Have You Read the Pope's New Encyclical on Hope?

ENCYCLICAL LETTER

SPE SALVI

OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF

BENEDICT XVI

TO THE BISHOPS PRIESTS AND DEACONS MEN AND WOMEN RELIGIOUS

AND ALL THE LAY FAITHFUL

ON CHRISTIAN HOPE

Have you read the new Encyclical? I have been so absorbed with football this weekend I have not. In fact I forgot it was coming out. Here it is. Pope Benedict's encycial on HOPE!! HE starts out:
SPE SALVI facti sumus”—in hope we were saved, says Saint Paul to the Romans, and likewise to us (Rom 8:24). According to the Christian faith, “redemption”—salvation—is not simply a given. Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present: the present, even if it is arduous, can be lived and accepted if it leads towards a goal, if we can be sure of this goal, and if this goal is great enough to justify the effort of the journey. Now the question immediately arises: what sort of hope could ever justify the statement that, on the basis of that hope and simply because it exists, we are redeemed? And what sort of certainty is involved here?...

I am going to sit down and read it later. I will have what Catholics and Non Catholics are saying about it later.