The pastoral nature of the Second Vatican Council inspires our understanding of pastoral theology. More than anything else, pastoral theology is characterized by the inseparability of doctrine and pastoral action, as expressed by Cardinal Ratzinger in his Commentary on Vatican II:

This Council is pastoral in its fusion of truth and love, `doctrine' and pastoral solicitude; it wished to reach beyond the dichotomy between pragmatism and doctrinalism, back to the biblical unity in which practice and doctrine are one, a unity grounded in Christ.

We believe that the tendency to oppose doctrine and effective love is due to an incomplete theological methodology, and to a misconception of the human person. By its very nature theology should always be pastoral in orientation, since each generation must appropriate the Church's faith for itself, asking of the faith both the age-old questions and the new questions unique to itself. Theology can never be content simply to repeat the formulas of the past, but must discover their meaning and relevance for the today in which the Church lives.

Our goal is to follow the wisdom of Pope Paul VI, and to strike a balance between two tendencies. On the one hand, we do not see "elaborating new theories" as though they were an end in themselves, divorced from "generating new energies ... for the sake of acquiring that sanctity which Christ teaches". On the other hand, we want to embrace "the dialogue of salvation [that] adapts itself to the needs of a concrete situation [and] does not bind itself to ineffectual theories and does not cling to hard and fast forms when these have lost their power to speak to men and move them."

As we understand it, the focus of pastoral theology is precisely the "living relevance" of doctrine. In the words of Yves Congar, pastoral theology is not less than doctrinal or systematic theology; "rather it is doctrinal in a way that is not content to conceptualize, define, deduce and anathematize. The pastoral approach expresses saving truth in a way which connects with modern man, assumes his difficulties and responds to his questions, precisely in the very expression of doctrine". This is reflected in view of Pope John Paul II: "In fact the pastoral nature of theology does not mean that it should be less doctrinal or that it should be completely stripped of its scientific nature."

Instead, the pastoral nature of theology enables the Church, through her teachers, "to proclaim the Gospel message through the cultural modes of their age and to direct pastoral action according to an authentic theological vision" (Pastores dabo vobis, 55). Created in God's image, all men and women are made for the truth, and this is why truth itself is pastoral: "To diminish in no way the saving teaching of Christ constitutes an eminent form of charity for souls" (Paul VI, Humanae vitae, 29). Pastoral theology is theology at the service of the human person.

Pastoral concern means the search for the true good of man, a promotion of the values engraved in his person by God; that is, it means observing that "rule of understanding" which is directed to the ever clearer discovery of God's plan for human love, in the certitude that the only true good of the human person consists in fulfilling this divine plan (John Paul II, General Audience of July 25, 1984).

We believe, then, with Pope John Paul II, that pastoral theology "arises from the very nature and mission of the whole Church as the People of God." Pastoral theology thus has as a primary focus the response of the People of God to the universal call to holiness. It is "a scientific reflection on the Church as she is built up daily, by the power of the Spirit, in history; on the Church as the universal sacrament of salvation, as a living sign and instrument of the salvation wrought by Christ through the word, the sacraments and the service of charity. Pastoral theology is not just an art. Nor is it a set of exhortations, experiences and methods. It is theological in its own right, because it receives from the faith the principles and criteria for the pastoral action of the Church in history" (Pastores dabo vobis, 57).

To be pastorally effective, intellectual formation is to be integrated with a spirituality marked by a personal experience of God. In this way a purely abstract approach to knowledge is overcome in favor of that intelligence of heart which knows how "to look beyond," and then is in a position to communicate the mystery of God to the people.
                       Pope John Paul II, Pastores dabo vobis