Our love for others must be rooted in our love for God and even more importantly in God’s transformational love for us. But this love cannot be confused with a simple sentimentality or sappy sweetness that so often passes for it today. Rather, our love has to be formed by and founded in the truth about the human person and God the creator, redeemer, and sustainer.

Last month saw the passing of a famous Roman Catholic theologian and the release of a papal encyclical. There are substantive connections between the two and important lessons to be learned about the relationship between love and the truth of God’s law. Christians face the perennial temptation to separate law and love. And we find this temptation at work among progressives who desire to recast the moral teachings of Scripture to accord with contemporary culture, as well as among legalists who, like the Pharisees, emphasize external adherence to the law as a substitute for true holiness.

Two days after the death of the Peruvian Dominican priest and theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez, who is recognized as the founder of liberation theology, Pope Francis promulgated his latest encyclical letter, Dilexit nos. Papal encyclicals are usually named for their opening words, most often rendered in Latin, and this one takes its name from the opening reference to Christ in Romans 8:37: “He loved us.”

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