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The title of the encyclical is a direct quote from the Admonitions of St. Francis. It indicates a brotherhood that extends not only to human beings, but also to the earth, in full harmony with his other papal encyclical, Laudato Si ‘.
Oct 10, 2020
By Fr. Antonio Spadaro, SJ
Eight years after his election, Pope Francis has written a new encyclical that brings together many of his previous teachings (cf. Fratelli Tutti, n. 5).
When he began his pontificate, the first idea that Francis referred to was “fraternity.” He bowed his head to the people gathered in Saint Peter’s Square and defined the relationship between the bishops as a “path of brotherhood”, affirming this desire: “Let us always pray for each other. Let us pray for the whole world, for there to be a great fraternity ”.
The title of the encyclical is a direct quote from the Admonitions of St. Francis. It indicates a brotherhood that extends not only to human beings, but also to the earth, in full harmony with his other papal encyclical, Laudato Si ‘.
Fratelli Tutti refers to both fraternity and social friendship; together they are the central message of your text. The realism that runs through the pages dissolves any romantic emptiness that always lurks when we talk about fraternity. For Francisco, fraternity is not just an emotion, a feeling or an idea, no matter how noble, but a fact that also implies a result, an action (and the freedom to act): “Whose brother am I?”
The fraternity thus understood overturns the prevailing apocalyptic mentality, which is an approach to reality that fights against the world, believing it to be the opposite of God, that is, an idol, and therefore needs to be destroyed as soon as possible to accelerate The end of the ages. . Facing the abyss of the apocalypse, there are no longer brothers or sisters, only apostates or martyrs who run against time. But we are not militants or apostates, we are all brothers and sisters.
Fraternity does not burn time or blind eyes and souls. Instead, it takes time; it takes time, time for dispute and reconciliation. The fraternity spends time; the apocalypse burns him. Fraternity requires boredom time. Hate is pure emotion. Brotherhood is what allows equals to be different. Hatred eliminates the different. Fraternity saves time that involves politics, mediation, encounter, construction of civil society and solidarity. Fundamentalism erases it like in a video game.
That is why on February 4, 2019, in Abu Dhabi, Pope Francis and Ahmad al-Tayyeb, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, signed a historic document on brotherhood. The two leaders recognized each other as brothers and tried to look at the world today together. And what did they understand? That the only real alternative that defies and stops the apocalyptic solution is brotherhood.
It is necessary to rediscover this powerful evangelical word, taken up in the scandal of the French Revolution, but later abandoned by the post-revolutionary order until it was removed from the political-economic lexicon. It has been replaced by the weakest of “solidarity”, which is repeated 22 times in Fratelli (compared to 44 occurrences of “fraternity”). Francisco wrote in one of his messages: “While solidarity is the principle of social planning that allows unequals to become equal, fraternity is what allows equals to embrace different people.”
Recognizing brotherhood changes our perspectives, turns them upside down. It is a strong message of political value. We are all brothers and sisters and, therefore, all citizens with equal rights and duties, under whose shadow everyone enjoys justice.
Thus, fraternity is the solid basis for living “social friendship,” which combines rights with responsibility for the common good and embraces diversity with the recognition of a radical fraternity. –– Catholic civilization
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