Fratelli Tutti opens with a call to a world “without borders” (no. 3). As I write this, countries have been forced to restrict movement between themselves to contain the spread of COVID-19. Nevertheless, this call speaks to a profound vision of a future beyond the immediate demands of the current pandemic: Francis exhorts us to build a world where “social friendship” (no. 2) overcomes our fear and distrust of what is “unknown, unfamiliar”, and other (no. 27); a world where divisions are healed and walls are torn down.
Yet even in this call, the encyclical presents us with its own unknowns and unfamiliarities: It is a long document that draws from a wide range of sources and influences. It is situated within the thematically rich and complex wider body of Francis’ teachings. And it brings with it a number of key challenges which push us out of our familiar ways of being in the world.
Francis warns us of our tendency to erect walls to protect us from the unknown, shutting off what lies outside of our sphere of familiarity and comfort; a process which he sees as lying at the heart of our tendency to forget the dignity of others, losing sight of their common humanity and reducing them a threatening, unhuman “them” (no. 27).
This image of ‘building walls’ might well also apply to our reading practices, whereby we receive this challenging encyclical: the complexities of history and meaning which we find within the text risk being excluded by the limits of our own expectations, experience, expertise, and disciplines. More pressingly, the unsettling nature of the encyclical itself might lead us to shut it off, closing the gates of our understanding in order to maintain the security of our longstanding habits and established comforts, just as we might close the gates in the “ancient town walls” to seal ourselves away from the wilderness beyond them (no. 27). If so, then we might say that the inner walls of our hearts are themselves protected by the outer walls of our minds.
Responding to Francis’ call to social friendship, and the love of “universal scope” (no. 6) which underpins it, means pulling down these outer walls from within. But we do not have to do this alone: others, with their own insights and experiences, can help us from without. In Evangelii Gaudium, Francis exhorts us to “engage other persons and groups” (no. 223) as we initiate the processes that bring us towards the “bright horizon” of our future fulfilment (no. 222), and to reconcile the tensions that come with our differences in a “a diversified and life-giving unity” (no. 228). Fratelli Tutti itself similarly calls us to establish “common horizons” with others (no. 26); a process which necessarily involves an outward movement to encompass those others within them, rather than remaining enclosed by walls that not only exclude others, but entrap us within a vista so constrained as to be devoid of any horizons at all (no. 27), like an infinitely small point with no edge.
In this spirit, the Centre for Catholic Social Thought and Practice is running a three-part project that brings people together to explore Fratelli Tutti.
First, we will be commissioning and publishing a series of blog articles exploring the various facets of the encyclical – to which this is the introduction.
Second, in January 2021, we will be hosting an online panel event in which a range of experts will meet to discuss their different angles on the text, rooted in their own research and practice.
Third, this will then form the basis for a set of resources that will help a wide range of people to read Fratelli Tutti fruitfully in the context of their life and work, which will be produced in spring, 2021.
Francis understands the process of horizon-expanding as being intimately bound up in the exercise of hope. He writes, “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”.
In this vein, I hope that this project itself can expand its own horizons, reaching out to encompass people beyond the small circle of the Centre. I hope that you will accompany us in this undertaking, reading the blog series here on our website, engaging with the resources, and following us on Twitter for updates and more.
Nicolete Burbach is a consultant research associate in the Centre for Catholic Social Thought and Practice, and curator of this blog series
Learn more about our Fratelli Tutti project
If you are an academic or practitioner within a Catholic organisation, and would like to contribute to the blog series, please contact Dr Nicolete Burbach at n.g.burbach@durham.ac.uk for further information.
To learn more about the CCSTP, check out the rest of our website, including our previous COVID-19 Blog Project.