Vatican City - Pope Benedict's first encyclical, touching on charity and the relationship between spiritual love and erotic love, is due to be issued soon after weeks of delays because of revisions and changes.
A Vatican source said on Tuesday that the major writing, called "Deus Caritas Est" (God is Love), whose release was originally announced for early December, was likely to come out in the next few days.
The source said that in recent weeks words had been changed, paragraphs deleted or added, and parts of the conclusion changed several times from what had been considered a final draft.
The source said the changes were due to observations made by Vatican departments as well as by a handful of cardinals and Church experts who have read the encyclical, which is just over 50 pages long in its English version.
The main theme of the encyclical, the highest form of papal writing, is love and charity.
In one section Benedict discusses the relationship between "eros", or erotic love, and "agape", (pronounced ah-gah-pay) the Greek word referring to unconditional, spiritual and selfless love as taught by Jesus.
"It's not totally negative on 'eros'," one Vatican source who has seen the encyclical told Reuters on Tuesday. "It says that 'eros' under the right circumstances is okay."
Cardinal Francis George of Chicago was quoted by the Chicago Sun-Times two weeks ago as saying that the Pope was trying to show that human love and human desires were not wrong under the right circumstances.
EROTIC AND SPIRITUAL LOVE
According to Italian media reports, the Pope warns in the encyclical that eros risked being "degraded to mere sex" if it did not have a balancing component of spiritual or divine love founded on the Christian faith.
Without the component of spiritual love in a relationship between a married couple, a husband or wife risks being reduced to "mere merchandise", he says, according to the reports.
In explaining his position, the Pope quotes not only from Biblical writings, his predecessors and Church teachings, but also from philosophers including 17th century thinker René Descartes.
While the Pope is believed to have written the entire first part himself, the second part -- which is dedicated to the theme of charity -- was already on the burner in the final years of the pontificate of his predecessor John Paul, who died in April.
The second part, believed to have been written for Pope John Paul by experts, deals with the need for Christians to do charitable works.
Benedict says Catholics should not only practice personal charity but support the work of international relief organizations. He writes that charity and love are intertwined.
Pope John Paul wrote 14 encyclicals during his nearly 27-year reign, including several so-called social encyclicals on themes such as the rights of workers and the relationship between the superpowers during the Cold War.
Pope Benedict has said he does not expect to write as much as his predecessor but wants to spread John Paul's teachings and ensure they are properly understood.