BY CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
CANBERRA, Australia (CNS) - Pope Francis' new social encycli- cal offers a vision for the world of dignity for every person around the world and promotes a call to build a new culture of fraternity and dialogue," said the president of the Australian Catholic Bish- ops' Conference. The document, "Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friend- ship," which the pope signed Oct. 3, "is not just for believers but for the entire human family," Arch- bishop Mark Coleridge of Bris- bane said in a statement released as the encyclical became public. Explaining that in his 2015 en- cyclical, "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home," the pope spoke of caring for creation, the new teaching document "speaks of care for each other, the family that dwells together in the com- mon home," the archbishop said. The archbishop's views on the encyclical were echoed around the world as reaction to it fo- cused on how humanity must value the lives of each human being in order to achieve peace and allow for the development of communities that are often left on the margins of society. Bishop Georg Batzing of Lim- burg, Germany, president of the German bishops' conference, described the encyclical as a wake-up call" and an "urgent appeal for global solidarity and international cooperation," the German Catholic news agency KNA reported. He also said the encyclical was about the vital need to uphold human dignity. The pope, Bishop Batzing explained, was opposing national isolation and calling for an "ethical code in international relations." Elsewhere, Christine Allen, di- rector of CAFOD, the internation- al humanitarian aid agency of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, said, "Pope Francis is unflinching in his mes- sage" that focuses on solidarity with poor people globally. Politics is failing the poor," Allen said in a statement, "and it is shameful that some political decisions that are made affect the poorest, plunging them fur- ther into poverty, suffering and despair. Politics should be about long-term change and effective solutions, not slogans and mar- keting." Archbishop Coleridge agreed with the pope, saying that the conflicts that plague humanity are a road to nowhere." The archbishop added that the pope "offers a grand yet simple vision of human interconnected- ness." We're all connected to each other in ways we scarcely imagine. Our task now is to work out what this means in practice as we look beyond the pandemic," he said. In Germany, the bishops, church groups and charities gave the encyclical a predominantly positive assessment. Bishop Batzing said the docu- ment indicates that the pope has not lost hope despite his "at times harshly formulated analy- sis of the world."
Catholics globally credit pope for encyclical's call
All human beings have inherent dignity,
pope says
2 AROUND THE WORLD
THE CATHOLIC FREE PRESS OCTOBER 9, 2020 BY CINDY WOODEN
CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Professing faith in God as the creator of all human be- ings, or even simply recog- nizing that all people pos- sess an inherent dignity, has concrete consequences for how people should treat one another and make deci- sions in politics, economics and social life, Pope Francis wrote. Human beings have the same inviolable dignity in every age of history and no one can consider himself or herself authorized by par- ticular situations to deny this conviction or to act against it," the pope wrote in his encyclical, "Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and So- cial Friendship." Pope Francis signed the encyclical Oct. 3 after cel- ebrating Mass at the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi, and the Vatican released the more than 40,000-word text the next day. The pope had been ru- mored to be writing an encyclical on nonviolence; and, once the COVID-19 pandemic struck, many ex- pected a document explor- ing in depth his repeated pleas for the world to rec- ognize the inequalities and injustices laid bare by the pandemic and adopt cor- rective economic, political and social policies. Fratelli Tutti" combines those two elements but does so in the framework set by the document on hu- man fraternity and interre- ligious dialogue that he and Sheikh Ahmad el-Tayeb, grand imam of al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, Egypt, signed in 2019. In fact, in the new docu- ment Pope Francis wrote that he was "encouraged" by his dialogue with the Muslim leader and by their joint statement that "God has created all human be- ings equal in rights, duties and dignity, and has called them to live together as brothers and sisters." The encyclical takes its title from St. Francis of Assisi and is inspired by his "fraternal openness," which, the pope said, calls on people "to acknowl- edge, appreciate and love each person, regardless of physical proximity, regard- less of where he or she was born or lives." The title, which literally means "all brothers and sisters" or "all brothers," are the words with which St. Francis "addressed his brothers and sisters and proposed to them a way of life marked by the flavor of the Gospel," the pope wrote. That flavor, explained throughout the document, involves welcoming the stranger, feeding the hun- gry, listening to and giv- ing a hand up to the poor, defending the rights of all and ensuring that each person, at every stage of life, is valued and invited to contribute to the com- munity, he said. It also means supporting public policies that do so on a larger scale. Archbishop Jose H. Go- mez of Los Angeles, presi- dent of the U.S. Confer- ence of Catholic Bishops, welcomed the encyclical as an important contribution to the church's rich tradi- tion of social doctrine." Pope Francis' teach- ing here is profound and beautiful: God our father has created every human being with equal sanctity and dignity, equal rights and duties, and our creator calls us to form a single human family in which we live as brothers and sis- ters," the archbishop said in a statement. "God's plan for humanity, the pope re- minds us, has implications for every aspect of our lives - from how we treat one another in our person- al relationships, to how we organize and operate our