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Fratelli tutti’: Chapter 5
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Pope Francis issues social encyclical calling people to care for one another as brothers and sisters
Guest Columnist
Father Patrick Riviere
It is commonly said that the two things you don’t bring up at dinner are politics and religion. If that’s the case (which I would disagree with), then one might think that Chapter 5 of Pope Francis’ encyclical Fratelli tutti, entitled “A Better Kind of Politics,” would be the last thing you’d want to discuss around the table. However, Pope Francis offers several important insights that attempt to bring the two worlds together.
He aptly summarizes the common view and feeling toward politics when he says, “For many people today, politics is a distasteful word, often due to the mistakes, corruption and inefficiency of some politicians” (176). Politics is increasingly becoming a negative word for many reasons. We hear only about divisions and scandals, the negative effects of what is being done, and one party’s constant criticisms of the other. Pope Francis attempts to move beyond the external divisions to the deeper heart and purpose of politics.
Politics comes from the Greek word polis, which simply means “city.” Its focus is on allowing a group of people living together to truly flourish in society. The goal and purpose of politics is rooted in the people it is meant to serve. All too often in our society, things that are meant to be for the good of the people are twisted and manipulated to actually be self-serving. Pope Francis characterizes these as “popular” and “populist.” Politics is meant to be “popular,” meaning for the common good of the people. It is meant to acknowledge that men and women can have shared goals and values that transcend themselves and their differences. However, he acknowledges that often politics and government become not popular but populist, when “individuals are able to exploit politically a people’s culture, under whatever ideological banner, for their own personal advantage or continuing grip on power” (159).
This populist-driven politics focuses only on short-term advantage, and “one meets popular demands for the sake of gaining votes or support, but without advancing in an arduous and constant effort to generate the resources people need” (161). What on the surface seems to be a concern for the other is actually a concern for the self, and instead of pursuing what is actually good for all people, this kind of politics seeks primarily to advance those in power. Pope Francis highlights the interplay of welfare projects and employment opportunities as an example of this. He says that the truly popular thing is “to provide everyone with the opportunity to nurture the seeds that God has given (them),” while “welfare projects, which meet certain urgent needs, should be considered merely temporary responses” (161-162). He expresses the desire to actually work to equip people to truly succeed instead of short-term solutions.
An important key that Pope Francis lifts up in moving from a populist politics to a popular politics is, unsurprisingly, the role of the virtue of charity or love. Charity is consistently lifted up in the Scriptures as the highest of virtues, that which holds everything together, that which God is by his very nature. It makes sense, then, that in a realm that is meant to focus on the common good of all people, the virtue that wills the good of the other person would be integral. He says that charity is not only expressed in close and individual relationships but is also shown in “macro-relationships: Social, economic and political” (181).
This so-called “social charity” or “political charity” makes us seek the good of all people in the social dimension that unites them and creates a force capable of inspiring new ways of approaching the problems of today’s world, of profoundly renewing structures, social organizations, and legal systems from within (183). Political charity a
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Chapter Five
always keeps the goodness of the other person at the forefront, which enables a deeper and more profound unity among all peoples. This is a love that is able to welcome differences and places the greatest priority on the dignity of every human being, even over their ideas, opinions or even sins. Without this virtue, politics tends to become less “personalistic,” where “less and less will people be called by name, less and less will this unique being be treated as a person with his or her own feelings, sufferings, problems, joys and family. Their illnesses will be known only in order to cure them, their financial needs only to provide for them, their lack of a home only to give them lodging, their desires for recreation and entertainment only to satisfy them” (193).
Rather than seeing individual people, we see their problems or ideas, automatically placing them in boxes rather than seeing the depth of who they are. Political charity is what enables a certain openness to others. It is what allows leaders of governments and politicians to make the sacrifices necessary to encounter and seek unity on issues that would otherwise breed division. Rather than focusing on the differences of belief and opinion, political charity encourages one to rather listen to other points of view and even to make room for them.
Without charity, politics will never achieve its actual goal because it will lose sight of the actual people it is meant to serve. Pope Francis says that “politics must make room for a tender love of others … a love that draws near and becomes real … that starts from our heart and reaches the eyes, the hears and the hands” (194). Where this is lacking, politics will forever be, as we said at the beginning of this article, a “distasteful word.”
But a politics that is truly popular, that is imbued with a social charity, is something very different than what we often experience. “Authentic political life, built upon respect for law and frank dialogue between individuals, is constantly renewed whenever there is a realization that every woman and man, and every new generation, brings the promise of new relational, intellectual, cultural and spiritual energies” (196). Politics has the capacity to be something “more noble than posturing, marketing and media spin” which only breed division, conflict and a cynicism that will never move people closer to the common good. When I simply recognize the depth of the person in front of me, everything changes – both on an individualrelational level and on a social-political level. Our task in the renewal of politics is as simple (and as difficult) as the command Jesus gave at the Last Supper: I give you a new commandment, love one another (even those we disagree with) as I have loved you. (Father Patrick Riviere is currently serving as liaison and priest specialist for the diocesan Office of Parish Support and as director of the diocesan Office of the Priesthood). BC
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