Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm not a big fan of the Pope, but I'm not the sort that would typically be browsing the Vatican website for the latest papal direction. I happened across the encyclical though, and ended up reading the whole thing (it's really not that hard...pretty basic stuff).
According to the Wikipedia article, the first half is said to have been written by Benedict XVI in German, his mother tongue, in the summer of 2005; the second half is derived from uncompleted writings left by his predecessor, Pope John Paul II.
"Deus Caritas Est" is Latin for "God is Love", which pretty much sums up what the encyclical is about.
There's a nice philosophical discussion of "eros" (human) and "agape" (divine) love, and an interesting point about Christianity not killing "eros"...
"biblical faith does not set up a parallel universe, or one opposed to that primordial human phenomenon which is love, but rather accepts the whole man; it intervenes in his search for love in order to purify it and to reveal new dimensions of it."
Probably the best summary in my mind is this -
"The unbreakable bond between love of God and love of neighbour is emphasized. One is so closely connected to the other that to say that we love God becomes a lie if we are closed to our neighbour or hate him altogether...love of neighbour is a path that leads to the encounter with God, closing our eyes to our neighbour also blinds us to God."
There is a secondary theme regarding the role of church and state, reaffirming that each has a separate role to play,
"The Church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring about the most just society possible. She cannot and must not replace the State."
It's amazing how far afield some go from these two simple precepts - loving your neighbor and leaving church work to the church and political work to the state. This is not to say that the church cannot provide informed compassionate people to do the work of the state, only that we not mix up the role of the two institutions.
Can't help but think of the various "political" folks who want to use the church to do the work of the state and underly their righteousness with a thinly disguised hatred of some one, or some group, they consider the "other". In God's teaching there is no other.
We are truly all in this together.
