“Cor ad cor loquitur”: Doctrinal Note on the Role of Emotions in the Act of Faith

1. Cor ad cor loquitur was the cardinal’s motto chosen by the newly declared Doctor of the Church, St. John Henry Newman, inspired by St. Francis de Sales, who defined the spiritual life as an encounter with God “heart to heart”^[1], a movement from God’s heart to man’s heart and vice versa, from man’s heart to God’s heart; an incessant exchange that affects the person in all their dimensions: affective, intellectual, and volitional^[2]. Jesus himself, when asked about the greatest commandment of the Law, says: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind” (Mt 22:37). Faith involves the whole of human existence, for it is the surrender of man “entire” to God as an obedient and free response to revelation (Rom 1:5, 26)^[3]. It is God who takes the initiative to go out to meet man, and anticipates his grace so that, with the interior help of the Holy Spirit, the human heart is oriented and directed toward God, allowing him to enter into intimate communion with him^[4]. Alongside the fiducial aspects (trust in God), faith includes cognitive elements (adhesion to God, confession of faith) and also emotions and feelings (spiritual joy, love or peace, among others).

2. The Bishops of the Commission for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Spanish Episcopal Conference offer these reflections on the integrality of the experience of faith, which is the fruit of the encounter with the authentic face of the incarnate Jesus Christ: “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man” (Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed).

3. In recent years, signs have been observed that indicate a rebirth of Christian faith, especially among young Spaniards of the so-called “Generation Z,” those digital natives born between the mid-90s and the first decade of the 2000s. The Church values the creativity of the various initiatives of primary evangelization that the Holy Spirit has aroused in many ecclesial movements and associations to facilitate for so many people the encounter with Christ or the revitalization of their faith. These new methods or tools of evangelization represent a breath of fresh air for the Church, which, as a Mother, returns again and again to “set out to rescue men from the desert and lead them to the place of life, toward friendship with the Son of God, toward him who gives us life, and life in abundance”^[5].

The Church values the creativity of the various initiatives of primary evangelization that the Holy Spirit has aroused in many ecclesial movements and associations to facilitate for so many people the encounter with Christ or the revitalization of their faith.

4. In all these methods, to a greater or lesser degree, emotions and feelings play an important role, which provoke a first “impact” in the person and lead to conversion and adhesion to Christ. This must be followed by the configuration of the lives of Christians with the Lord, discipleship in the Church, and the apostolate as witnesses of the dead and risen Christ in the midst of the world. However, there are not a few, even among the promoters of these experiences, who have warned of the risk of an “emotivist” reductionism of faith, which leads many people to become consumers of impactful experiences and insatiable seekers of the complacency of spiritual feeling. The proclamation of Christ does not seek directly to provoke feelings, but to witness an event that has transformed history and is capable of transforming the existence of every human being by occupying the center of their life: that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (Jn 3:16). This is the great impact that renews the mind and thought, expands the horizon of freedom, offers a new meaning to life, and, accordingly, gives a new consistency to people’s actions.

5. At certain moments in the history of the Church, the balance has tilted toward intellectual assent to revealed truths or toward commitment and action, with an impact on the spiritual life of the faithful, theological reflection, catechesis, or the apostolate. In our days, on the other hand, the experience of faith centers on the emotional and sentimental universe of the person, which could be interpreted as one of the “signs of the times” or a call that encourages recovering the importance of feelings and integrating them, without detriment to reason, into Christian life. At the same time, we note the need to regulate and discern emotions because they can be an obstacle to spiritual growth.

6. Positively valuing all the good that these methods of primary evangelization are contributing in the context of a strongly secularized society, the bishops of this Commission, as pastors of God’s people, offer this Note with the aim of helping discernment and accompanying the maturation of these apostolic experiences so that they can grow and provide better service to so many people who approach the Church—like the Samaritan woman—seeking “a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (Jn 4:14).

a) The Absolutization of the Emotive in Postmodernity

7. Experts and analysts of our time have been warning that in the so-called postmodern culture there has been an absolutization of affectivity, reducing it to feelings and emotions, and even its irrationality has been upheld, which has been termed “emotivism”^[6], that is, the reduction of affectivity to emotion. The postmodern man rejects rationalist objectivism to become an emotive subject, who goes from “I think, therefore I am” to “I feel, therefore I am,” from “logos” to “emotion.” But feelings and emotions, although they are part of the affective world, are not capable of encompassing it in its totality.

