"Veritatis Splendor" and the universal call to holiness
Publication Details
Biliniewicz, M.
(2020).
"Veritatis Splendor" and the universal call to holiness.
Nova et Vetera, 18 (1), 237-254.
Abstract
The aim of this essay is to examine how the Second Vatican Council’s teaching about the universal call to holiness is contained in Saint John Paul II’s encyclical letter Veritatis Splendor [VS].1 The paper will be divided in three parts. First, the idea of the universal call to holiness—that is, its basic tenets, its recent history, and its exposition in the documents of the Vatican II, especially in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium [LG]—will be examined. Second, the presence of the idea of the universal call to holiness in VS will be discussed. Third, a question about the state of the universal call to holiness today, fifty years after Vatican II and twenty-five years after VS will be asked. It will be argued that the conciliar teaching that every Catholic is called to the fullness of the Christian life and the perfection of charity is needed today as much as it was at the time of the Council.
Keywords
Christian theology, Roman Catholic Church, Vatican II, Saint John Paul II, encyclical letter, “Veritatis Splendor” [VP], universal call to holiness
Link to Publisher Version (URL)
