Theology

• Fratelli tutti


  On Fraternity and Social Friendship
• The document begins by explaining that our call to love others as brothers and sisters, even when they are far from us is a call to 'open fraternity', a love without borders
• Themes explored in the 8 chapters

  • Friendship and unity in a fragmented world
  • The human family in a post-COVID-19 world
• Chapter 1: Dark clouds over a closed world


  • Describes the dark clouds over a closed world, hindering the development of universal fraternity
  • Precious words like democracy, freedom, justice, and unity are manipulated and emptied of meaning
  • People sowing despair, discouragement, hyperbole, extremism, and polarisation
  • The system denies the right of others to exist or to have an opinion
  • Politics has been turned into marketing
  • Persons considered no longer productive or useful are disregarded and discounted by this throwaway culture
• The Pope reminds us that love, justice, and solidarity are not achieved once and for all but that they have to be built and worked by each person day by day
• Chapter 2: A stranger on the road


  • We can pass by on the other side, or we can stop and be moved by pity
  • We are being encouraged to create a different culture: one in which we resolve our conflicts and care for one another
  • Love shatters chains and builds bridges; it enables us to create one great family, where all of us can feel at home
  • A sick society is tempted to ignore others, look the other way, and pass by as if unaware of the reality
• Chapter 3: Envisaging and engendering an open world

  • God is universal love, and since we are part of that love and share it, we are called to universal fraternity, which is openness
  • Every brother or sister in need, when abandoned or ignored by the society in which I live, becomes an existential foreigner
  • A love capable of transcending borders is the basis of "social friendship," the condition of possibility for universal openness
  • No one can remain excluded
  • Development must ensure human rights—personal and social, economic and political, including the rights of nations and of peoples
  • Business activity should always be clearly directed to the development of others and to eliminating poverty
• Chapter 4: A heart open to the whole world


  • We are called to encounter, solidarity, and gratuitousness
  • As long as no substantial progress is made to avoid unnecessary migrations—and that means creating the conditions needed for a dignified life and integral development in the countries of origin—we are obliged to respect the right of all individuals to find a place that meets their basic needs, and where they can find personal fulfilment
  • The arrival of persons who are different from us becomes a gift when we receive them with open hearts and allow them to be true to themselves
• Chapter 5: A better kind of politics


  • A better kind of politics seeks the common and universal good, one that practices social charity and pursues human dignity
  • Such a politics is different from the populism that arises when leaders politically exploit a people's culture under an ideological banner for their own personal advantage or to continue their grip on power
  • Pope Francis calls us to a social and political order whose soul is social charity, urging us to rehabilitate politics as one of the loftiest forms of charity, inasmuch as it seeks the common good
  • Politicians are called to tend to the needs of individuals and peoples, and to make the sacrifices that foster encounter and to seek convergence on at least some issues
• Chapter 6: Dialogue and friendship in society


  • Dialogue is respectful, strives for consensus, and seeks the truth
  • Dialogue opens the way to a culture of encounter so that encounter becomes a passion, a desire, and a way of life
  • Relativism always brings the risk that some alleged truth or other will be imposed by the powerful or the clever
  • In a pluralistic society, dialogue is the best way to realise what should always be affirmed and respected apart from any ephemeral consensus
  • Life is the art of encounter
• Dialogue


  Recognising, befriending, and respecting other persons. Approaching, speaking, listening, looking at, coming to know and understand one another, and finding common ground.
• If society is to have a future, it must respect the truth of our human dignity and submit to that truth
• A society is noble and decent not least for its support of the pursuit of truth and its adherence to the most basic of truths
• Relativism always brings the risk that some alleged truth or other will be imposed by the powerful or the clever
• In a pluralistic society, dialogue is the best way to realise what should always be affirmed and respected apart from any ephemeral consensus
• There are certain enduring values that make for a robust and solid social ethics
• Culture of encounter


  Working to create a many-faceted polyhedron which represents a society where differences coexist, complementing, enriching and reciprocally illuminating one another, even amid disagreements and reservations. Finding ways to include those on the peripheries of life.
• We need boldness and truth, recognising that any renewal must begin with an acknowledgment of what has been
• Those who were fierce enemies have to speak from the stark and clear truth
• Only by basing themselves on the historical truth of events will they be able to make a broad and persevering effort to understand one another and to strive for a new synthesis for the good of all
• Truth is an inseparable companion of justice and mercy. All three together are essential to building peace
• The path to peace does not mean making society blandly uniform; rather, it means getting people to work together, side-by-side, in pursuing goals that benefit everyone
• We should never define others by what they may have said or done in the past; we should value them for the promise that they embody, a promise that always brings with it a spark of new hope
• Authentic reconciliation does not flee from conflict, but is achieved in conflict, resolving it through dialogue and open, honest and patient negotiation
• Those who have endured much unjust and cruel suffering should not be asked to offer a sort of "social forgiveness"
• Forgetting is never the answer, for we can never move forward without remembering the past
• Those who truly forgive do not forget, but they choose not to yield to the same destructive force that caused them so much suffering. This does not mean impunity; justice is properly sought solely out of love of justice itself and out of respect for the victims, as a means of preventing new crimes and protecting the common good
• True human development can only be achieved when wars between nations and peoples are no longer seen as solutions
• It is very difficult to invoke the rational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a "just war"
• The goal of ultimately eliminating all nuclear weapons becomes both a challenge and a moral and humanitarian imperative
• The death penalty is inadequate from a moral standpoint and no longer necessary from the standpoint of penal justice. It is simply inadmissible. The Church is firmly committed to calling for its abolition worldwide
• A life sentence is a secret death penalty
• Because of their respect for each human person as a creature called to be a child of God, the different religions contribute significantly to building fraternity and defending justice in society
• Dialogue among religions seeks to establish friendship, peace, and harmony, and to share spiritual and moral values and experiences in a spirit of truth and love
• As visible images of the invisible God, human persons possess a transcendent dignity; they are therefore by their very nature the subjects of rights that no one may violate
• The effort to seek God with a sincere heart helps us recognise one another as travelling companions, truly brothers and sisters
• The Church, while respecting the autonomy of political life, does not remain on the sidelines in the building of a better world, nor does it fail to reawaken the spiritual energy that can contribute to the betterment of society
• The Church esteems the ways in which God works in other religions, and rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions
• For Christian thought and for the action of the Church, the primacy is given to relationship, to the encounter with the sacred mystery of the other, and to universal communion with the entire human family, as a vocation of all
• Wherever the councils of nations come together to establish the rights and duties of men and women, we are honoured to be permitted to take our place among them