Uncategorized
-
Who are we a part of, and who do we make ourselves apart from? Who do we treat as family, and who do we treat as a vending machine? I’m always struck by the way we think of people that we’re technically a part of as something that we’re apart from. Here’s what I mean.
-
How bad are we? How good can we be? Those are the sorts of questions we don’t usually ask ourselves when we talk about big issues like politics and economics, but what we think about those things usually boils down in part to what our answers to those basic questions are. We might have better
-
Maybe sometimes the real risk is losing the trees for the forest. This week I stumbled into an essay by David Brooks in The Atlantic about the “moral convulsion” we’re going through. It’s a pretty depressing read; it’s not as long as a papal encyclical, it just feels that way. But as is always true
-
Good news – the Gospel – can come at you from places you didn’t expect. And in forms you may not appreciate at first. One of the things that Pope Francis does in Fratelli Tutti that is unusual but by no means unique is address it not just to Catholics but to all people of
-
I know well the adage that “when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” But sometimes, it really is a nail. The heart of Fratelli Tutti is Chapter 2, in which Pope Francis gives an extended reflection on the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). You could do worse, as an examination
-
As much as I want to summarize and process what Pope Francis is driving at in his encyclical Fratelli Tutti, it would be a shame not to notice how well-written it is. Here are my favorite examples from the introduction and Chapter 1 (excluding quotes from other speeches and documents): In the world of that
-
If we are called to live as one human family, why is the world such a mess? While Pope Francis doesn’t answer the question of “why” in great depth here, he does start by highlighting some of the biggest examples of how life today diverges from what a universal family would look like. Let’s take
-
What and who inspires Fratelli Tutti? Why is Pope Francis writing about human fraternity, and why now? In the introductory paragraphs, Pope Francis identifies two inspirations, and in the closing two paragraphs he names a number of others. The introduction places at the outset his extraordinary meeting in 2019 in Abu Dhabi with Grand Imam
-
I’m going to be spending a good bit of time reflecting on and sharing about Pope Francis’ new encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, so before I do, there are a couple of quick points I want to get out there for folks who don’t follow this stuff closely (which is almost everyone). Before I joined the Catholic
Reading Francis 