8. The “emotivist” man experiences himself as fragmented, because emotions by themselves are disconnected and cannot offer him a holistic vision of reality. He feels disoriented, because he lets himself be carried away by emotions at every moment without any horizon and identifies with them^[7]; and he lives in immediacy and absolute inconstancy, absolutizing the instant (as long as the emotion lasts). Applied to spiritual life, the “religious emotivist” makes faith depend on the intensity of the emotion, reducing it to the measure of feeling^[8] and to how pleasurable it can be, which is reinforced when it comes to shared experiences. It is important not to confuse these experiences with mystical rapture or the experience of spiritual joy that accompanies private revelation in the saints. Already in 2003, the Spanish Episcopal Conference warned in the Directory of Family Pastoral Care of the Church in Spain that “this conception (merely ‘emotivist’) profoundly weakens man’s capacity to build his own existence, because it entrusts the direction of his life to the mood of the moment, and becomes incapable of giving an account of it. This operational primacy of emotional impulse within man, without any other direction than its own intensity, brings with it a profound fear of the future and of any enduring commitment”^[9].

It is essential to find a balance within the spiritual life between the intellectual, volitional, and sentimental aspects. Feelings cannot be detached from either truth or goodness.

9. It is worth keeping in mind that emotions and feelings play an important role in human and spiritual life. The human body and emotions are integral parts of the psychic and spiritual life of the human being. Emotions cannot be ignored or trivialized because they are intrinsic to our existence. However, it is essential to find a balance within the spiritual life between the intellectual, volitional, and sentimental aspects. Feelings cannot be detached from either truth or goodness. In this regard, Pope Francis stated in the encyclical Lumen fidei (2013):

Faith without truth does not save, does not secure our steps. It remains a beautiful fable, a projection of our desires for happiness, something that satisfies us only to the extent that we want to delude ourselves. Or it is reduced to a beautiful feeling that consoles and enthuses, but depending on changes in our mood or the situation of the times, and incapable of giving continuity to the journey of life^[10].

10. On the other hand, the “emotivist” is more easily manipulable. Many current social and political discourses frequently appeal to emotions (fear, hope, indignation) in order to generate certain behaviors and adhesions. Also in spiritual life, there is the danger of seeking to elicit certain behaviors through an “emotional bombardment,” which could be considered a form of “spiritual abuse.” Such abuse can manifest itself as “group emotional pressure,” which makes individuals feel compelled to “feel” the same as others so as not to marginalize themselves from the experience. And even through the use of false supernatural or mystical experiences (“false mysticism”[11]), which distort an authentic vision of God, as means to exercise dominion over consciences by annulling people’s autonomy or to commit other types of abuses, which must be considered of special moral gravity[12].

b) The Importance of Feelings in Spiritual Life

11. Feelings play an important role in human and spiritual life, and are fundamental in the inner life of every human person. Christian faith, rooted in the incarnation, cannot set them aside or ignore them. God reaches us also in our feeling, in our subjectivity, in our intimacy, in our emotionality. The affective constitutes a fundamental field in spiritual life, in the relationship with God and with others, in the believing maturation of the person. However, feelings cannot determine all or almost all of Christian life, for at times, the very absence of feelings is part of the spiritual journey.

12. The methods of evangelization to which we have referred help to discover the importance of the emotional aspect of Christian life. Under the influence of the Enlightenment modernity, there was a tendency to emphasize the intellectual or ethical aspects of faith, considering feelings as something marginal in the experience of faith. Popular piety and some spiritual practices nourished a spirituality more linked to feelings, imagination, and the heart.

13. The challenge will always be to facilitate the encounter with God without abusing emotions, while not despising the power of faith to arouse them. It would contradict the Word of God itself, which takes very much into account the affective dimension of the relationship between God and the human being.

14. The Old Testament describes God’s love for his people in multiple passages, as that of a mother who pities the son of her womb (cf. Is 49:14-15), as that of a father who takes his little son in his arms and cares for him (cf. Hos 11:1.3-4), or as that of a beloved who engraves the beloved as a seal on his heart (cf. Song 2:2; 6:2; 8:6). This love demands from man the response of a new heart, a heart of flesh (cf. Ez 36:26).

