Our great creative project: Pope Francis helps us turn the page to a post-2020 world
“...“everyone has a fundamental role to play in a single great creative project: to write a new page of history, a page full of hope, peace and reconciliation”. There is an “architecture” of peace, to which different institutions of society contribute, each according to its own area of expertise, but there is also an “art” of peace that involves us all. ”
In October, Pope Francis published his third encyclical, Fratelli Tutti (Brothers and Sisters All). For those not versed in papal encyclicals, they're significant communications from the Pope on particular aspects of Catholic doctrine, though they may speak to a broader audience than just Catholics. This Pope’s previous encyclical, Laudato si’, is a widely-read, profound, and pioneering statement on the ravages of climate change and our need to act, which has inspired numerous new initiatives and collaborations.
But an encyclical about brotherhood honestly sounded a little mundane to me. I sat back and started skimming, expecting a prophetic but predictable exhortation to love and neighborliness. By the end, I was quite literally at the edge of my seat, reading and re-reading portions. This wasn't prophetic, it was something better: real, relevant and actionable.
In Fratelli Tutti, the Pope offers a problem analysis of concerning trends in our world and directions for change. He doesn't pull any punches laying out our problem as humanity in this moment. The first chapter of his encyclical is entitled "Dark Clouds Over a Closed World," with subsequent section headings such as "Shattered dreams," "The end of historical consciousness," "A 'throwaway' world," "The illusion of communication," "Shameless aggression," and "Forms of subjection and self-contempt," among others. Yikes.
Despite being one of the world's biggest celebrities who lives anything but a normal life, the Pope somehow manages to paint a vivid and relevant image of the state of our current reality. He navigates fluidly between big picture political tides - nationalism, populism, liberalism, global economic exploitation, cultural colonization, inequality - and quotidian human experiences in today's world - isolation, cynicism, fear, distraction, the spectacle and addiction of digital communication, verbal violence on the internet, cancel culture.
“For all our hyper-connectivity, we witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all. ”
“Today we can recognize that “we fed ourselves on dreams of splendour and grandeur, and ended up consuming distraction, insularity and solitude. We gorged ourselves on networking, and lost the taste of fraternity. We looked for quick and safe results, only to find ourselves overwhelmed by impatience and anxiety. Prisoners of a virtual reality, we lost the taste and flavour of the truly real”. The pain, uncertainty and fear, and the realization of our own limitations, brought on by the pandemic have only made it all the more urgent that we rethink our styles of life, our relationships, the organization of our societies and, above all, the meaning of our existence. ”
He then offers detailed pictures of what pursuit of the common good, of the art and architecture of peace, looks like. In so doing, Francis gives us just the roadmap we need for building a post-2020 world. It will take work, both as individuals and as a society, but 2020 has laid us all bare and given us a chance to reimagine and recreate the world we want to live in. We should seize the opportunity.
The Art of Peace
“Each one of us is called to be an artisan of peace, by uniting and not dividing, by extinguishing hatred and not holding on to it, by opening paths of dialogue and not by constructing new walls”. ”
Individually, we are all artists of a better world. But we need the right tools.
Openness
The first step to changing course is almost always a change of mindset. Francis implores us to open ourselves to each other and to the world. Such openness is the path of our freedom, imagination, and creativity. In a pandemic-laden, politically polarized world, it has become instinctual and even reasonable to close ourselves up. We are literally stuck in our homes, and we're exhausted from arguing with each other or just trying to make ourselves heard. Building walls to shut it all out feels like a coping mechanism. But like the physical walls we may try to build at our borders or the cultural walls we build to exclude groups of people, all it does is shrink our world and limit our potential. As reasonable as it seems, we must resist the temptation to close ourselves in. Our individual and common good depend on it.
“…those who raise walls will end up as slaves within the very walls they have built. They are left without horizons, for they lack this interchange with others”.”
“…an individual and a people are only fruitful and productive if they are able to develop a creative openness to others.”
Encounter
Openness enables what Pope Francis identifies as the key to everything else: encounter. This is the source of our wisdom and fulfillment. When we close up and eschew encounter, we lose perspective and lose ourselves. And encounter is not simply interaction. We have a lot of interaction these days, very little encounter. To encounter is to engage with others, with information, with the world authentically and openly, to listen and to hear, to be curious, to give of ourselves to each other. The word has a connotation of unexpectedness. I'm struck by how many interactions I enter with set ideas and assumptions, and how rarely with space for the unexpected.
“Life, for all its confrontations, is the art of encounter.”
“True wisdom demands an encounter with reality”
“Human beings are so made that they cannot live, develop and find fulfilment except “in the sincere gift of self to others”. Nor can they fully know themselves apart from an encounter with other persons.”
Wisdom and creativity
Through encounter, we tap into the holy within us. We access divine wisdom and creativity, which when cultivated and unleashed, lead us to imagine and create for the good of all. The Pope warns us that information is not the same as wisdom, that wisdom comes from listening and reflection, not internet searches; and that creativity can only be released where human rights are respected. Though he doesn’t frame it this way, I’m struck that together wisdom and creativity form a sacred pair. Without wisdom, creativity can find outlets that serve only some or lead to destructive ends. Without creativity, wisdom leaves us helpless before a vision we cannot realize. But together they guide us to take action for a better world.
“The flood of information at our fingertips does not make for greater wisdom. Wisdom is not born of quick searches on the internet nor is it a mass of unverified data. That is not the way to mature in the encounter with truth. Conversations revolve only around the latest data; they become merely horizontal and cumulative. We fail to keep our attention focused, to penetrate to the heart of matters, and to recognize what is essential to give meaning to our lives.”
“When the dignity of the human person is respected, and his or her rights recognized and guaranteed, creativity and interdependence thrive, and the creativity of the human personality is released through actions that further the common good.
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Participation, inclusion, collaboration
The common good requires us all. We must bring our best selves to the work, but we cannot do it alone. The world is messy, people are messy, but only by participating, including all, and collaborating with each other can we make progress. We may fear each other, fail each other, make each other uncomfortable, disagree, argue, but it is the only way. Otherwise, we fragment into warring or marginalized factions, each with our own version of reality, unable to see God in the other.
“May we not be content with being enclosed in one fragment of reality. ”
“Let us seek out others and embrace the world as it is, without fear of pain or a sense of inadequacy, because there we will discover all the goodness that God has planted in human hearts.”
“Unless we recover the shared passion to create a community of belonging and solidarity worthy of our time, our energy and our resources, the global illusion that misled us will collapse and leave many in the grip of anguish and emptiness.”
Hope
Hope is our fuel. Period.
“Hope is bold; it can look beyond personal convenience, the petty securities and compensations which limit our horizon, and it can open us up to grand ideals that make life more beautiful and worthwhile”. Let us continue, then, to advance along the paths of hope.”
The Architecture of Peace
“Social love is 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”.”
“For when the good of others is at stake, good intentions are not enough. Concrete efforts must be made to bring about whatever they and their nations need for the sake of their development.”
“There is a kind of love that is “elicited”: its acts proceed directly from the virtue of charity and are directed to individuals and peoples. There is also a “commanded” love, expressed in those acts of charity that spur people to create more sound institutions, more just regulations, more supportive structures. It follows that “it is an equally indispensable act of love to strive to organize and structure society so that one’s neighbour will not find himself in poverty”. It is an act of charity to assist someone suffering, but it is also an act of charity, even if we do not know that person, to work to change the social conditions that caused his or her suffering. ”
While change requires us to start with ourselves, the outlet of our creativity must be the design and development of systems that serve all.
Healthy politics
Pope Francis devotes an entire chapter of his encyclical to politics, insisting that it should be appreciated as "one of the highest forms of charity" when devoted to the common good. To be honest, I'm having a hard time with that categorization right now, when our politics seems anything but charitable. But then our politics also isn’t healthy. So what does a healthy politics look like? It is diverse, unbureaucratic, collaborative. It works in concert with the economy but maintains its power distinct from the economy. It bolsters human creativity. Its focus, its raison d’être, is the common good. It transcends our tendencies toward short-term solutions to coordinate structural reform.
“Instead, “what is needed is a politics which is far-sighted and capable of a new, integral and interdisciplinary approach to handling the different aspects of the crisis”. In other words, a “healthy politics… capable of reforming and coordinating institutions, promoting best practices and overcoming undue pressure and bureaucratic inertia”. We cannot expect economics to do this, nor can we allow economics to take over the real power of the state. ”
“Global society is suffering from grave structural deficiencies that cannot be resolved by piecemeal solutions or quick fixes. Much needs to change, through fundamental reform and major renewal. Only a healthy politics, involving the most diverse sectors and skills, is capable of overseeing this process. An economy that is an integral part of a political, social, cultural and popular programme directed to the common good could pave the way for “different possibilities which do not involve stifling human creativity and its ideals of progress, but rather directing that energy along new channels”.”
Strong and coordinated civil society and social movements
Politics, however, is not sufficient. People, communities and movements on the ground tend to all that the state fails to do. Civil society is the moral energy at our social core that feeds the grand project of nurturing the common good. It fosters participation, solidarity, and action. Most importantly, it includes those who otherwise have been or would be excluded from this project. Francis warns against altruism that restricts rather than liberates the agency of another person. He encourages more connecting between movements to creatively interwine toward the building of a common destiny.
“How sad it is when we find, behind allegedly altruistic works, the other being reduced to passivity. What are needed are new pathways of self-expression and participation in society.”
“Providentially, many groups and organizations within civil society help to compensate for the shortcomings of the international community, its lack of coordination in complex situations, its lack of attention to fundamental human rights and to the critical needs of certain groups. Here we can see a concrete application of the principle of subsidiarity, which justifies the participation and activity of communities and organizations on lower levels as a means of integrating and complementing the activity of the state. These groups and organizations often carry out commendable efforts in the service of the common good and their members at times show true heroism, revealing something of the grandeur of which our humanity is still capable. ”
“What is needed is a model of social, political and economic participation “that can include popular movements and invigorate local, national and international governing structures with that torrent of moral energy that springs from including the excluded in the building of a common destiny”, while also ensuring that “these experiences of solidarity which grow up from below, from the subsoil of the planet – can come together, be more coordinated, keep on meeting one another”. This, however, must happen in a way that will not betray their distinctive way of acting as “sowers of change, promoters of a process involving millions of actions, great and small, creatively intertwined like words in a poem”.”
Thriving pluralism
Pope Francis puts significant emphasis on our diversity and the value in that diversity. Unleashing that value is essential to our social architecture. Because our differences allow us to bring different energies. Because creativity lies in the tension among differences. Because diverse ways of seeing problems give us hope of new solutions. He calls us to work together across our differences toward change for the good of all, and particularly to include the voices of those at the margins who can help us see new paths forward.
““differences are creative; they create tension and in the resolution of tension lies humanity’s progress”.
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“The image of a polyhedron can represent a society where differences coexist, complementing, enriching and reciprocally illuminating one another, even amid disagreements and reservations. Each of us can learn something from others. No one is useless and no one is expendable. This also means finding ways to include those on the peripheries of life. For they have another way of looking at things; they see aspects of reality that are invisible to the centres of power where weighty decisions are made.”
“The path to peace does not mean making society blandly uniform, but getting people to work together, side-by-side, in pursuing goals that benefit everyone. ... The problems that a society is experiencing need to be clearly identified, so that the existence of different ways of understanding and resolving them can be appreciated. The path to social unity always entails acknowledging the possibility that others have, at least in part, a legitimate point of view, something worthwhile to contribute, even if they were in error or acted badly. “We should never confine others to what they may have said or done, but value them for the promise that they embody”, a promise that always brings with it a spark of new hope. ”
Active faith communities
Religious communities matter because they are carriers of spiritual wisdom, energy, and convictions about the sacredness of humanity and the values of human dignity and the common good. Though they clearly have not always stewarded these assets to good ends, Pope Francis reminds us of the potential and insists that they must assume a role in the betterment of society.
“From our faith experience and from the wisdom accumulated over centuries, but also from lessons learned from our many weaknesses and failures, we, the believers of the different religions, know that our witness to God benefits our societies. ”
““...[the Church] cannot and must not remain on the sidelines” in the building of a better world, or fail to “reawaken the spiritual energy” that can contribute to the betterment of society.”
“Religious convictions about the sacred meaning of human life permit us “to recognize the fundamental values of our common humanity, values in the name of which we can and must cooperate, build and dialogue, pardon and grow; this will allow different voices to unite in creating a melody of sublime nobility and beauty, instead of fanatical cries of hatred”.”
“It is wrong when the only voices to be heard in public debate are those of the powerful and “experts”. Room needs to be made for reflections born of religious traditions that are the repository of centuries of experience and wisdom. For “religious classics can prove meaningful in every age; they have an enduring power [to open new horizons, to stimulate thought, to expand the mind and the heart]”. Yet often they are viewed with disdain as a result of “the myopia of a certain rationalism”.”
Let us acknowledge all of the ways in which 2020 has broken us because those are the pieces from which we build anew. And in 2021, let us be artists and architects. Let us open up and embrace encounter, tap our sacred wisdom and creativity, cherish our diversity even when it’s hard, and collaborate across our differences to shape a new world with systems that work for all. What a beautiful, adventurous, creative project to embark on together.
““Here we have a splendid secret that shows us how to dream and to turn our life into a wonderful adventure. ... Let us dream, then, as a single human family, as fellow travelers sharing the same flesh, as children of the same earth which is our common home, each of us bringing the richness of his or her beliefs and convictions, each of us with his or her own voice, brothers and sisters all.”
Read the full Fratelli Tutti encyclical by Pope Francis here on the Vatican website. It is well worth your time.
Author: Danielle Goldstone
Photo by Nacho Arteaga on Unsplash