References to the Teaching of Benedict XVI. in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium of Pope Francis
References to the Teaching of Benedict XVI. in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium of Pope Francis

Summary/Abstract: This article analyses quotations from the teaching of Benedict XVI contained in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium of the Holy Father Francis (2013). The document includes 23 excerpts from Benedict XVI’s teaching and one from Joseph Ratzinger’s address; the most important ones were taken from the Encyclical Deus Caritas Est (4 times). The aim of this article is to determine the contexts of these quotations in the Exhortation and to determine their meaning for the message of Pope Francis. It has been shown that the Exhortation contains references to Benedict XVI in all its main topics: the postulate of an authentic encounter with Christ in faith, the care for the poor people, the God made known to the man, Christ becoming poor for our enrichment, the principle of the being enlivened by the fire of the Holy Spirit and by the Word of God, the expansion of the Church “by attraction,” “the service of charity,” the courage to go out with the Gospel to the “peripheries,” the poor people as the privileged recipients of the Gospel, the importance of the faith and the hope in Christian life, the docility to God’s initiative, “the evangelizing power of popular piety,” the importance of the “way of beauty” in the evangelization, the importance of the dialogue in the evangelization and the respect for religious freedom. The statements analysed in this article have shown that there is a consistency of the message between Benedict XVI and Francis concerning evangelization. The incumbent Pope not only quotes the teaching of Benedict XVI, but also creatively develops it, to match it to the needs of our times in which the Church fulfils the universal mission of the evangelization.

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