15. In the New Testament, the incarnate Word also assumes the feelings of the human condition. In many passages we see how Jesus had compassion on those who were like sheep without a shepherd (cf. Mt 9:36), experienced anguish and sadness in the Garden of Olives (cf. Lk 22:39-44; Mt 26:37), wept for Jerusalem (cf. Lk 19:41-44) and for the loss of his friend Lazarus (cf. Jn 11:35), loved the disciples and called them friends (cf. Jn 13:23; 15:15), looked with anger and felt grieved at the hardness of others’ hearts (cf. Mk 3:5) or at seeing the Temple turned into a marketplace (cf. Mt 21:12-13; Mk 11:15-18; Jn 2:13-22), etc.[13]. As St. Augustine will say, he also assumed human feelings to redeem them: “he took these affections from human weakness, just as he took flesh from human weakness (…), so that if anyone should happen to be saddened and grieved in human temptations, he should not judge himself thereby alien to his grace”^[14]. As Vatican Council II reminds us, “indeed, the mystery of man is only unveiled in the mystery of the incarnate Word (…), he fully reveals man to himself (…), for in him human nature has been assumed, not absorbed, (…) has been raised to an incomparable dignity”^[15]. It is not surprising that St. Paul recommended to the Philippians: “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5). Therefore, to deny emotions in the act of faith would be to deny the human condition, which has been assumed by the incarnate Word, the perfect Man (cf. Eph 4:13), the same one who “worked with human hands, thought with a human mind, acted with a human will, loved with a human heart”[16], and therefore can heal human affectivity from its disorder, illuminate it, and elevate it. As the encyclical Dilexit nos (2024) will say, “the eternal Son of God, who transcends me without limits, wanted to love me with a human heart. His feelings become a sacrament of an infinite and definitive love”[17].

Therefore, to deny emotions in the act of faith would be to deny the human condition, which has been assumed by the incarnate Word, the perfect Man (cf. Eph 4:13), the same one who “worked with human hands, thought with a human mind, acted with a human will, loved with a human heart.”

c) Recovering the Heart

16. Affectivity, an essential dimension of the human being, together with reason and will, integrates emotions and feelings into the truth of the human being, created “in the image and likeness of God” (Gn 1:26), deeply loved in the reality of his existence. Being a fundamental dimension of the person, it cannot be excluded from the act of faith, since God goes out to meet each man and each woman in the integrity of their being, and speaks to them heart to heart. For the heart is the center of the person, the place of decisions, of truth, of encounter and of the Covenant, which can only be probed and known by the Spirit of God^[18].

17. The magisterium of the most recent pontiffs is imbued with a call to recover the heart in Christian life. Already Pius XII in the encyclical Haurietis aquas (1956), on devotion to the Heart of Christ, warned of the danger of naturalism and sentimentalism, and presented the Heart of the incarnate Word as a sign and symbol of the triple love with which Christ loves: divine love (as God), spiritual human love (the charity of his human will), and sensitive love (affections and emotions)^[19]. In this way, the faithful were invited to achieve harmony of love in Christ. Subsequently, John Paul II’s encyclicals Redemptor hominis (1979) returning to the human dimension of the mystery of Redemption and, especially, Dives in misericordia (1980) dedicated to God’s merciful love are significant. For his part, Benedict XVI referred to this issue in several of his encyclicals, particularly in Deus caritas est (2005), but also in Spe salvi (2007) and Lumen fidei (2013), written between Benedict XVI and Francis, to which reference has already been made. More recently, Pope Francis, in his encyclical Dilexit nos (2024), proposed to us to recover the importance of the heart in Christian life, for—as St. Paul says—“if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom 10:9). In the heart is “where each person makes their synthesis; there where concrete beings have the source and root of all other powers, convictions, passions, choices”^[20]. Everything is unified in the heart, which is “the core of every human being, their most intimate center; not only the core of the soul, but of the whole person in their unique identity which is psychic and corporeal (…) It is the seat of love with all its spiritual, psychic, and also physical components”^[21].

