The latest encyclical by Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti, On Fraternity and Social Friendship, was issued on October 3, 2020, which was a month before the US Presidential Election, and although we know that the pope was putting his thumb on the scale, the US news media really did not comment on this that much, and the Catholic media only had cursory summaries of the encyclical, including an article in the America magazine, where Pope Francis identifies the paradox of populism. It was also issued five months after the murder of George Floyd, and we now know, after the trial, that it was a murder, that anyone whose neck is suffocating under the policeman’s knee on a curb, hand-cuffed, is not that much of a threat.
Pope Francis returns to themes covered in his prior encyclical, Gaudete Et Exsultate on the need to treat both the poor and also immigrants with compassion, on how we should love our neighbor, including strangers. We must also show our love for our neighbor in all our digital communications, and to think twice before pressing the SEND button on Twitter.
YouTube video for this blog: https://youtu.be/jF-fsMvYsak
THE GOOD SAMARITAN
Pope Francis teaches us lessons from the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus tells this parable in response to a question by a lawyer, their discussion begins:
“A lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.’ And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’”[1]
If you do not love your neighbor, then you may be tempted to do him harm, and Pope Francis quotes the question of Abel to the Lord, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” This is such a beautiful story that it bears retelling, and we can no longer assume everyone knows the story in detail.
In the sin of the second-generation Cain coveted Adonoy’s blessing of his brother Abel’s sacrifice. In the Jewish account, Adonoy warns Abel:
“Why are you angry?
Why are you depressed?
Is this not so:
if you improve, there is forgiveness,
but if you do not improve,
sin rests at the entrance.
Its desire is unto you,
but you can master it.”
Rashi adds that sin rests at the entrance of your grave. Rashi is one of the great medieval Jewish rabbis and commentators, and it is the Jewish practice to substitute Adonoy for the name of the Lord is so holy that it should not be uttered.
Again, Adonoy walks the earth, asking Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” Rashi says Adonoy wants to engage “him in casual conversation so that he may repent and say: ‘I killed him and have sinned to You.’” Even the search for Adonoy’s blessing is cheapened by the coveting. Rather than repent, Cain lies, “I know not, am I my brother’s keeper?”
Perhaps if he had confessed, he would have been restored, but Cain, too, is banished, after Adonoy cries out the cry that heaven and earth cry out when we sin irreversible sins: “What have you done?”
So, Cain murders Abel because he covets the favor Adonoy showed Abel, favor that would have been his also if he had only sincerely asked for it. The enemy would rather we not seek Adonoy’s favor but failing in that he seeks to twist even the most noble of pursuits into a vulgar gesture.
- Pope Francis repeats the question of Cain, who has murdered his brother Abel, “’Am I my brother’s keeper?’ By the very question he asks, God leaves no room for an appeal to determinism or fatalism as a justification for our own indifference.” Just because he who suffers is a stranger, we cannot say, stuff just happens, does not mean we should not try to help him. The Good Samaritan helped a stranger.
- Pope Francis teaches us, “In earlier Jewish traditions, the imperative to love and care for others appears to have been limited to relationships between members of the same nation.”
This is a valid observation, but we also reflected in our video on the Iliad that there is a valid reason for the ancients to be wary of the neighboring nations. Ancient Greece, ancient Israel, and all ancient cultures were warrior cultures out of necessity, and ancient Israel was a warrior culture, wary of neighboring nations that might capture your town, slaughter your military age men, and enslave your women and children, stealing everything.
We argue that many of the hard sayings of the Bible can be explained by the fact that ancient Israel was, indeed, a warrior culture, with the insecurities that ancient people felt, knowing that they might spend their retirement as a slave captured in war.
