Gaudete et Exsultate – Francis’ New “Apostolic” Exhortation

Antipope Francis

“Apostolic Exhortation” Gaudete et Exsultate
on the Call to Holiness in Today’s World

March 19, 2018

The Vatican’s endless word factory has just released another monster of a document: Jorge Bergoglio (a.k.a. “Pope Francis”) has released his third-so called Apostolic Exhortation, and just like the other two, it has a cognate of “joy” in its title: Gaudete and Exsultate (“Rejoice and Be Glad”), taken from the words of Christ in the Beatitudes (Mt 5:12) follows Amoris Laetitia (“The Joy of Love”) and Evangelii Gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”). We can assume that no document on the threat of damnation for unrepentant sinners, perhaps entitled Discedite a Me Maledicti (“Depart from me, you cursed”; Mt 25:41), will be forthcoming any time soon, at least not before the U.S. government pays off the national debt.

In its English version, Gaudete and Exsultate has 22,064 words. It contains five chapters that include a total of 177 numbered paragraphs and has 125 footnotes. The word “hell” appears exactly once, in n. 115, and not as the place of eternal punishment for the damned but as the origin of what Francis denounces as “verbal violence through the internet and the various forums of digital communication.”

The Vatican has made the text of Gaudete and Exsultate available in sundry languages, of which we make the following available via links:

• Full Text of Gaudete and Exsultate in English
• Full Text of Gaudete and Exsultate in Spanish
• Full Text of Gaudete and Exsultate in Italian
• Full Text of Gaudete and Exsultate in German
• Full Text of Gaudete and Exsultate in French
• Full Text of Gaudete and Exsultate in Portuguese

We have gone through the entirety of the English text and put together what we believe to be the most important passages in the document:

• HIGHLIGHTS: Gaudete et Exsultate: The Most Important Passages

The exhortation is officially dated Mar. 19, 2018, but it was not actually published by the Vatican until Apr. 9, 2018. Vatican News has put together a promo video clip for the document, which you can watch here:

A video of the press conference presenting the release of the exhortation has also been made available by Vatican News:

The following is a list of links with coverage, summaries, and commentary on Gaudete and Exsultate by various sites:

• “A guide to Christianity for the 21st Century: the new Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Francis” (Vatican News)
• “GAUDATE ET EXSULTATE: The Call for Holiness Is a Constant Battle, But We Can Count on Powerful Weapons God Gave Us” (Zenit)
• “Pope Francis Issues Lengthy Apostolic Letter on Universal Call to Holiness” (National Catholic Register)
• “In Gaudete et Exsultate, Pope answers ‘Amoris’ critics: Don’t ‘reduce, constrict’ Gospel” (Crux)
• “Pope Francis offers practical steps to holiness in new exhortation” (Catholic Herald)
• “Two events explain ‘Why now?’ on Pope’s sainthood document” (Crux)
• “What does ‘Gaudete et Exsultate’ mean for the Church?” (Catholic Herald)
• “The Pope: ‘Here is the way to holiness for everyone'” (Vatican Insider)
• “Francis: ‘The Evil One, that personal being who assails us'” (Vatican Insider)
• “Holiness means being loving, not boring, pope says” (Catholic News Service)
• “Pope seeks ‘saints next door’ not doctrinaire perfectionists” (Associated Press)
• “Confidante says in new doc, Pope answers question: ‘Where are we going?'” (Crux)
• “Two events explain ‘Why now?’ on Pope’s sainthood document” (Crux)
• “US Bishops’ President Lauds ‘Gaudete et Exsultate'” (Zenit)
• “Gaudete et Exsultate: Key Quotes” (Catholic News Service)
• “A Shortened Gaudete Et Exsultate (Against All My Enemies)” (Mahound’s Paradise)
• “In ‘Gaudete et Exsultate,’ Pope answers ‘Amoris’ critics: Don’t ‘reduce, constrict’ Gospel” (Crux)
• “‘Gaudete et Exsultate’, Pope Francis calls on us to ‘Rejoice and be Glad’” (La Civilta Cattolica)
• “Little Joy, and Great Invective. Francis Explained By Fr. Spadaro” (Sandro Magister)
• “The latest installment in the Bergoglian Trilogy” (AKA Catholic)
• “First Impressions of Gaudete et Exsultate” (Salt + Light Media)
• “Understanding Gaudete et Exsultate” (Salt + Light Media)
• “What does it mean to be holy? For Pope Francis, it’s personal, but not done alone” (America)
• “Pope Francis’s ‘Gaudete et Exsultate’” (Commonweal)
• “Commentary: Reading Pope Francis in love” (Catholic News Agency)
• “Top Five Takeaways from ‘Gaudete et Exsultate’” (America)
• “Pope Francis wants you to be holy online. Here’s how” (America)
• “Pro-life leader: Pope Francis’ new exhortation ‘causes confusion’ on gravity of abortion” (Life Site)
• “Pope Francis takes aim in Gaudete et Exsultate – and misses?” (Catholic World Report)
• “Keys to understand the new papal document about the call to holiness” (Rome Reports)
• “Mixed reaction from U.S. pro-lifers to pope’s latest challenge” (Crux)
• “Jorge Follows the Anglican Sect’s Path of Auto-Destruction at Warp Speed” (Christ or Chaos)
• “Una esortazione, tante citazioni sbagliate (non a caso)” (La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana)
• “Gaudete et Exsultate: Demagogic Piety on the March” (The Remnant)
• “An Ambiguous Exhortation” (First Things)
• “Apostolic Exhortation or Aggravation?” (Lepanto Institute)
• “Gaudete et Exsultate: An Assessment” (Edward Pentin)

We have produced three brief podcasts reviewing Gaudete et Exsultate. They are worth a listen:

We have run the text of Gaudete et Exsultate through a word cloud generator, which counts how many times each word appears in a document. The more frequent the appearance, the larger the resulting word. The word cloud for Gaudete et Exsultate looks like this: