Become an ‘artisan of peace’: Vancouver Catholics react to Pope’s encyclical Fratelli tutti

Local Catholics offer their thoughts on Pope Francis’ new encyclical Fratelli Tutti and its themes of unity and peace, charity, and the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi.

A prophetic cry of the heart

Fratelli Tutti, the latest document to emerge from the pen of Pope Francis, is a substantive examination of humanity’s desperate need for meaningful connection, for human communion, for a shared grasp of those values that enrich us as individuals and as societies.

Building on this pope’s special love for, and identification with, the Poverello of Assisi, the encyclical letter is a sustained meditation on the evangelical vision and legacy of Francesco Bernardone – St. Francis of Assisi – especially as they apply to our tremulous, plague-riddled, and deeply unsettled time.

Having prompted Pope Francis to write his earlier encyclical, Laudato Sí, a powerful document on the environment and our common home, the Pope returns to the first Franciscan, if you like, and draws on his wisdom and saintliness to address our universal yearning for credible love, genuine justice, profound unity.

He writes: “Francis felt himself a brother to the sun, the sea and the wind, yet he knew that he was even closer to those of his own flesh. Wherever he went, he sowed seeds of peace and walked alongside the poor, the abandoned, the infirm and the outcast, the least of his brothers and sisters.”

And that has also been the way of Papa Bergoglio as he privileged the poor in his ministry, prioritized the pastoral needs of the displaced migrants, addressed the social and economic inequities that define our politically fraught environment, and has taken on the powers and principalities that oppress the underclass.

Pope Francis reminds us that the COVID-19 pandemic is a dramatic illustration of the crippling irony that “for all our hyper-connectivity, we witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all. Anyone who thinks that the only lesson to be learned was the need to improve what we are already doing, or to refine existing systems and regulations, is denying reality.”

In Fratelli Tutti Francis is embracing reality. He names the structural, systemic, and historically conditioned problems that divide us, polarize us, delimit and denigrate us. His encyclical is a cri de coeur, a cry of the heart that is prophetic, and yet not oracular or abstract. It has about it the sweet reason of the pragmatic infused with the spiritual. Pope Francis is uninterested in windy expostulations and grand theories. He diagnoses our ailments through his Franciscan lens and then offers some prescriptions that can assist us in restoring our social health.

Although, as is the tradition in encyclical writing, he speaks of issues and avoids naming personalities, it is not difficult to identify those leaders and the policies that they advocate who merit his moral outrage: those who build walls, foment racial and ethnic hatred, demean their opponents and critics, sunder language from truth, commodify human worth, create a politics that despises the “other,” perpetuate a “throwaway culture” that diminishes life at its beginning and at its end, solidify an ethos that prizes “killers over zeros, winners over losers.”

The conclusion of Fratelli Tutti is a public acknowledgement of the heroic witness and holy lives of those outside the Catholic faith who have influenced the author greatly: Martin Luther King, Desmond Tutu, Mahatma Gandhi. The Pope draws on a moral chorus he finds congruent with the teachings of Jesus, with Francis of Assisi his lead soloist.

Dr. Michael W. Higgins is the president of Corpus Christi and St. Mark’s Colleges in Vancouver.

Call for radical transformation

St. Francis of Assisi’s response to God’s call is a model for us of the radical transformation that the new encyclical Fratelli Tutti urges us to make. It was significant that Pope Francis travelled to Assisi Oct. 3 to celebrate Mass before signing this encyclical on the fifth anniversary of Laudato Sí, his document on the environment. Both encyclicals provide a blueprint for the conversion of heart, mind, and soul needed in our current global reality. Today is a critical moment, not only because of the pandemic but for the survival of our planet.

In his youth, St. Francis was known as a partier, a flamboyant merchant who was ambitious with aspirations for knighthood. He was caught up in the market economy with dreams of wealth and pleasure. While he was a knight, he encountered a dark period of illness which awakened him to a new vision of reality, changing the rest of his life. He became an advocate for the vulnerable, showing forth a love that transcended barriers of geography and distance. One day while praying, Francis heard a voice telling him, “Francis go rebuild my house, as you see, it is all being destroyed.”

Pope Francis hopes that this encyclical will be our wakeup call to a new vision of fraternity and social friendship. He encourages us to dream of ourselves as a single human family, united as companions on the journey. Using the parable of the Good Samaritan as a pivotal theme, he reminds us of our challenge to see and attend to the wounded and discarded strangers on the road, offering them compassionate and selfless care, overcoming barriers to being neighbours.

In the first chapter, Dark Clouds Over a Closed World, Pope Francis illustrates extensively the trends in our society today that hinder the development of this universal fraternity. He urges us to reimagine our lifestyles, our relationships, our institutions, governments, and above all the meaning of our existence. He calls for a universal love that transcends walls, races, differences, and borders, and promotes the dignity, worth, and value of every human being, not based on circumstances but on their intrinsic worth. This demands that the systems of structural injustices that cause poverty, war, inequality, homelessness, migration, trafficking, etc. be addressed and resolved to secure justice and dignity for all.

Besides outlining a comprehensive plan of action for a more just world, Pope Francis names several essential tools needed in the development of this global community of fraternity, such as a social charity, a better politics, skills of dialogue and negotiation, the practice of building bridges and eliminating walls, and the art of peacemaking, kindness, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

If, like St. Francis, we are to rebuild our universal world, each of us, regardless of religion, needs to be an “artisan of peace, by uniting and not dividing, by extinguishing hatred and not holding on to it, by opening paths of dialogue and not constructing new walls.”

Let us live the vision so clearly articulated by Pope Francis in Fratelli Tutti.

Sister Nancy Brown is a Sister of Charity - Halifax and an active member of various social justice initiatives including the Archdiocese of Vancouver’s Anti-Human-Trafficking Committee.

Local and global

An aspect of Pope Francis’ encyclical Fratelli tutti which caught my eye was the distinction between “popular” and “populist” (155-162). Both those words come from the word for “people.”

Now, we think of “people” as a collection of individuals. But when we speak of “the people” or “a people,” we think of something that goes beyond individuals to a group, a nation. Both “populist” and “popular” refer to that kind of people. For Pope Francis, the “populist” distorts the people. Populists tend towards xenophobia, hatred of foreigners, and populist leaders become demagogues who exploit the desires of the people.

But what he is really interested in is the “popular” – the movements and leaders who express the history (13), tradition (14), and culture (134) of a people. These are realities that go beyond the rational and logical to the “mythic” (158). (We might note that “mythic” doesn’t mean imaginary or unreal but rather a reality that is conveyed by a story, rather like the parables of Jesus.)

On the other hand, Pope Francis is aware that concentrating on your own popular traditions has a danger. He calls it “local narcissism” (146), i.e. being blind to what is beyond your own village or homeland. There has to be a global perspective also, an openness to the wider world.

This openness leads to relationship and dialogue. We welcome strangers, especially migrants and refugees. As a Benedictine, I’d like to note that Pope Francis cites the Rule of St. Benedict on hospitality in this context (90).

But what is behind all this openness and relationship is love, that is, the virtue of charity. It unites opposite dimensions, such as the abstract and the institutional (164), the intimate, and the political/economic (181). “If someone helps an elderly person to cross a river, that is a fine act of charity. The politician, on the other hand, builds a bridge, and that too is an act of charity.” (186)

The Holy Father recognizes that there is a tension between globalization and localization, and between other opposites that come together under charity. This tension is necessary: “universal fraternity and social friendship are thus two inseparable and equally vital poles in every society.” (142)

On one hand this means that a change of heart is necessary; otherwise the proposals of charity will seem unrealistic (127).

But tensions will remain and the process will be difficult. “Let us not forget that ‘differences are creative; they create tension and in the resolution of tension lies humanity’s progress.’” (203)

In fact there are not only necessary tensions but also necessary conflicts. “Authentic reconciliation does not flee from conflict, but is achieved in conflict, resolving it through dialogue and open, honest and patient negotiation.” (244)

I think the idea that “reconciliation is achieved in conflict” is a key to understanding not only the Holy Father’s thought on the popular but also some of the other difficult aspects of the papacy of Pope Francis.

Father Alban Riley, OSB, is a monk of Westminster Abbey, Mission, where he teaches Church history and Latin in the Seminary of Christ the King.

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