The part of the Bible of which Christians are the fondest is that of the Gospels, and "gospel" or "evangelism" is a very well-known word to those who are familiar with the second half of the Bible in particular. "Life" is also a well-known word: even more frequent than "gospel", it has many uses, some very easily understood and others somewhat more complicated but no less beautiful. Notwithstanding, the two words are never found together in the Bible: neither "Gospel of life" nor "Gospel and life" or the like. The Pope points out this fact in the first footnote of his text.

Yet there are few expressions that are more biblical than this, so that the two components are just asking to be united, and united, they express the truth of salvation. "Gospel" is Christ's proclamation of salvation; "life" is the very reality of salvation, expressed in one of those categories that best suits it. Whoever "evangelizes" cannot fail to proclaim "life".

The first proclamation of salvation resounded at the dawn of the history of mankind and came from that Creator and Father whom man had offended. It was the promise of the re-establishment of a relationship with God which would restore to man the perfection of life that he had lost.

Since then, that proclamation which God entrusted to his intermediaries never ceased throughout man's journey, until his Son, who came to give ''[his] flesh for the life of the world" (Jn 6:51), made his entrance into the world. In him, the proclamation became an effective gift; the promise reached its first fulfilment.

However, the journey of mankind continued, awaiting the glorious return of its Saviour, while every generation was offered the same proclamation of life and the same response of faith was demanded. The intermediary par excellence of this proclamation was and continues to be the Church: this is what her Founder desired.

In obedience to this desire, today we receive the Encyclical which has been offered to us as a gift and is meant as a proclamation. It acts as a continuation of the eternal proclamation and wishes to echo it for man who faces the dangers of the present. Therefore, in the new situation in which we live, a voice resounds that expresses the wisdom of centuries, the wisdom of God, and it maternally adapts to the unknown difficulties that increase with time.

Bible sheds God's light on man's problems

It is intentional that the text of the Encyclical abounds in quotations from writers who flourished in the history of the Church, both pastors and theologians, from the Didache, a work contemporary with the writings of St John to that Catechism of the Catholic Church which is one of the great gifts of this Pontificate to the Church and to all men of good will. The Encyclical is filled with the sound of the voices of the great representatives of patristic and medieval theology, with special emphasis on Augustine and Thomas, as well as the official teachings of recent times, which make the teaching of Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II so "modern".

But there is a constant awareness, as the various phases of such a rich tradition are unfolded, of the connection between this teaching and the Word of God, which is life and gives the meaning of life to every word inspired by it. If every teaching of the Church, in its deepest meaning, is intended to be an echo and a clarification of the Word that saves, our Encyclical shows this intention in a most exceptional manner, starting with its very layout

Life is man's problem from the beginning of his existence until his death, and the Bible is the illustration of man's problems seen in the light of God. It is therefore a discussion on life from beginning to end. And the "good news of life" as it is presented in the Encyclical, (ibid., n. 1) shows that it never wants to stray from that subject, in happy and difficult moments, as a proof of how it is modern in all ages.

Even those who only give a glance at the classified summary offered in the index are immediately aware of this. Every point in the process of reasoning is reinforced by a word of Scripture and the whole range of Scripture is present, from Genesis to the Revelation, the first and last books not only of the Bible but also of the exposition of this "Gospel". Maybe it is precisely this systematic and inspirational contact with Scripture that make the text extraordinarily clear and understandable.

The four great chapters of the Encyclical alternate considerations that are mainly negative or problematic with others that are mainly positive and exalting about the reality of life as conceived by modern man. The current threats with which the present-day "culture of death" of our world opposes the gift of life (chapter I) continue in the specific treatment of the transgression of the commandment of life, when the divine will which commits us to promote life is not taken into consideration (chapter III); the Christian proclamation, which, on the basis of the experience of Christ, the man who did not want to overlook any aspect of the life of his brothers, makes the whole journey of human life precious (chapter II), is reflected in the practicality of the last chapter's casuistry. Here the Gospel is embodied in a daily experience that testifies to the capacity of faith to become a work of love.

