Pope Francis’s First Encyclical, “The Light of Faith,” to be Released Friday

Rocco has the scoop: 

At a pre-Noon briefing today, the Holy See announced that Pope Francis’ first encyclical, entitled Lumen Fidei – “The Light of Faith” – will be released this Friday, 5 July.

A trio of Vatican heavyweights – the prefect of Bishops, Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the CDF chief Archbishop Gerhard Müller and the president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization Archbishop Rino Fisichella – are slated to unveil the text at 11am Rome time in the Vatican Press Office.

While the less than four month period between Francis’ election and the rollout of his first major document is a modern record, the pontiff let slip in mid-June that he was reworking a draft text given him by Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI, and that the finished product – ostensibly prepared to mark the ongoing Year of Faith – would be “the work of four hands.”

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