Pope signs "Fratelli Tutti"

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ioannes_pius said:
I hope it contains another critique of capitalism/usury and the technocratic paradigm.
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Yes, there are excellent sections on how unbridled capitalism and the faceless “market” engender materialism and a throwaway culture.
 
pnewton said:
Expect a little inertia
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Inertia indeed. I’m expecting outright resistance from some of us, though, as there has been with similar teachings from Pope Francis. I see our Holy Father pointing us in a direction where some of us would rather not go.
 
Tolle_Lege said:
I’m sure if someone combed through all of his previous statements about human fraternity over the years, they can find just about everything in this document.
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Maybe summing it up in an encyclical letter will give it more gravitas. When the Pope mentions these things in other formats, people tend to pick and choose and reinterpret them according to their preference.
 
Hm, looks like the usual thread when the Pope does something:
  1. The Pope does something
  2. Here’s a bunch of laypeople’s opinions (some of them TL; DR) on how it wasn’t done right/ could have been done better
 
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Bithynian said:
In all honesty, Fratelli Tutti was overshadowed - for me, at least - by the unexpected publication last week of the delightful apostolic letter from Pope Francis, Scripturae Saecrae Affectus , for the 1600th anniversary of St Jerome.
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Thanks for posting that. I totally missed both the apostolic letter and the fact that it was St. Jerome’s 1600th anniversary. I feel bad now that I unfortunately missed getting to Mass on that day, but I will certainly read the letter.
 
Tolle_Lege said:
Regarding prisoners, Francis sees their plight through the lens of Marxism; that is, due to class warfare within societies, many people are severely oppressed by an upper class. They are not given a fair chance to succeed, and thus, are left with no other option than crime and violence to survive in that society. Therefore, according to Francis, the very society that drove these people to commit crimes in the first place has no right to keep them in prison for life, or to execute them. Francis sees impoverished people, migrants, etc. as kinds of untouchable groups who are not beholden to the Commandments like people from wealthier areas.
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While Marxism may for some of the articulation of this message, I think it has a different source. Francis was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires; his cathedral faces the plaza where the Mothers of the Plaza formed to protest the cruelty of the government. Every Thursday, the mothers of those who had been “disappeared” by the government marched in front of his cathedral. I am not sure if they still do, but they did throughout the time he was archbishop, even after they won concessions and a truth commission from the government.

I am not saying these are the ones who taught Francis about corrupt government. He had encountered it earlier as a Jesuit provincial who has to protect his Jesuits from an anti-marxist government. He may have known it as a child. I do not know. I just think he had plenty of opportunities to see injustice and to know it viscerally. He did not have to learn it from Marxist, the government made very clear its character.
 
Re-reading it again, I find it to have many timely critiques–especially on those social themes where Francis is at his best. Even with the death penalty stuff, I actually see it as a softening of the reasoning for its abolition to a more traditional, prudential argument, rather than the ambiguous catechism paragraph that seems more like a rejection in principle. The emphasis on the need for punishment as justice, and not just defense, was also refreshing.

My biggest disappointment (other than it being way too long, but that was expected) is it neglects to talk of where man’s true unity and reconciliation is found (my emphasis).
CCC 845 To reunite all his children, scattered and led astray by sin, the Father willed to call the whole of humanity together into his Son’s Church. The Church is the place where humanity must rediscover its unity and salvation. The Church is “the world reconciled.” She is that bark which “in the full sail of the Lord’s cross, by the breath of the Holy Spirit, navigates safely in this world.” According to another image dear to the Church Fathers, she is prefigured by Noah’s ark, which alone saves from the flood.334
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Yes, I understand his scope was more limited. But since this is the number one priority for the Pope and any Christian–and without our supernatural mission we are just an NGO as the Pope himself has said–it should have been emphasized at some point. Oh well.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
Hm, looks like the usual thread when the Pope does something:
  1. The Pope does something
  2. Here’s a bunch of laypeople’s opinions (some of them TL; DR) on how it wasn’t done right/ could have been done better
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To be fair, Pope Francis explicitly offered this piece as a contribution for dialogue, and a dialogue naturally invites the expression of contrary opinions and further discussion (within the bounds of orthodoxy of course!). He clearly wants that, otherwise he would have said or even implied otherwise, like so many of his predecessors have (and, while there are no addressees at the top of the encyclical–a new custom he began with Laudato Si–this is clearly extended to all people, regardless of rank.)

Also, I say this as a naturally wordy person, but when the first contribution is a super-TLDR 42,000 word book, regular-old TLDR responses are not too unreasonable lol.
 
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I guess it’s reasonable for people to be interested in what the Pope does and want to discuss. It’s a good thing to some degree because it shows they’re engaged with the Church.

However, when the Pope requests “Dialogue” I’m never sure if that means you and me. It’s not like he really seeks out popular feedback. Half the time I’m not even sure why he’s choosing to write on a particular issue, especially when, as the first poster points out, much of his writing seems to be addressed to governments and industries and those in power, and also seems to repeat a lot of stuff we already knew.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
much of his writing seems to be addressed to governments and industries and those in power
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By definition, an encyclical is a letter circulated amongst the bishops of the world. So if he is addressing the bishops empowered to make global changes, then it makes sense, but a lot less sense if he’s addressing Angela Merkel and Elon Musk.
 
Tolle_Lege said:
“The best way to dominate and gain control over people is to spread despair and discouragement.” Obviously the overreaching government actions in the name of Covid do not even register as a form of dominance or control to him.
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I dunno about this. I started an entire thread trying to say otherwise… This includes comments by Pope Francis emphasizing the limits science in regards to Covid, saying gossip is a more awful plague than Covid, and signing a letter with Cardinal Sarah saying that it is necessary and urgent to return to mass and only ecclesiastical authorities should judge liturgical norms rather than civil authorities.
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Breitbart...Pope Francis: Pandemic Has Taught ‘the Greatness of Science, but also Its Limits’ Catholic Living
Thank you! Enjoyed Pope Francis’ view of science as it relates Covid-19… What will it take to get a rational reaction to Covid? Yes, it is a threat, but the reaction by some in the United States has not made sense nor has it been rational. Thoughts?! Debate? Please…?
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How about citing exact quotes and discusding them rather then
Tolle_Lege said:
one hand lamenting the fact that everyone in the world seems to hate each other
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Tolle_Lege said:
he doubles down on the “inadmissibility” of the death penalty; and extremely heavy-handed calls for “globalization,” “an open world,” and recurring mentions of Covid as some kind of unprecedented human tragedy.
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Genesis315 said:
My biggest disappointment (other than it being way too long, but that was expected) is it neglects to talk of where man’s true unity and reconciliation is found (my emphasis).
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On this, the context matters. This encyclical, in the spirit of St. Francis, was about find the common moral ground between two divergent religions. There are many areas in which faithful Catholics have more common ground with faithful Muslims that we do with Catholics who, due relativism and humanism being a greater influence than the Holy Spirit, dissent on the traditional moral teaching of the Church.
 
umamibella said:
How about citing exact quotes and discusding them rather then
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He starts the part about the death penalty in section 263. He gives the historical comment for his teaching. Here is a sample, to give an overview.

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.

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”.

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.

All Christians and people of good will are today called to work not only for the abolition of the death penalty, legal or illegal, in all its forms,
 
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Possibly the Pope sees, as many of us do now, that today our focus must be on what separates believers and nonbelievers, those of us with differing faiths but with whom we can still find common ground, and those who find religion completely irrelevant.
 
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