This is not an "apostolic exhortation" (the technical name) about the evils of capitalism; it is about recovering the joy of being a Christian

A breath of life for an old religion

Michael Cook

Pope Francis's game plan is a stunning and inspiring document. 

Pope Francis is realistic. He knows that Catholics have a short memory for Papal documents. But this document, so full of joy and heart-piercing urgency, is different. Read it. Ponder it. Practice it.

I have read many Papal documents. I am a Catholic and a journalist and it comes with the territory. But never, ever, have I read anything as stunning as Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), the first major document penned by Pope Francis.

There is nothing new in Evangelii Gaudium. Nothing at all. Perhaps that is the secret of its charm and power. It is a challenge for Christians to scrape back the layers of paint and dust and dirt which have darkened the glowing light of the Gospel message.

Evangelii Gaudium has a vigorous innocence and freshness about it; it is a young man’s shout to the world that love is possible, justice is possible, anything is possible, if the world would only listen to the plain words of Jesus Christ.

I can only compare it to the impulse of early 20th century poets and artists to remake art to pierce the shroud of dead custom and cliché. The American poet William Carlos Williams wrote in the 1920s that art should “revive the senses and force them to re-see, re-hear, re-taste, re-smell, and generally re-value all that it was believed had been seen, heard, smelled and generally valued”. That is what Pope Francis desperately wants his readers to do.


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