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Dominum et Vivificantem

Encyclical Letter on the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church and the World

John Paul II, Pope

Pope John Paul II’s encyclical letter on God the Holy Spirit

In 1986 John Paul II completed his Trinitarian encyclicals, begun with Redemptor Hominis (on Jesus Christ) in 1979, and then Dives in Misericordia (on God the Father) in 1980.
Already setting the Church’s sights on the great Jubilee of the year 2000, marking ‘the passage from the second to the third Christian Millennium’, Pope John Paul reflects on the Holy Spirit, as the one who is at the centre of the Christian faith and is the source and dynamic power of the Church’s renewal. This encyclical has been drawn from the heart and heritage of the Second Vatican Council, and its rich teaching on the Church in herself and the Church in the world.
The text explores the spirit of the Father and Son given to the Church, the spirit who convinces the world of sin, and the spirit who above all else gives life, leading to the realisation that the way of the Church passes through the heart of man, because here is the hidden place of the salvific encounter with the Holy Spirit.