Austen Ivereigh, the biographer of Pope Francis, has remarked that the Pontiff’s latest social encyclical concludes a triptych of teachings that, especially at these times of pandemic, the Pope desires to share not only with his flock but the world.
The central panel of the triptych, and of the cosmos itself, is Christ. In the 2013 Evangelii Gaudium addressed to the Church, Pope Francis had pushed for spiritual reform through addressing what should be the fundamental concern of the disciples of Christ: tending wounds… physical, social, psychological and spiritual, so the world tastes the “joy” that Christ brings to the world.
The Church cannot remain behind closed doors, where it risks becoming mummified or even corrupt. In imitation of Jesus, disciples go forth in “the field hospital after battle” that is the whole world.
The second and third panels, however, the 2015 Laudato Si’ and, five years later, Fratelli Tutti, are addressed to the whole world. Echoing his namesake, St Francis of Assisi, Pope Francis reminds that care for the world is care for the ecology of which all creatures form part, as well as mutual care among brothers and sisters.
In a new, ubiquitously connected world, where our experience contradicts the social convention of ‘national borders’, we are pervasively proximate. The question that the lawyer posed to Jesus, “Who is my neighbour?”, should seem foolish in our globalised context. Sadly, it is more urgent than ever.
How can we not extend hospitality to all brothers and sisters in need?
Jesus replies to the lawyer with the parable of the good Samaritan that Pope Francis chooses as the leitmotif for Fratelli Tutti. It is no longer enough to describe the proximus as ‘neighbour’. ‘Neighbourliness’ should be a responsibility that we exercise towards all through being attentive rather than indifferent and by tending to concrete wounds while providing support for continued well-being. More crucially, the Samaritan practises neighbourliness born out of compassion: from knowing full well that his personal story is also one of poverty, as ‘stranger’. He is ‘good’ because he witnesses gratitude for goodness received that he shares gratuitously.
Likewise, Fratelli Tutti speaks eloquently of caritas, the virtue of love, that St Thomas Aquinas argues has two primary expressions: friendship as mutual love and mercy as the concrete actions, born out of compassion, that assist the neighbour to rise from the pit of suffering so they too can flourish.
Our human lives, when well-lived, are an interplay of these two loves: we desire to be friends but, often, we must be merciful first by supporting one another in our hours of need. The merciful neighbour kneels down to help the wounded proximus rise. Fratelli Tutti teaches the same kindness but for the political sphere. “Love your neighbour… as yourself”, when taken to the international realm, is none other than fraternity: “Love other peoples… as your own.”
Fraternity is more evocative than ‘solidarity’ because it stresses biological bonds. Unlike our friends, we do not choose our brothers and sisters but we have an obligation to protect them, to care for them, to tend their wounds because they are our blood. Likewise, we are one global community of peoples because we are children of the same earth.
Many of us are also displaced, robbed, even trafficked and left for dead. Will we be a people like the good Samaritan who, in recognising our vulnerability, tend to the wounds of all brothers and sisters? Or will we unleash populist rage, even disgust, because our brothers and sisters’ shed blood disturbs us by glaringly calling for our mercy?
Populism that shames brothers and sisters left for dead – including in our waters – is the fruit of intense ‘self’-hatred. A true spirit of being a unique ‘people’ begins with self-love: the respect and recognition of our unique history, unique struggles, unique gifts that ‘we’ – as uniquely Maltese – bring to the world.
It is from that rootedness in a shared graced identity that we can find the strength to welcome, to tend, to restore and, eventually, to befriend wounded strangers in our unique way. After all, we are a people remembered for having shown “unusual kindness” (Acts 28:2); how can we not extend hospitality to all brothers and sisters in need?
Nadia Delicata, Episcopal delegate for evangelisation of the Malta Archdiocese