societies and economies." Building on the social teachings of his predeces- sors, Pope Francis' docu- ment once again strongly condemns the death pen- alty and makes an initial approach to declaring that the conditions once used to accept a "just war" no longer exist because of the indiscriminately lethal power of modern weapons. St. John Paul II in "The Gospel of Life," published in 1995, cast doubt on whether any nation needed to resort to capital punish- ment today to protect its people; developing that teaching, Pope Francis in 2018 authorized a change to the Catechism of the Catholic Church to make clear that "the death pen- alty is inadmissible." Signaling the start of a similar effort to respond to the current reality of warfare, Pope Francis in the new encyclical raised the question of "whether the development of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and the enormous and growing possibilities offered by new technolo- gies, have granted war an uncontrollable destructive power over great numbers of innocent civilians." We can no longer think of war as a solution be- cause its risks will prob- ably always be greater than its supposed benefits," one of the main criteria of just- war theory, he said. "In view of this, it is very dif- ficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria elabo- rated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a 'just war.' Never again war!" At the heart of the new encyclical's appeal to Cath- olics is a meditation on Jesus' parable of the good Samaritan and particularly on how Jesus takes a legal scholar's question, "Who is my neighbor," and turns it into a lesson on being called not to identify one's neighbors but to become a neighbor to all, especially those most in need of aid. The parable eloquently presents the basic decision we need to make in order to rebuild our wounded world. In the face of so much pain and suffering, our only course is to imi- tate the good Samaritan," the pope said. "Any other decision would make us ei- ther one of the robbers or one of those who walked by without showing com- passion for the sufferings of the man on the road- side." The parable," he contin- ued, "shows us how a com- munity can be rebuilt by men and women who iden- tify with the vulnerability of others, who reject the creation of a society of ex- clusion, and act instead as neighbors, lifting up and rehabilitating the fallen for the sake of the common good." Pope Francis used the encyclical "to consider certain trends in our world that hinder the develop- ment of universal frater- nity," including racism, extremism, "aggressive na- tionalism," closing borders to migrants and refugees, polarization, politics as a power grab rather than a service to the common good, mistreatment of women, modern slavery and economic policies that allow the rich to get richer but do not create jobs and do not help the poor.
CNS PHOTO VATICAN MEDIA
Pope Francis signs his new encyclical, "Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship" after celebrating Mass at the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, Italy, Oct. 3.
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'In the face of so much pain and suffering, our only course is to imitate the good Samaritan.'
Pope Francis BRIEFS I
Philippine archdiocese expands food program during pandemic
MANILA, Philippines (CNS) - A Philip- pine archdiocese has expanded a long-run- ning food program for poor people to pre- vent deeper turmoil from economic hard- ship caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The Archdiocese of Lingayen-Dagupan in Pangasinan province, north of Manila, said it is looking to increase the number of people it feeds daily from 750 as part of its Rice Porridge for the Poor program, which was launched three years ago. Rice por- ridge, or lugaw, is also known as the "poor man's food" for being inexpensive. One cup of rice makes six cups of porridge.
Pope: Authority is act of serving, not exploiting, others
VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Those in posi- tions of authority, especially in the Catho- lic Church, would do well to remember that their responsibility is to serve those in their care and not exploit them for their own selfish interests, Pope Francis said. Speaking to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square during his Angelus address Oct. 4, the pope said that throughout the ages, those who have authority, any authority, also in the church, in God's people, may be tempted to work in their own interests instead of those of God. Authority is a service, and as such should be exercised, for the good of all and for the dissemina- tion of the Gospel. It is awful to see when people who have authority in the church seek their own interests," he said.
Cardinal Farrell to lead commission determining confidential contracts
VATICAN CITY (CNS) - Continuing his efforts to ensure financial transparency and accountability, Pope Francis named Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life, to lead a commission that determines which economic activities remain confidential. The pope also named Archbishop Filippo Iannone, president of the Pontifical Coun- cil for Legislative Texts, as secretary of the newly formed "Commission for Reserved Matters," the Vatican announced Oct. 5. The commission was a part of the new transparency laws enacted by the pope in June covering contracts for the purchase of goods, property and services.
Southern Africa bishops name third woman religious as secretary general
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) - The bishops of southern Africa have ap- pointed another woman to head their con- ference's general secretariat, succeeding a religious sister who had served in that position for eight years. Dominican Sister Tshifhiwa Munzhedzi will succeed Pre- cious Blood Sister Hermenegild Makoro as secretary-general. Sister Munzhedzi as- sumed duties as Sister Makoro's deputy in July and will assume her new responsibili- ties Jan. 1. Sister Makoro has served as the secretary-general of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference since 2012, when she became the first woman to hold that position in the episcopal body.
VATICAN MEDIA
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