Life means sharing in the fullness of God's love

The qualifying moment is without a doubt that of the second chapter, which is intensely and lovingly focused on our gentle Lord. In fact, only he can give meaning to man's tribulation and search, only he is the paradigm of every effort to rise from a reality that, even in its nobility, is felt to be radically empty of any capacity for improvement. It is with our attention turned to him, to his life and his word, that we discover the double dimension of the gift of life made to man, that which comes from human mediation and that which can only come from above. This explains why the most frequently quoted biblical author in the

Encyclical is St John, the one who says the most about life: life in the Father and in Jesus, life in the man who accepts salvation from Jesus.

The question that accompanies us from the moment we begin to read the Encyclical is: what is life? Public opinion immediately grasped an intervention against abortion and euthanasia in the Encyclical's message; some also observed the defence of the weak in life's extreme stages, infancy and old age. These things are certainly all there, but the Pope's discourse is not limited to these areas.

In itself, the special quality of this Encyclical has absolutely nothing even to do with them. "Life consists", the Pope says, "in being begotten of God and sharing in the fullness of his love" (Evangelium vitae, n. 37). God's presence in man's life, its nature as a gift of God that makes every man one of his own beloved sons, is the basis of every consideration about his dignity and every obligation to totally respect it.

Of course, this certainly is a reasoning that only involves the faithful, that is, the first to whom the Pope's appeal is directly addressed. For the others, whom John Paul II includes in the universal category of "all men of good will", he appeals to natural moral law, and that is to the total respect owed by every creature to the Creator's sovereign and unquestionable authority ("I have set before you life and death"; Dt 30:19), and also to the respect owed by every man to the dignity of his fellow creatures. But these appeals, even if they are rather unusual in the prevalent culture of the modern day, can also come from other persons endowed with moral authority.

The actual tone of the Pope's discourse, which is specifically his, is its return to Christ, his invitation to those who believe (and also to those who do not believe) to turn their attention to him, to desire to learn the meaning of life, and how to relate to it from his life. "The Gospel of life is something concrete and personal, for it consists in the proclamation of the very person of Jesus" (n. 29) And it is in the context of this life, so dear to the Father, because of man's being able to share in it, that human life has so much dignity that it constitutes— in the words of St Irenaeus—the "glory of God" (n. 34).

This central nucleus of the Pope's message could be judged by modern man as suffering from an intolerable abstractness. The layout of the Encyclical shows on the contrary how fruitful is this total consideration of life in regard to its impact with the difficulties of human life today. The very word of God which reveals man's dignity to him also puts him on guard against the consequences of the transgression by which man opposes, with his wickedness, God's plan. The first and third chapters, those most deeply studied by public opinion, are no less enlightened than the others by the biblical message. Perhaps never before has the life of Cain been the object of so much attention in such an important document. But around this text, which creates a climate of tragedy for the introduction of death where God had created life, quotations on the goodness of the divine order abound: "God created all things that they might exist ... and there is no destructive poison in them" (Wis 1:14), and on the value of the blood of Christ, champion of the rights of the weak: "Jesus, Mediator of a new covenant, ... the sprinkled blood which speaks more eloquently than that of Abel" (Heb 12:24), until death "is swallowed up in victory" (1 Cor 15:54).

The Gospel of life is entrusted to whole community

Three magisterial pronouncements are made in the Encyclical, binding for every believer, on the grave immorality of the "direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being" (Evangelium vitae, n. 57), of "direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means" (n. 62) and of "euthanasia" (ibid., n. 65). Each time the Pope carefully explains how much Sacred Scripture is involved in these judgements: if, with regard to abortion and euthanasia the Bible does not record particular controversies, the cause is not to be found in its acceptance of these practices, but rather in the fact that the culture expressed in the Bible was so opposed to them that it did not even consider them a real possibility. But the principles that it professes are a condemnation in advance for the moment when the possibility should arise.

The community of believers and many "men of good will" should not, however, overlook the precious fourth chapter, which invites us to incarnate the message revealed about life in the practice of a renewed "culture of human life". The proclamation of the Gospel of life is in fact entrusted to all members of the human community and it is all the more eloquent the clearer it is made by concrete programmes: "Faith, which expresses itself through love" (Gal 5:6). All relational morality is questioned because every initiative of man is an expression of life and is suggested by the love of the Giver of life.