If you’ve ever wondered why papal texts carry titles like Evangelii gaudium or Fratelli tutti, the answer is charmingly simple: Tradition says you name a document by its incipit — the opening words. In medieval chancelleries, before file numbers and metadata, the quickest way to identify a text was to quote how it begins. That habit stuck, and it still shapes the names of encyclicals, apostolic exhortations, apostolic constitutions, motu proprios, and even papal bulls.
Here’s the catch: “incipit” doesn’t always mean “exactly the first two words.” Sometimes it’s the first phrase that carries the thought.
Rerum novarum (Leo XIII, 1891) begins with “Of new things,” signaling a meditation on industrial society. Deus caritas est (Benedict XVI, 2005) opens with “God is love,” a direct lift from the New Testament.
And apostolic exhortations — a genre popes use for pastoral guidance — follow the same rule: Evangelii gaudium (“The joy of the Gospel”), Amoris laetitia (“The joy of love”), Gaudete et exsultate (“Rejoice and be glad”), Christus vivit (“Christ is alive”).
Language adds another wrinkle. For centuries the incipit was Latin because the whole document was Latin. Recent popes sometimes write first in a modern language and keep that incipit: Francis chose Fratelli tutti and Laudato si’, preserving Italian phrasing; Leo XIII used French with Au milieu des sollicitudes and Francis did too when he wrote on St. Thérèse; Pius XI went with German for Mit brennender Sorge written during the Nazi era.
The point isn’t linguistic purity; it’s fidelity to the opening line that sets the tone.
So what’s with moving from dilexit nos to dilexi te?
Both are classic incipit-style snippets from Scripture’s language of love. Dilexit nos means “he loved us” (think of 1 John 4:19: prior dilexit nos — “he first loved us”). It’s third person, communal, and declarative: here is what God has done for us.
Dilexi te means “I have loved you.” It echoes God’s voice in the Hebrew Bible — “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3) — and Jesus’ words in John’s Gospel (“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you”). It's God's word in Revelation: “I have loved you” (Revelation 3:9).
It’s a first-person-to-second-person direct address. When a papal title leans this way—even if the exact Latin words aren’t used—it signals a shift: from statement about love (he loved us) to a voice speaking love (I have loved you). Recent exhortations often choose verbs of invitation or command — Gaudete (rejoice), Laudate (praise) — or phrases that sound like a conversation starter rather than a thesis statement. The effect is pastoral intimacy: the Church teaching not only about Christ, but speaking with Christ’s cadence to the believer.
So, does the genre determine the title style? Not strictly, and not always. An encyclical can sound warm and personal; an exhortation can sound thematic. Certainly the personality and training of the pope himself will shine through. But the trend line is clear: popes today use incipits that double as mission statements that ordinary readers can hear as addressed to them.
It’s smart communications — and it’s good theology. As the Catechism reminds us, the whole purpose of Christian teaching is love (CCC 25). Whether a document opens with dilexit nos or whispers dilexi te, the name is doing more than labeling a file; it’s giving you the music key for the pages to come.