18. From the heart, in which the affective and bodily dimensions, the rational and intellectual, as well as the volitional and commitment^[22], are integrated, the experience of faith becomes a totalizing event, which allows the believer to affirm: “I found him whom my soul loves. I held him and would not let him go” (Song 3:4). It is a fact that always overflows and transcends, and makes one taste in advance the joy and light of eternal life.

19. Affectivity, as a fundamental human dimension in harmony with reason and will, surpasses mere sentimentalism and frees faith from the nets of subjectivism and emotivism. Authentic love always leads to truth. As Pope Benedict XVI affirmed:

Without truth, charity falls into mere sentimentalism. Love becomes an empty shell that is filled arbitrarily (…), it becomes prey to emotions and the contingent opinions of subjects (…). Truth frees charity from the narrowness of an emotivity that deprives it of relational and social contents, as well as from a fideism that mutilates its human and universal horizon. In truth, charity reflects the personal and at the same time public dimension of faith in the biblical God, who is both “Agape” and “Logos”: Charity and Truth, Love and Word^[23].

20. Believing with the heart is the best antidote against the two great enemies of spiritual life pointed out by Pope Francis: neo-Gnosticism and neo-Pelagianism. The former conceives salvation as something purely interior, closing the subject in the immanence of his own reason or feelings. Pelagianism, on the other hand, accentuates the radically autonomous character of the individual, who seeks to achieve salvation by his own forces. This translates, among other things, into self-complacency for the fruits achieved, obsession with the law, and ostentation in the care of liturgy, doctrine, and the prestige of the Church^[24].

21. In light of what has been exposed, we offer some criteria that can help enrich the experience of faith of the new initiatives of evangelization that have recently emerged in the area of primary proclamation:

a) Through Christ, to the Father, in the Spirit

22. Christian life begins “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:19), just as it happens in the sacrament of baptism. It is the Trinitarian faith that the Church transmits that must be professed not only with the lips, but by passing it through the heart and reason.

23. The whole life of faith is imbued by the Most Holy Trinity: prayer is directed to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit; liturgy is eminently Trinitarian, “through Christ, with him and in him, to you, God the Father almighty, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honor and all glory through all ages”; the ecclesial community is called to reflect the communion of the divine Persons; and the destiny of the Christian is Trinitarian, full unity with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and with all mankind. Therefore, it is important that Christian prayer not lose its Trinitarian identity^[25], and that primary proclamation, as well as discipleship processes, present Jesus Christ, whom we know through the action of the Spirit, who reveals to us the face of the Father. Only in this way can the fullness of God’s love be experienced: “because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” (Rom 5:5).

b) Personal Dimension

24. As Pope Benedict XVI said, “one begins to be a Christian not by an ethical decision or a great idea, but by an encounter with an event, with a Person, who gives a new horizon to life and, with it, a decisive direction”^[26]. Faith, certainly, is not reduced to theoretical assent to certain dogmas, but is an act by which the whole person freely surrenders to God, who reveals himself to us and gives himself to us in Christ. The Catechism of the Catholic Church also recalled that “we do not believe in formulas, but in the realities which they express and which faith allows us to ‘touch’”^[27].

Faith, certainly, is not reduced to theoretical assent to certain dogmas, but is an act by which the whole person freely surrenders to God, who reveals himself to us and gives himself to us in Christ.

25. Since God goes out to meet man in his totality, in this encounter feelings also intervene, proper to the affective dimension of the human being. Therefore, we invite learning to discern feelings in spiritual life from the great masters of spirituality. St. Ignatius of Loyola himself encouraged discerning between states of consolation and desolation of the soul, or situating oneself in holy indifference before a choice of life, with the desire to serve God as the first and principal end to which everything is subordinated^[28]. Others, like St. Teresa of Jesus or St. John of the Cross, will live the purification of the senses in the “nights of the spirit” or will have to face, like St. Thérèse of Lisieux or St. Teresa of Calcutta, long periods of spiritual darkness.

26. From all this, it is deduced that one must be cautious with feelings and emotions that simply provide well-being to the subject. Christ, on the contrary, calls to take up the cross and follow him. A faith based only on pleasant and positive feelings is repugnant to the cross. The Christian life cannot be understood without sharing the cross and completing in our flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions (cf. Col 1:24).

c) Objective Dimension of Faith

27. The encounter with Christ entails the acceptance of the truth of his person and his message. In the dialogue with Martha, after the death of Lazarus, Jesus tells her: “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (Jn 11:26). And Martha answers him: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who was to come into the world” (Jn 11:27). There is no encounter with Christ without profession of faith, if only the subjective aspect is taken into account, but the content of faith and doctrine are not deepened. Formation is the primary means that allows integrating truth into love. If the act of faith as personal adhesion to Christ loses its profound unity with the saving truth that he has brought us, it is transformed into an empty and blind act.

