By Fr. Soroj Mullick, SDB –
The third encyclical of Pope Francis, after Lumen fidei (2013) and Laudato si’ (2015), Fratelli tutti (FT) of fraternity and social friendship, consists in treading on the dark clouds over a closed world, meeting the need of the strangers on the road – poor, migrants, neighbours in most need – envisaging and engendering an open world with a heart open to the whole creation by means of better kind of politics, dialogue and friendship in the society, through the willing and self-sacrificing paths of renewed encounter.
A relatively long magisterial document, the encyclical FT that calls for fraternity and social friendship, is a summary of Pope Francis’s thoughts garnered over the past years as people’s priest and a pope of the periphery. According to Pope Francis, St. Francis of Assisi “did not wage a war of words aimed at imposing doctrines; he simply spread the love of God (…) and inspired the vision of a fraternal society” (FT 2-4). We have common membership in the human family, for we are the children of one Creator; and that in a globalized and interconnected post-pandemic world, only together can we be saved.
The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar says, “Fratelli tutti, is an extension of the Document on Human Fraternity, and reveals a global reality in which the vulnerable and marginalized pay the price for unstable positions and decisions (…) It is a message that is directed to people of good will, whose consciences are alive and restores to humanity consciousness.” In fact, FT is based on fraternity and social friendship that have concerned the Pope in recent years and on the themes put forward in the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together, in February 2019.
The document opens with a rather “bleak assessment of the current state of the world” stating that all brothers and sisters without borders are going through the “dark clouds over a closed world” (Ch. 1, FT 9-55) and “shattered dreams”, that seem to be the end of historical and human consciousness, lacking a proactive plan for everyone (FT15-28). Shadows over the closed world spread everywhere, “plunge humanity into confusion, loneliness, and desolation”. The FT alarms against a “culture of walls”, of organized crime, fuelled by fear (FT 27-28). With a “throwaway” culture in the world today, with insufficient universal human rights often being violated; within certain conflict and fear in the midst of globalization and progress, yet without a shared and decisive roadmap (FT 29-31). As the present pandemics and other calamities in history have proven, there has been an absence of human dignity on the peripheral borders (FT 37-41), with mixed feelings on the illusion of communication, shameless aggressions on various areas, and having information without wisdom (FT 42). The mass media has deteriorated ethics (FT 29), creating isolated virtual circles without freedom and constructive dialogue (FT 43-50).
Francis observes trends in our world that hinder the development of universal fraternity. According to him, “Globalized society makes us neighbours, but it does not make us brothers” (intended sisters too!, FT 12). The grey and dark clouds over a world that is so closed up on itself are observed in: the despair and discouragement that are widespread in society; the polarization that impedes dialogue and living together; the persons who are considered easily “sacrificed” and discarded; the inequality of rights and the new forms of slavery; and the moral deterioration and the weakening of spiritual values. Today one witnesses the manipulation and deformation of concepts such as, liberty, unity, democracy, freedom and justice; social community and history; selfishness and indifference toward the common good; market logic based on profit and the culture of waste; unemployment, racism, poverty; disparity of rights; slavery, women and organ trafficking, subjugation of women, etc. (FT 10-24). In the face of these challenges, FT insists that “The road we must travel is that of closeness; it is the culture of encounter” with hope (FT 30); that God continues to sow abundant seeds of goodness, together with love, justice and solidarity, that has to be realized each day. It is with hope that we look beyond any personal convenience that limits our horizon, and it opens us up to grand ideals.
He warns that there are existing “signs of a certain regression” (FT 11). For him, words like democracy, freedom, justice or unity “have been bent and shaped to serve as tools for domination”, and “to justify any action” (FT 14) by the powerful. Therefore, the first victims of such self-centred agenda and xenophobia, are the voiceless poor. The document is a cry of alarm against demagogic populism. A false and “closed populist groups distort the word ‘people’” (FT 160), and this “unhealthy” and “irresponsible” populism by some political leaders who “seek popularity by appealing to the basest and most selfish inclinations of certain sectors of the population,” (FT 159) has to be denounced. Global problems call for global actions. The resurgence of nationalism, calls for a reformed, more ‘family-like’ United Nations. Pope Francis, a follower of “the theology of the people” says, “each of us is fully a person when we are part of a people” (FT 182). Therefore, he does not disqualify “people”. Living within multiple forms of subjection and of self-contempt (FT 51, 53), there is still a ray of hope always.
The document proposes that it is a social encyclical dedicated to putting forth a new vision of fraternity and social friendship, while treating the universal dimension of the doctrine of fraternal love. The tittle Fratelli tutti being an expression of Saint Francis of Assisi (Admonitions, 6.1), is an evocative that encourages all to dream as a single human family and as fellow travellers sharing the same flesh. It is invitation to all men and women who will accept this reflection, and enter into a dialogue with love, that transcends the barriers of geography and distance. Pope Francis concludes the document with this prayerful wish: “Come, Holy Spirit, show us your beauty, reflected in all the peoples of the earth, so that we may discover a new that all are important and all are necessary, different faces of the one humanity that God so loves.”
Next Week: Family Bond of Fraternity and Community
Fr. Soroj Mullick, SDB is a Salesian priest from the Kolkata Province. He has a Licentiate in Catechetics and a Doctorate (Christian Education) from UPS, Italy. He has number of years of teaching experience in college and in the formation of future priests. Besides, he has written number of research papers and articles, and has 25 years of Ministry in India and abroad as Educator, Formator, Retreat Preacher, Editor and engaged in School, Parish Catechetical & Youth Ministry. He is now an assistant priest in Bandel Basilica, rendering pastoral and catechetical ministry to the parishioners and to the pilgrims. He can be contacted at [email protected].