Anupama Ranawana, (pictured second left) a theologian based at Durham University, shares personal reflections from the CCSTP study day on Fratelli Tutti and reading the signs of the times.
‘Fratelli Tutti’, Pope Francis’ third encyclical, published five years ago, looked first and foremost to urge a collective, fraternal response to the planetary scale challenges the world was facing in 2020.
Francis envisioned an integral politics, one which was infused with encounter, aid, and mutual support. At the study day held on 13 June, a group of academics, activists and humanitarian workers gathered to consider how Fratelli Tutti might still speak to us today.
Global politics in turmoil
We gathered to consider this against a global political scenario that can only be described as one that is in turmoil. Just in that week there were two worrying global events; the Israeli state had made what it called a pre-emptive attack on Iran and Iran had retaliated.
Also, the increasingly authoritarian Trump government had sent military troops to manage a peaceful protest in California. We met also with a genocide ongoing in Gaza, Russia continuing its attack on Ukraine, and conflicts and repressions in Sudan, the DRC, Afghanistan and many more places, and the climate crisis ever worsening.
In the United Kingdom alone we have a government that seems increasingly antagonistic to those living below the poverty line, to disabled people, to the trans community, and to immigrants and asylum seekers. Therefore, the charge laid at the feet of all the speakers was a heavy one: Can we really build a politics of encounter and common good? How do we build responsibility and collective action?
Understanding and building power relationally
The opening session were speakers who were union leaders, politicians or those working in humanitarian aid. A key discussion point here was the importance of community organising, and centring, particularly in the intervention of the former MP Jon Cruddas, some of the tenets of Catholic Social Teaching in politics.
Dr Maria Exall, extending these points, also warned of the problems created by the increased marketisation of society. I was particularly struck by the importance of this point raised by Dr Exall as it complemented very well Patrick O’Dowd’s note that it is community organising that teaches us to understand and to build power relationally.
Power and the inequality of power configurations are indeed a fundamental obstacle to any work of encounter and these can be broken down, or at least nudged a little bit in the mobilising that occurs at the level of community and social movement.
In that sense, these points felt linked to Francis’ ‘Laudate Deum’. One of the points within ‘Laudate Deum’ is the importance of a reconfigured global politics that is not focused on keeping power to a select few, but one that thinks and acts more cooperatively.
A broader approach to workers’ rights
One conversation perhaps that was missed during this session was calling out some hard truths about the Labour government in the United Kingdom. One speaker discussed how they were working with the government to push forward an employment rights bill, but is worker rights only about the hours we work? Is it divorced from the other parts of our lives? Can a disabled worker live a full working life if, as the government is threatening to do, their disability supports are cut? Could a trans woman feel able to continue working if she feels over-scrutinised in the workplace as a result of the Supreme Court ruling? Another question that perhaps was not raised was whether trade unions should work with the government, or if, in the spirit of community organising, they should be speaking ‘truth to power’?
Encounter, one could argue, is a transformative experience, but also suggests the importance of the lived experience affecting how we ‘do’ politics and build the common good.
Maintaining hope, calling out and taking risks
The second session included interventions from academics, with significant attention being given here to encounter and accompaniment and what meaning is drawn from these concepts. I was particularly struck by two points. The first was raised by Rev Dr Richard Finn, of the importance of not letting our disappointment and worry at the global situation become disempowering. As someone who teaches younger people who feel tremendous anxiety at the world, this note felt prophetic.
A second point, raised by both Professor Mulligan and Professor Kirwan was to recognise that much of the politics we are facing is one of performative cruelty, where many of those in power look to humiliate those who are deliberately silenced or disenfranchised. They made the important argument that theologians have the responsibility to recognise this, name this and call it out.
They also agreed, in a very honest way, that authentic encounter is difficult in conditions of severe inequality. This extended very well to the final responsive session where Dr Amy Daughton provoked us to reflect on whether or not we were committed to the risks of truly taking on the politics of solidarity?
Call for change
All in all, it was a provocative and reflective day. I only wished that one speaker might have drawn from another of Francis’ documents, ‘Querida Amazonia’, which goes a long way to indicate that his writings were not only ‘gentle envisionings’ but robust calls for change. I end by quoting from this document, which provides and important consideration for a culture of encounter:
“We need to feel outrage,[10] as Moses did (cf. Ex 11:8), as Jesus did (cf. Mk 3:5), as God does in the face of injustice (cf. Am 2:4-8; 5:7-12; Ps 106:40). It is not good for us to become inured to evil; it is not good when our social consciousness is dulled before “an exploitation that is leaving destruction and even death throughout our region… jeopardizing the lives of millions of people and especially the habitat of peasants and indigenous peoples.”[11]”