annual day in every diocese on which the faithful are instructed in their duties in this field and asked to support the Church's work of communication.
Read on vatican.va →Encyclical
Written for the ninetieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum, this encyclical on human work argues that work is not first an economic quantity but an activity of the person: because the worker is a subject made in God's image, labour has priority over capital and no economic system may treat the worker as an instrument. John Paul II examines work in the book of Genesis, the conflict between labour and capital, the rights of workers (just wage, rest, association in unions, the situation of the disabled and of emigrants), and closes with a spirituality of work rooted in Christ the carpenter and in the Cross.
Read on vatican.va →Papal Bull
The bull of union with the Greeks, solemnly read in the cathedral of Florence and the high point of the Council of Ferrara-Florence. Working through the questions that had divided East and West, it defines that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son as from one principle and by one spiration, and that the Latin addition of the Filioque to the Creed was lawfully made; that the Body of Christ is truly confected in unleavened and in leavened wheat bread alike, each priest following the usage of his own Church; that the souls of those who die in charity but have not yet made satisfaction are cleansed after death and helped by the suffrages of the living, that the fully purified are received into heaven and see God clearly, and that those who die in mortal sin descend to hell; and that the Roman Pontiff holds the primacy over the whole Church as successor of Peter, with the order of the ancient patriarchal sees set out. The union it proclaimed did not endure in the East. The Holy See publishes the text in Latin and Italian.
Read on vatican.va →Apostolic Exhortation
An apostolic exhortation to all people of good will on the climate crisis, published on the memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi eight years after Laudato Si' and addressed to the situation in the run-up to the COP28 conference in Dubai. It reviews the state of the global climate and answers common objections, criticises the technocratic paradigm and the illusion of unlimited human power, calls for effective and binding multilateralism reformed 'from below', assesses the record of the climate conferences, and closes with spiritual motivations drawn from Scripture and from the Christian understanding of the human person within, not above, creation.
Read on vatican.va →Encyclical
Pope Francis's encyclical on care for our common home. Diagnoses the ecological and human crisis of our time, presents the Catholic doctrine of creation, and calls for an 'integral ecology' that joins concern for the environment to concern for the poor and for the dignity of every human person.
Read on vatican.va →Instruction
The fifth instruction for the right implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council, governing the translation of the liturgical books into vernacular languages. It replaces the earlier translation norms with a requirement that translations render the Latin editio typica integrally and exactly, preserving its distinctive vocabulary, syntax and imagery rather than paraphrasing, and it sets out the responsibilities of conferences of bishops, the process for obtaining the recognitio of the Holy See, and rules for the biblical texts, the psalter, and the preparation of new editions.
Read on vatican.va →Encyclical
The first encyclical of Pope Francis, completing a text substantially drafted by Benedict XVI and so, as Francis says, the work of four hands. It sets out to recover faith as light rather than as a leap in the dark. Four chapters trace the faith of Abraham and Israel fulfilled in Christ, the bond of faith with truth and love against the reduction of faith to private feeling, the ecclesial transmission of faith through the sacraments, the Creed, prayer and the Decalogue, and the way faith builds up the common good — the family, society, consolation in suffering.
Read on vatican.va →Council Document
The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church promulgated by the Second Vatican Council. Defines the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ, the People of God, and a sacrament of salvation. Treats the hierarchy, the laity, the universal call to holiness, religious life, and the Blessed Virgin Mary in the mystery of Christ and the Church.
Read on vatican.va →Encyclical
The first encyclical of Pope Leo XIV, on the social doctrine of the Church in the time of artificial intelligence, given at Saint Peter's in the second year of his pontificate. Its introduction sets the choice before this generation between building a new Tower of Babel and building the city where God and humanity dwell together. Five chapters follow: a dynamic approach faithful to the Gospel, tracing social doctrine from Leo XIII to the present; the foundations and principles of social doctrine, including the common good, subsidiarity, solidarity and integral human development; technology and dominance in the light of the promises of AI; the safeguarding of truth, work and freedom; and the culture of power set against the civilisation of love.