28. The emotional experience of faith must be grounded in the objective truth of the kerygma, whose content is found in the Word of God transmitted and interpreted by the Church. All this invites us to bet decisively on integral and ongoing formation, which includes all the dimensions of the person (intellectual, affective, relational, and spiritual)^[29]. It is particularly opportune to initiate catechetical itineraries and formative processes of discipleship and accompaniment in the maturation of faith with those who have made a first conversion to the Lord.

d) Ecclesial Dimension

29. By the very logic of the incarnation, the encounter with God is always mediated. Jesus Christ, the mediator of salvation, continues to go out to meet the human being through the proclamation of the Word, the celebration of the sacraments, and service to brothers and sisters in the Church. It is not possible to have a direct or individualistic experience or knowledge of God. No one has made himself a Christian, nor is a believer by himself. We believe thanks to someone who spoke to us about the Lord and transmitted to us the faith of the Church in the context of the family, a parish, a group, or an ecclesial movement. The very profession of faith is a simultaneous personal and ecclesial act, so that when the Christian says “I believe,” at the same time he says “we believe,” as attested by the Nicene Creed in its Greek version, thus highlighting the ecclesial dimension of the act of faith.

30. This “we believe” does not mean uniformity. The Pauline image of the body of Christ is very eloquent to express unity in the necessary diversity. All of us, though different, are members of the one body, whose head is Christ (cf. 1 Cor 12:12; Eph 1:18); in such a way that diversity is not contrary to the unity of the body, but enriches it: “there are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord” (1 Cor 12:4-5). An authentic ecclesial experience of faith does not absolutize the charism of one’s own group, but puts it at the service of the unity of the Church; and does not exclude other charisms, but appreciates the richness it brings to the whole. The same can be said of evangelizing methods: none should be considered absolute, and it must be admitted that what works for some is not necessarily valid or useful for others.

30. This “we believe” does not mean uniformity. The Pauline image of the body of Christ is very eloquent to express unity in the necessary diversity. All of us, though different, are members of the one body, whose head is Christ (cf. 1 Cor 12:12; Eph 1:18); in such a way that diversity is not contrary to the unity of the body, but enriches it: “there are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord” (1 Cor 12:4-5). An authentic ecclesial experience of faith does not absolutize the charism of one’s own group, but puts it at the service of the unity of the Church; and does not exclude other charisms, but appreciates the richness it brings to the whole. The same can be said of evangelizing methods: none should be considered absolute, and it must be admitted that what works for some is not necessarily valid or useful for others.

31. It is important to value the capacity that these new evangelizing initiatives have to integrate into community life. As Vatican Council II affirms, “whether these charisms be the more outstanding or the more simple and widely diffused, they are to be received with thanksgiving and consolation for they are specially suited to and useful for the needs of the Church.” However, “the judgment of their authenticity and the regulation of their exercise belongs to those who preside over the Church. To them especially it belongs not to quench the Spirit, but to test everything and hold fast to what is good (cf. 1 Thess 5:12, 19-21)”[30]. Therefore, it will be a sign of ecclesiality that these new methods be submitted to the discernment of the authority of the bishops and the competent diocesan bodies.

32. Therefore, the fruits of the new methods of evangelization can be measured by their capacity to integrate into the community and to awaken the question of one’s own vocation and mission in the Church and in the world (“who am I for?”). That is, by their capacity to generate and accompany the various vocations that the Spirit has aroused in the body of the Church (cf. 1 Cor 12:11).

Therefore, the fruits of the new methods of evangelization can be measured by their capacity to integrate into the community and to awaken the question of one’s own vocation and mission in the Church and in the world (“who am I for?”).

e) Ethical and Charitable Dimension

33. The true encounter with Christ not only transforms the interiority of the believer, but impels him to concrete commitment with the Church and the world. Faith cannot remain in a merely emotional experience, but is translated into charity toward the poorest, in witness and service that transfigure the world by making the values of the Kingdom present in it. If we are not capable of “touching the flesh of the least,” we are not being faithful to the Gospel^[31]. The Christian heart is a “heart that sees” where there is need for love and acts accordingly^[32].