- Pope Francis quotes an early first century rabbi, “In the first century before Christ, Rabbi Hillel stated: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. This is the entire Torah. Everything else is commentary.’ The desire to imitate God’s own way of acting gradually replaced the tendency to think only of those nearest us: ‘The compassion of man is for his neighbor, but the compassion of the Lord is for all living beings.’” (Sir 18:13)
- Pope Francis teaches us, “In the New Testament, Hillel’s precept was expressed in positive terms: ‘In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.’ (Mt 7:12) This command is universal in scope, embracing everyone on the basis of our shared humanity, since the heavenly Father ‘makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good.’ (Mt 5:45) Hence the summons to ‘be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.’” (Lk 6:36)
- Pope Francis teaches us, “In the oldest texts of the Bible, we find a reason why our hearts should expand to embrace the foreigner. It derives from the enduring memory of the Jewish people that they themselves had once lived as foreigners in Egypt: ‘You shall not wrong or oppress a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.’ (Ex 22:21)
Pope Francis quotes several other bible verses exhorting us to be kind to the migrant, the immigrant, even what we call the illegal immigrant. How can we despise someone who flees poverty, often certain death, for a better life? Does labeling migrants as illegal justify our cruelty towards them?
Continuing with the accounts of the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke,
“But wanting to justify himself, the lawyer asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’ Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’”[2]
Pope Francis observes, “Only one person stopped, approached the man and cared for him personally, even spending his own money to provide for his needs.” (63) Pope Francis makes several observations of the Good Samaritan who helped this stranger:
- “Each day we have to decide whether to be Good Samaritans or indifferent bystanders.”
- Pope Francis observes, “It is remarkable how the various characters in the story change, once confronted by the painful sight of the poor man on the roadside. The distinctions between Judean and Samaritan, priest and merchant, fade into insignificance. Now there are only two kinds of people: those who care for someone who is hurting and those who pass by; those who bend down to help and those who look the other way and hurry off.”
- “One detail about the passers-by does stand out: they were religious, devoted to the worship of God: a priest and a Levite. This detail should not be overlooked. It shows that belief in God and the worship of God are not enough to ensure that we are actually living in a way pleasing to God.”
St Jerome teaches us that all people are our neighbors. “Some think that their neighbor is their brother, family, relative, or their kinsman. Our Lord teaches who our neighbor is in the Gospel parable of a certain man going down form Jerusalem to Jericho.” “Everyone is our neighbor, and we should not harm anyone. If, on the contrary, we understand our fellow human beings to be only our brother and relatives, is it then permissible to do evil to strangers? God forbid such a belief! We are neighbors, all people to all people, for we have one Father.”[3]
The trick to reading a papal encyclical online is to always have it open in two windows, with the second window positioned at the footnotes. One of Pope Francis’ first encyclicals, Laudato Si, issued in 2015, is prominently cited. Much of this encyclical covers many environmental issues, but he also has an interesting section on the saint whose name he adopted as pope, St Francis of Assisi.
- In Laudato Si, Pope Francis says of his namesake, he is an “attractive and compelling figure, whose name I took as my guide and inspiration when I was elected Bishop of Rome. I believe that St Francis is the example par excellence of care for the vulnerable and of an integral ecology lived out joyfully and authentically.”
Pope Francis tells us why he sees this saint as his role model. “St Francis was particularly concerned for God’s creation and for the poor and outcast. He loved, and was deeply loved for his joy, his generous self-giving, his open heartedness. He was a mystic and a pilgrim who lived in simplicity and in wonderful harmony with God, with others, with nature and with himself. He shows us just how inseparable the bond is between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society, and interior peace.”
- “Just as happens when we fall in love with someone, whenever he would gaze at the sun, the moon or the smallest of animals, St Francis burst into song, drawing all other creatures into his praise. He communed with all creation, even preaching to the flowers, inviting them ‘to praise the Lord, just as if they were endowed with reason.’ His response to the world around him was so much more than intellectual appreciation or economic calculus, for to him each and every creature was a sister united to him by bonds of affection. That is why he felt called to care for all that exists.”[4]
Returning to his encyclical Fratelli Tutti,
92. Pope Francis teaches us, “The spiritual stature of a person’s life is measured by love, which in the end remains ‘the criterion for the definitive decision about a human life’s worth or lack thereof.’ Yet some believers think that it consists in the imposition of their own ideologies upon everyone else, or in a violent defense of the truth, or in impressive demonstrations of strength. All of us, as believers, need to recognize that love takes first place: love must never be put at risk, and the greatest danger lies in failing to love’” (1 Cor 13)
How prescient was this paragraph, released before the election, when after the election Christian Nationalists were among those storming the Capitol, even making a show of public prayers in the House Chambers as they trespassed in the House Chambers?
