Spe Salvi
Pope Benedict XVI has completed his second encyclical, a meditation on Christian hope, Vatican sources said.
The text, tentatively titled "Spe Salvi" ("Saved by Hope"), is about 65 pages, sources said Oct. 16. No release date has been set for the document.
The working title comes from St. Paul's letter to the Romans, in which he wrote: "For in hope we have been saved." The encyclical is said to explore the Christian understanding of hope, with reference to modern philosophy and the challenges of disbelief.
The pope worked on the encyclical this summer, when he had time to write during his sojourns in northern Italy and at his villa outside Rome. At the same time, he was working on a third encyclical that deals with social themes, Vatican officials said.
This is really quite interesting and I am really wondering if he will be the first pope to write an encyclical trilogy. His first encyclical being on love, his second on hope, so surely the next one will be on faith. Coming to a book store near you - the theological virtues trilogy!
I wonder how many will remember the Times of London reported that the pope’s second encyclical will focus on social and economic problems facing mankind in an era of globalization. That it would condemn tax evasion and tax havens.
Known as 
Personally, I wonder how many will be particularly surprised that the Times of London's speculations turned out to be wrong :-).
To be fair to the Times, it's entirely possible that the Pope will touch on those subjects in one way or another. But that he would write an encyclical focused that way—no way. This guy's the Pope, and he thinks like a bishop and a theologian (maybe because that's who he is? :-)). He's going to focus on Gospel themes (which are, after all, a far bigger deal than globalization), and make any topical comments he thinks are needed on the way to his bigger points.
Peace,
--Peter
I love the strategy that Papa Benedict is apparently taking. From the perspective of dialogue with Protestants, rather than clashing head-on concerning Sola Fide, his first encyclical is about love. And who can argue with that, being the chief virtue? Now he goes on to write about hope, and again, that was never the issue with the Protestants. So, from a perspective of dialogue, he appears to be truly emphasizing what unites us first and foremost. :-)
Also, I would hazard a proposition that, armed with a right understanding of love and hope to begin with, perhaps we can disarm the unwarranted vitriol among some Protestants on the principle of Sola Fide?
One could .. um.. hope. :-)
Reading Deus caritas Est, which is on Love, makes me not very anthusiast about any encyclical on Hope. My is the content would the the usual this and that.
But if he actually going to do a trilogy then I'll be waiting for the "faith" one because it will be the most important knowing that this is what he wrote on Dominus Iesus:
7. ... For this reason, the distinction between theological faith and belief in the other religions, must be firmly held. If faith is the acceptance in grace of revealed truth, which "makes it possible to penetrate the mystery in a way that allows us to understand it coherently",21 then belief, in the other religions, is that sum of experience and thought that constitutes the human treasury of wisdom and religious aspiration, which man in his search for truth has conceived and acted upon in his relationship to God and the Absolute.22
This distinction is not always borne in mind in current theological reflection. Thus, theological faith (the acceptance of the truth revealed by the One and Triune God) is often identified with belief in other religions, which is religious experience still in search of the absolute truth and still lacking assent to God who reveals himself. This is one of the reasons why the differences between Christianity and the other religions tend to be reduced at times to the point of disappearance.
If you don't want to have a clue about what's happening in Rome, read the British papers.
Popes writing about Love, the environment and now taxes
Sounds more like John Edwards
What ever happened to the Rottweiler we were promised? Is this the best we have to offer from the Papacy?