On 13 June 2025, the Centre for Catholic Social Thought and Practice is hosting a study day to explore Fratelli Tutti in the light of today’s world. Chair Anna Rowlands invites you to join us and explains how this encyclical can help us respond to the signs of the times.

When Pope Francis wrote Fratelli Tutti the world was in the grip of a pandemic. The hope of Pope Francis was that the experience of COVID-19 would wake the world up to the need to recognise that we are all brothers and sisters, sharing a common creaturely humanity set upon the earth, which is our common home.

Fratelli Tutti can be seen as the sister document to Laudato Si’, issued a few years earlier. When asked, the Pope explained that Laudato Si’ explored what it meant to recognise the earth as our common home and that Fratelli Tutti explored how we were to live together in that common home.

Five years on, the world of miscommunication, fake news, rising ‘closed’ populisms and radical inequality, indifference and fragmentation that Francis addressed remains our reality.

A new Pope has now been elected, who says that he wishes to make his own the tradition of Catholic social teaching, with a renewed emphasis on pursuing just peace.

The purpose of our gathering on 13 June in London, planned before the death of Francis and Leo’s election, is to explore the extent to which Fratelli Tutti can help us to understand our current realities. In this sense, we will use the day to discern our moment together, with Fratelli Tutti as our guide.

We expect, nonetheless, to transcend the pages of Fratelli Tutti and explore some of the additional realities we are facing, seeking to explore together how we can understand and respond to these in the light of the Gospel.

A further purpose for our day, in the aftermath of the pandemic years, is to enable those interested in Catholic Social Teaching from academic and practitioner backgrounds to meet and build what Pope Francis would have called ‘social friendships’.

There will be time for debate, discussion, eating together and a drink at the end of the day for anyone who wants to remain around afterwards. Find out more about the day and the speakers who will be joining us.

The study day will take place at London Jesuit Centre. It is free to attend, but registration is essential. Book your place here.