Preface to “Christ Our Lord, True God and True Man”

This book, Christ Our Lord, True God and True Man, provides readers with the teaching of the Magisterium of the Church on Jesus Christ, our Lord and Redeemer.

It is divided into two parts. The first part, entitled “Early Professions of Faith, Dogmatic Letters of Popes, and Early Church Councils,” includes 10 documents of absolutely crucial importance for understanding the truths revealed to us about Jesus as proclaimed by the Church. These are truths that are to be held on faith. Catholics believe them because they have been made known to us by God Himself, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. Summaries of these centrally important documents have not been made; rather, the full text of the documents concerned, in so far as they bear on the Person of Jesus Christ, have been reprinted in full. No informed Catholic can afford to be ignorant of the truths set forth in these documents from the first seven centuries of the Church.

The second part of this work contains summaries of 14 important documents issued by Popes from the time of Leo XIII toward the end of the nineteenth century to John Paul II toward the end of the twentieth. As readers will discover, many of these documents were issued to commemorate the professions of faith in Jesus Christ found in the first part of the volume. As readers will likewise discover, the Popes whose encyclicals and other writings have been summarized here fully affirm the truths set forth by the earlier Councils, Popes, and Doctors. They seek to develop more deeply our understanding of these truths of Catholic faith and apply them to the life and mission of the Church today, which has as its task, as it has had throughout its history, the proclamation of the good news of our salvation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, true God and true Man.