Read on vatican.va →Apostolic Exhortation
The apostolic exhortation for the right ordering and development of devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, given on the feast of the Presentation of the Lord. The first part shows how the reformed liturgy honours Mary — in the solemnities and feasts of the year, in Advent and the Christmas season, and above all as the model of the Church at worship, the attentive Virgin who receives the word, the Virgin in prayer, the Mother, and the Virgin presenting her offering. The second part gives the guidelines that keep Marian devotion sound: it must be Trinitarian, Christological, ecclesial and attentive to the Holy Spirit, and it must bear four notes — biblical, liturgical, ecumenical and anthropological, avoiding both exaggeration and a narrow sentimentality, and taking account of the changed situation of women. The third part commends two devotions in particular, the Angelus and the Rosary, which the Pope presents as a Gospel prayer centred on the mystery of the Incarnation.
Read on vatican.va →Encyclical
The encyclical of Pope Saint John XXIII on Christianity and social progress, developing the Church's social teaching on work, the common good, and global solidarity.
Read on vatican.va →Apostolic Letter
Maximum illud is an apostolic letter issued by Pope Benedict XV on 30 November 1919. As is traditional with such documents, it takes its title from the opening words of the original Latin text, meaning "that momentous". Benedict begins by recalling "that momentous and holy charge" found in Mark 16:15: "Go into the whole world and preach the gospel to all creation."
Read on w2.vatican.va →Encyclical
The encyclical of Pope Pius XII on the sacred liturgy, often called the charter of the liturgical movement, teaching that the liturgy is the public worship of the whole Mystical Body.
Read on vatican.va →Papal Bull
The bull of indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, given on the vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday and proclaiming a Holy Year from 8 December 2015 to 20 November 2016. It opens by naming Jesus Christ the face of the Father's mercy, then sets out the biblical vocabulary of mercy, the practices proposed for the Year — pilgrimage through the Holy Doors, the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, the mission of the Missionaries of Mercy, the '24 Hours for the Lord' — and the relation of mercy to justice, ending with a plea that the Church's language and action be shaped by mercy.
Read on vatican.va →Apostolic Constitution
The apostolic constitution, given on Holy Thursday, by which Paul VI promulgated the Roman Missal revised by decree of the Second Vatican Council. Recalling how Saint Pius V had published the Missal of 1570 after the Council of Trent, the Pope explains the principal changes: a revised Order of Mass in which the rites are simplified and the parts proper to each minister and to the assembly are made clear; the addition of three new Eucharistic Prayers to the Roman Canon, which is retained; a great enrichment of the prefaces; the restoration of the prayer of the faithful; proper prayers for the ferias of Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter; and a far wider selection of Scripture spread over a multi-year cycle so that the table of God's word may be more lavishly prepared. He gives these prescriptions the force of law and sets them to take effect on the First Sunday of Advent, 30 November 1969.
Read on vatican.va →Encyclical
The encyclical of Pope Pius XI, written in German and read from the pulpits of Germany, condemning the neo-paganism and racial ideology of National Socialism.
Read on vatican.va →Apostolic Letter
An apostolic letter on the dignity and vocation of women, written during the Marian Year. It begins from Mary, the woman in whom God's plan for humanity is revealed, then reads the creation accounts to show man and woman as equally the image of God and made for a communion of persons, and traces the wound that sin inflicts on that communion. It treats the way Jesus dealt with women in the Gospels, the two vocations of virginity and motherhood, and the nuptial imagery by which Scripture speaks of Christ and the Church, concluding with the 'feminine genius' the Church needs.
Read on vatican.va →Apostolic Constitution
Munificentissimus Deus is an apostolic constitution published in 1950 by Pope Pius XII. It defines ex cathedra the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was the first and thus far the only ex-cathedra infallible statement since the official ruling on papal infallibility was made at the First Vatican Council (1869–1870). In 1854 Pope Pius IX had made an infallible statement with Ineffabilis Deus on the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, which was a basis for this dogma.
Read on w2.vatican.va →Encyclical
The encyclical of Pope Saint Paul VI on the Holy Eucharist, defending the doctrines of the Real Presence and transubstantiation and the worship due to the Blessed Sacrament.
Read on vatican.va →Encyclical
The encyclical of Pope Pius XII on the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ, illuminating the union of the faithful with Christ their Head.
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