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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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OK, so since Pope Francis is going to Assisi this Saturday to sign an encyclical I’m going to be focused on, let me take some time tonight to tell you a couple of things about St. Francis of Assisi. If you know me at all, you know that the little medieval hill town of Assisi…
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We put the wrong aspect of God in the center. I don’t get many requests for theological opinions. (Perhaps that’s a hint I should have taken a long time ago.) But my sister, of all people, asked me a question last week, and it’s a good one: Does God cause bad things to happen so…
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Why are you looking for God? I’ve been mulling this question a lot, from the perspective of what draws different people to religious belief. It’s a rephrasing of a question at the center of Luke 7-8, which is a really meaty set of healings and sayings between the Sermon on the Plain (in Luke 6)…