34. There are numerous texts from the Word of God that illuminate this dimension of faith. Among them, these from the apostles John and James: “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he sees cannot love God whom he does not see” (1 Jn 4:20-21). “So also faith: if it has no works, it is dead in itself” (Jas 2:17). Therefore, commitment to the Church and the world, whether in the family, work, society, public life, with the poorest and the sick, in the defense of human dignity, the promotion of peace, or the care of creation, becomes a criterion of discernment to assess the authenticity of faith and of these new ecclesial initiatives.

f) Celebrative Dimension

35. Moreover, the believer must care for the celebrative dimension of the act of faith with a living liturgy in which he communally celebrates the gratuity of the encounter with Christ, which makes the life of the believer, encouraged by prayer, become, by God’s mercy, a “living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God” (Rom 12:1).

36. Evangelization initiatives must take care not to foster a “spiritualist” prayer detached from the body or intimistic and showy liturgical celebrations. There is a risk of reducing the liturgy to a mere “devotionalism” that enhances sentimental subjectivism over what is communal, objective, and sacramental^[33]. In some settings, an excessive recourse to emotive elements is detected, including practices of worship of the Eucharist outside of Mass that distort and decontextualize the proper sense of adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Eucharistic adoration, whether private or public, prolongs and intensifies what took place in the liturgical celebration, for we adore him whom we have received[34]. This intrinsic relationship invites us to care for the communal dimension of Eucharistic adoration, since the personal relationship with the sacramented Jesus places the faithful in communion with the whole Church, by making him aware of his belonging to the Body of Christ[35]. The distinctly ecclesial sense of Eucharistic adoration implies respect and fidelity to liturgical norms[36], which will avoid subjectivism and arbitrariness in forms of Eucharistic worship as well as the use of elements foreign to what is provided in the Ritual. All this poses the challenge of ensuring, for both the faithful and ordained ministers, good liturgical formation that helps to place the celebration of the Eucharist, especially the Sunday Eucharist, at the center of personal, communal, and ecclesial life^[37].

37. The beauty of the liturgy is not merely formal, but the profound beauty that comes from the sacramental encounter with the mystery of God. Therefore, the liturgy must be mystagogical, helping us, through words and gestures, to lead us to God, to marvel at him, and to delve into his beauty.

We exhort embracing faith in the totality of its dimensions, recognizing and valuing the importance of emotions and feelings within the framework of a healthy affectivity in the believing experience, which will allow the transformative encounter with Christ “heart to heart.”

38. With an authentic shepherd’s heart, the bishops of the Episcopal Commission for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Spanish Episcopal Conference exhort embracing faith in the totality of its dimensions, recognizing and valuing the importance of emotions and feelings within the framework of a healthy affectivity in the believing experience, which will allow the transformative encounter with Christ “heart to heart.”

39. We invite contemplating the Virgin Mary, in whom the act of faith is perfectly realized. She welcomed the announcement of the angel Gabriel and gave her assent saying: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). And because she has believed, all generations until our days proclaim her blessed (cf. Lk 1:45).

__________________________

This doctrinal note was approved by the bishop members of the Episcopal Commission for the Doctrine of the Faith at their CCLXV meeting on February 20, 2026.

President: Msgr. Francisco Conesa Ferrer, Bishop of Solsona

Vice-President: Msgr. Ramón Valdivia Giménez, Auxiliary Bishop of Seville and Apostolic Administrator of Cádiz and Ceuta

Members:

Msgr. Ernesto Brotóns Tena, Bishop of Plasencia

Msgr. Daniel Palau Valero, Bishop of Lleida

Msgr. Eloy Alberto Santiago Santiago, Bishop of San Cristóbal de La Laguna (Tenerife)

Msgr. José María Yanguas Sanz, Bishop of Cuenca

Msgr. Francisco Javier Martínez, Emeritus Archbishop of Granada

Msgr. Jesús E. Catalá Ibáñez, Emeritus Bishop of Málaga

Msgr. Demetrio Fernández González, Emeritus Bishop of Córdoba

Msgr. Adolfo González Montes, Emeritus Bishop of Almería

Msgr. Luis Quinteiro Fiuza, Emeritus Bishop of Tui-Vigo

Msgr. Javier Salinas Viñals, Emeritus Auxiliary Bishop of Valencia

Secretary: Rev. Rafael Vázquez Jiménez

The Permanent Commission of the CEE authorized its publication at the CCLXXII meeting held on February 24 and 25, 2026.