How often many prosperous Christians forget: that not only private charity is necessary, but we must also adequately fund the government so we can take care of the poor and disadvantaged, when private charity does not even touch their life-long needs.
- Pope Francis teaches us, “Some people are born into economically stable families, receive a fine education, grow up well nourished, or naturally possess great talent. They will certainly not need a proactive state; they need only claim their freedom. Yet the same rule clearly does not apply to a disabled person, to someone born in dire poverty, to those lacking a good education and with little access to adequate health care.” In other words, when someone is poor or disabled, we should not blame them, but rather help them as our less fortunate neighbor.
BORDERS AND THEIR LIMITS
While the church discourages clergy from directly participating in the political process, the church does raise its voice on political issues where we decide whether or how we will love our neighbor, especially when our neighbor is poor and disadvantaged.
- Pope Francis points out that “complex challenges arise when our neighbor happens to be an immigrant.” “We are obliged to respect the right of all individuals to find a place that meets their basic needs and those of their families, and where they can find personal fulfillment. Our response to the arrival of migrating persons can be summarized by four words: welcome, protect, promote and integrate. For ‘it is not a case of implementing welfare programs from the top down, but rather of undertaking a journey together, through these four actions, in order to build cities and countries that, while preserving their respective cultural and religious identity, are open to differences and know how to promote them in the spirit of human fraternity.’”
Not only is there concern in America over the unending pressure for immigration from Mexico over the past fifty years, but the Syrian wars have also resulted in an immigration crisis in Europe that has only recently eased. Pope Francis, in this encyclical, is not content to issue platitudes, the pope is not content merely to pray for the immigrants, the pope offers a list of concrete recommendations!
We are not going to read over this long list, you can do that in our SlideShare PowerPoint presentation or in our blog.
- “This implies taking certain indispensable steps, especially in response to those who are fleeing grave humanitarian crises. As examples, we may cite:
- Increasing and simplifying the granting of visas.
- Adopting programs of individual and community sponsorship.
- Opening humanitarian corridors for the most vulnerable refugees.
- Providing suitable and dignified housing; guaranteeing personal security and access to basic services.
- Ensuring adequate consular assistance and the right to retain personal identity documents.
- Equitable access to the justice system.
- The possibility of opening bank accounts and the guarantee of the minimum needed to survive.
- Freedom of movement and the possibility of employment.
- Protecting minors and ensuring their regular access to education.
- Providing for programs of temporary guardianship or shelter.
- Guaranteeing religious freedom.
- Promoting integration into society.
- Supporting the reuniting of families.
- Preparing local communities for the process of integration.”
We do want to point out some items on the list that address the cruelties that the Trump Administration made the immigrants suffer. Pope Francis “supports the reuniting of families,” the families whom the Trump Administration so cruelly broke apart, not bothering to keep adequate records of who the parents of the helpless children were.
The Pope supports “equitable access to the justice system,” and “opening humanitarian corridors for the most vulnerable refugees,” but the Trump Administration insisted on cruelly sending migrants back over the border into Mexico before their cases were heard, hindering their access to the justice system, but also risking their lives and chastity to the gangs that preyed on them.
Pope Francis also condemns the building of walls:
146. “There is a kind of ‘local’ narcissism unrelated to a healthy love of one’s own people and culture. It is born of a certain insecurity and fear of the other that leads to rejection and the desire to erect walls for self-defense.”
When we are cruel to our disadvantaged, we as a country harm our souls. “A healthy culture is open and welcoming by its very nature; indeed, ‘a culture without universal values is not truly a culture.’”
- “Other cultures are not ‘enemies’ from which we need to protect ourselves, but differing reflections of the inexhaustible richness of human life.”
At the time of recording this video, the Guardian said that Viktor Orban said this to the Republican CPAC meeting in late 2022, “Orban was given a rapturous welcome despite controversy last month when he railed against Europe becoming a “mixed-race” society, comments that one of his closest aides compared to the Nazis before resigning in protest.” He made the claim that he was a Christian leader, and that means he cannot be racist, before he launched into a racist rant.[5]
- Here Pope Francis also criticizes the strong men in Latin America, such as the dictator Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela. “Lack of concern for the vulnerable can hide behind a populism that exploits them demagogically for its own purposes, or a liberalism that serves the economic interests of the powerful.” They strongmen may pander to the poor, but the poor suffer under their rule.
