On October 3, the Holy Father released the third encyclical of his papacy Fratelli Tutti. The encyclical is a remarkable document covering a wide range of topics turning around Pope Francis’ call to a renewed commitment to fraternity. In the encyclical, Francis critiques several modern and contemporary tendencies towards individualism, technocracy, and exclusion marauding as populism or as service to the common good. While the focus of the encyclical is on fraternity amongst human beings, there is significant overlap between the themes of Fratelli and Francis’ ecologically-minded encyclical Laudato Si’. In what follows, I want to spotlight some of the ecological themes of Fratelli and draw attention to the way these themes facilitate the ecological conversion the Holy Father has persuasively spoken of as necessary for the flourishing of our common home.
The three themes of Fratelli I would like to focus on are the themes of developing a historical consciousness, the new culture of openness, and the grounding of these orientations in transcendental truths. On the surface, these three themes may not appear to be particularly ecological. However, a closer look reveals an orientation that very much facilitates ecological conversion. First, historical awareness not only involves an understanding of religious and theological tradition, but an understanding of the origin of our humanity and this requires attentiveness to both spiritual and material origins. These origins draw our attention to our cultural and natural environments as our common home. Second, the new culture of openness not only prepares us for engaging in the crucial task of intracultural and cross-cultural dialogues, but it also attunes us to hear the voices of the rest of creation. Finally, the transcendental grounding of these attitudes not only provides an ultimate justification for these attitudes, it also affirms these attitudes as an essential aspect of our nature as cocreators and reinforces the definition of the human being as a servant species to all of creation.
In the first chapter of the encyclical, Francis laments “a growing loss of the sense of history” and a dangerous “deconstructionism” that conceives human freedom as starting from scratch (13). The problem with this approach is that it prevents true self-knowledge. As Francis says, “I cannot know myself apart from a broader network of relationships” (89). These relationships are historical. They include a knowledge of cultural traditions, but they also require a knowledge of species origins. When properly understood these origins and relations support a vision of the human species “as a single family dwelling in a common home” (17). This recognition therefore calls us to fraternity and to recognize the need for developing a human ecology, but it also draws attention to our spiritual origins. It reminds us of the words of Saint Thomas Aquinas, who asserted that “God is in all things, and innermostly” [1]. As the ground of all Being, God is the sustaining force of all that is. The recognition of this foundation inspires us to express our affiliation with all creatures, and thus to situate human ecology within the broader global ecology.
This renewed historical consciousness raises the possibility of the new culture of openness. In Chapter Four, Francis speaks of a need to “constantly…broaden our horizons and see the greater good which will benefit us all,” but he reminds that this is “done without evasion or uprooting” and instead involves “sinki[ing] our roots deeper into the fertile soil and history of our native place, which is a gift of God” (145). This gift reminds us of the nature of God, which is love, and opens us up to our neighbor; it makes us vulnerable, but strong [2]. This vulnerability grounds our capacity for friendship and relationship and makes us open to losses and gains on behalf of the other, necessary features of openness and love. Here we see that “society is more than an aggregate of individuals” (157). It is instead “a people” with “a deeper meaning that cannot be set forth in purely logical terms” because it is “open-ended,” “living and dynamic…constantly open to a new synthesis through its ability to welcome differences” (158-60). In this way, Francis also reminds us of the need for human ecology, one that is open and connected yet again to the broader global ecology.
Finally, Francis reminds us that these values “rise above consensus” and “transcend our concrete situations and remain non-negotiable” (211). They are found in our “human nature” and placed there by God “who gives solid foundation” to these principles (214). This is a transcendental foundation that grounds the ethical imperatives of the fraternity that facilitates human and global ecology, and therefore binds the moral law in our hearts. Without this transcendental foundation, our moral imperatives could only amount to contingent discoveries or inventions and fail to secure the fraternity that makes our individual and collective flourishing possible in the first place. In this way, Francis locates the capacity for fraternity in our nature and ties our ethical potential to the rational demands of self-realization, thereby securing the imperatives of human ecology in a way a secular approach cannot.
In these ways, Fratelli Tutti is not only a call to steward human ecology at a time when the shibboleths of populism and humanism threaten to undermine the well-being of local and national communities. It is also a reminder that the human heart is flowing with the root waters of all creation and that the well-being of all of creatures and ecologies depends on the human capacity for love and faith. May we find it in our heart to hope again.
References
[1] Summa Theologiae I.8.2
[2] 2 Corinthians 2:10
Walter Scott Stepanenko is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio. His current research focuses on issues that emerge at the intersection of science and theology in philosophy of religion. He is presently preparing manuscripts on an environmental Christian approach to evolution and original sin and on accounts of animals and the environment in theodicy. He received his PhD from the University of Cincinnati where he completed a dissertation on the limits of moral demandingness with attention to the demandingness of the obligations of individual human actors with respect to climate change. He is a former Research Associate at the Center for Religious Understanding at the University of Toledo (Ohio).
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