[1] Cf. Francis de Sales, Treatise on the Love of God, book X, 3 and 9.

[2] Cf. John Henry Newman, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (Madrid: Encuentro 2010).

[3] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, nn. 142-143.

[4] Cf. Vatican Council II, Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum, n. 5.

[5] Benedict XVI, Letter Porta fidei (2011), n. 2.

[6] Cf. Alasdair MacIntyre, “Emotivism: Social Content and Social Context,” in Id. After Virtue (Barcelona: Austral 2013) 40-55.

[7] Cf. Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Love: On the Fragility of Human Bonds (Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica de España 2005).

[8] Cf. Juan José Pérez-Soba, “Conversation by the Well. How to Speak of Fidelity to the Postmodern Emotivist,” Scripta Theologica 52 (2020) 170-173.

[9] Spanish Episcopal Conference, Directory of Family Pastoral Care of the Church in Spain (Madrid: Edice 2003), n. 19.

[10] Francis, Encyclical Lumen fidei (2013), n. 24.

[11] Cf. Cf. Pius XII, Encyclical Haurietis aquas (1956), n. 28; Francis, Dilexit nos (2024), n. 86.

[12] Cf. Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Norms for Proceeding in the Discernment of Presumed Supernatural Phenomena (2024), art. 16; Brief for the Audience with the Holy Father: “False Mysticism and Spiritual Abuse” (2024).

[13] These texts are complemented by chapter II of Pope Francis’s encyclical Dilexit nos (2024), in which reference is made to Jesus’s gestures and words of love in the Gospels, reflections of the Heart of Christ (cf. nn. 32-47).

[14] Augustine of Hippo, Enarr. in Ps. 87, 3.

[15] Vatican Council II, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes, n. 22.

[16] Ibid., n. 22.

[17] Francis, Dilexit nos (2024), n. 60.

[18] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2563.

[19] Cf. Pius XII, Encyclical Haurietis aquas (1956), nn. 3, 15-16.

[20] Francis, Encyclical Dilexit nos (2024), n. 9.

[21] Ibid., n. 21.

[22] The magisterium of John Paul II has been very rich in the field of affectivity. He develops in depth the understanding of human love by revaluing the body from the background of a theological anthropology inspired by the Word of God (the 129 catecheses centered on the theology of the body given by John Paul II in the Wednesday audiences from September 1979 to November 1984 can be seen).

[23] Benedict XVI, Encyclical Caritas in veritate (2009), n. 3.

[24] Cf. Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et exsultate (2018), nn. 36, 57; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter Placuit Deo (2018), nn. 3-4.

[25] Cf. Episcopal Commission for the Doctrine of the Faith, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Ps 42:3). Doctrinal Guidelines on Christian Prayer (2019), nn. 21-38.

[26] Benedict XVI, Encyclical Deus caritas est (2005), n. 1

[27] Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 170.

[28] Cf. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, n. 169.

[29] Cf. XVI Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, Final Document (2024), n. 143.

[30] Vatican Council II, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, n. 12.

[31] Cf. Leo XIV, Apostolic Exhortation Dilexi te (2025), n. 48.

[32] Cf. Benedict XVI, Encyclical Deus caritas est (2005), n. 31.

[33] Cf. Francis, Apostolic Letter Desiderio desideravi (2022), n. 28.

[34] Cf. John Paul II, Encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia (2003) n. 25; Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum (2004), n. 134; Benedict XVI, Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum caritatis (2007), n. 66.

[35] Benedict XVI, Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum caritatis (2007), n. 68.

[36] Cf. Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship, Roman Ritual. Ritual for the Holy Communion and Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery outside of Mass (1973), nn. 82-100.

[37] Cf. Francis, Apostolic Letter Desiderio desideravi (2022), nn. 34-47.