- Pope Francis condemns all populist leaders, leftist or conservative, who “seek popularity by appealing to the basest and most selfish inclinations of certain sectors of the population. This becomes all the more serious when, whether in cruder or more subtle forms, it leads to the usurpation of institutions and laws.”
In the first year of Trump’s presidency, Pope Francis publicly accused him of pro-life hypocrisy by his cruel policy of separating migrant families, even losing track of the identity of the parents of the separated children.[6]
- Pope Francis teaches us, in the spirit of Pope Leo’s encyclical Rerum Novarum, “The biggest issue is employment. The truly ‘popular’ thing – since it promotes the good of the people – is to provide everyone with the opportunity to nurture the seeds that God has planted in each of us: our talents, our initiative and our innate resources. This is the finest help we can give to the poor, the best path to a life of dignity. Hence my insistence that, ‘helping the poor financially must always be a provisional solution in the face of pressing needs. The broader objective should always be to allow them a dignified life through work.’”
- Pope Francis challenges neo-liberal ideology when says that “the marketplace, by itself, cannot resolve every problem, however much we are asked to believe this dogma of neo-liberal faith.” Trickle-down economics, where benefits magically trickle down to the lower classes, does not resolve inequalities and injustices.
Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics promoted the neo-liberal notion that corporations should only seek to increase their profits and benefit their shareholders, that corporations have absolutely no responsibility for the social welfare of the society. Greed is good.
- Pope Francis teaches us, “Politics too must make room for a tender love of others. What is tenderness? It is love that draws near and becomes real.” “Amid the daily concerns of political life, the smallest, the weakest, the poorest should touch our hearts: indeed, they have a right to appeal to our heart and soul. They are our brothers and sisters, and as such we must love and care for them.”
- Pope Francis returns to a theme discussed in Gaudete et Exsultate: “Dialogue is often confused with something quite different: the feverish exchange of opinions on social networks, frequently based on media information that is not always reliable. These exchanges are merely parallel monologues. They may attract some attention by their sharp and aggressive tone. But monologues engage no one, and their content is frequently self-serving and contradictory.”
- “Indeed, the media’s noisy potpourri of facts and opinions is often an obstacle to dialogue, since it lets everyone cling stubbornly to his or her own ideas, interests and choices, with the excuse that everyone else is wrong. It becomes easier to discredit and insult opponents from the outset than to open a respectful dialogue aimed at achieving agreement on a deeper level. Worse, this kind of language, usually drawn from media coverage of political campaigns, has become so widespread as to be part of daily conversation.”
- Pope Francis warns that yelling does not help, whether in person or online. “Authentic social dialogue involves the ability to respect the other’s point of view and to admit that it may include legitimate convictions and concerns.”
- “Christ’s words do not encourage us to seek conflict, but simply to endure it when it inevitably comes, lest deference to others, for the sake of supposed peace in our families or society, should detract from our own fidelity.”
- Pope Francis says we forget this “important thing: not to fuel anger, which is unhealthy for our own soul and the soul of our people, or to become obsessed with taking revenge and destroying the other. No one achieves inner peace or returns to a normal life in that way. The truth is that no family, no group of neighbors, no ethnic group, much less a nation, has a future if the force that unites them, brings them together and resolves their differences is vengeance and hatred. We cannot come to terms and unite for the sake of revenge or treating others with the same violence with which they treated us or plotting opportunities for retaliation under apparently legal auspices. Nothing is gained this way, and, in the end, everything is lost.”
Pope Francis then offers advice that we often forget, advice is particularly beneficial to those who are facing marital problems or are deciding whether callousness by a spouse has crossed the line into abuse.
- As Pope Francis counsels us, “Forgiving does not mean forgetting. Or better, in the face of a reality that can in no way be denied, relativized or concealed, forgiveness is still possible. In the face of an action that can never be tolerated, justified or excused, we can still forgive. In the face of something that cannot be forgotten for any reason, we can still forgive. Free and heartfelt forgiveness is something noble, a reflection of God’s own infinite ability to forgive. If forgiveness is gratuitous, then it can be shown even to someone who resists repentance and is unable to beg pardon.”
- “Those who truly forgive do not forget. Instead, they choose not to yield to the same destructive force that caused them so much suffering. They break the vicious circle; they halt the advance of the forces of destruction.”
DEATH PENALTY
- Pope Francis also emphasizes the church’s objection to the death penalty: “Saint John Paul II stated clearly and firmly that the death penalty is inadequate from a moral standpoint and no longer necessary from that of penal justice. There can be no stepping back from this position. Today we state clearly that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible’ and the Church is firmly committed to calling for its abolition worldwide.”
- “From the earliest centuries of the Church, some were clearly opposed to capital punishment. Lactantius, for example, held that ‘there ought to be no exception at all; that it is always unlawful to put a man to death.’ Pope Nicholas I urged that efforts be made ‘to free from the punishment of death not only each of the innocent, but all the guilty as well.’”
“During the trial of the murderers of two priests, Saint Augustine asked the judge not to take the life of the assassins with this argument: ‘We do not object to your depriving these wicked men of the freedom to commit further crimes. Our desire is rather that justice be satisfied without the taking of their lives or the maiming of their bodies in any part.’ ‘Do not let the atrocity of their sins feed a desire for vengeance, but desire instead to heal the wounds which those deeds have inflicted on their souls.’”
My views on the death penalty have shifted due to study and reflection. Currently there is a tension between the Christian tradition and neurology over the concept of free will, the theology of sin and forgiveness and redemption revolves around the assumption that we are, indeed, responsible for the consequences of our actions because we have the free will to control our actions. But we also know there are individuals who can be nasty and do bad things because they lack the ability to control their actions, and one clear example are those elderly who suffer from advanced dementia. After listening to the lectures by Robert Sapolsky, and he also has classroom lectures on YouTube that are free and are similar to his Wondrium lectures, my conclusion is that there is sufficient doubt as to whether those guilty of heinous crimes are neurologically deficient that I no longer feel the death penalty is ever justified, regardless of the victim’s need for retribution for terrible crimes.
- Pope Francis warns that untrammeled populists often seek to be dictators. “The root of modern totalitarianism is to be found in the denial of the transcendent dignity of the human person who, as the visible image of the invisible God, is therefore by his very nature the subject of rights that no one may violate – no individual, group, class, nation or state. Not even the majority of the social body may violate these rights, by going against the minority.”
- “It should be acknowledged that among the most important causes of the crises of the modern world are a desensitized human conscience, a distancing from religious values and the prevailing individualism accompanied by materialistic philosophies that deify the human person and introduce worldly and material values in place of supreme and transcendental principles.”
This is a middle stanza of a three-stanza prayer at the end of this encyclical:
Grant that we Christians may live the Gospel,
discovering Christ in each human being,
recognizing him crucified
in the sufferings of the abandoned
and forgotten of our world,
and risen in each brother or sister
who makes a new start.[7]
DISCUSSION OF THE SOURCES
Why do we tend to start our discussions of papal encyclicals past paragraph fifty? Because these encyclicals are like a benign employee review, where the boss feels the employee is overall benefiting the company but has some rough edges that need improvement. So the boss spends the first half of the interview complimenting the employee so he can unstop his ears so he will listen to the admonitions in the last half of the performance review.
This encyclical also has many references to Pope Benedict XVI encyclical Letter on Love, Caritas in Veritate, which is one of a series of encyclicals on love, hope, and faith. He also referenced Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum, and the reissued encyclicals that reference this groundbreaking encyclical that advance the social justice concerns, the preferential option for the poor, in the Catholic Church.
[1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke+10%3A25-28&version=NRSVCE
[2] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke+10%3A29-35&version=NRSVCE
[3] St Jerome, Ancient Christian Commentary, New Testament, Volume 3, Luke (Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 2003), Luke 10:29, p. 179.
[4] https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html#189
[5] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/04/viktor-orban-cpac-speech
[6] https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/09/pope-francis-trump-daca
[7] https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20201003_enciclica-fratelli-tutti.html
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