September 8, 2021
Fratelli Tutti, the latest encyclical of Pope Francis, is marvelously rich and truly a multipurpose statement. For certain, it is a lengthy development of the themes of “Fraternity and Social Friendship,” the terms in its subtitle and themes throughout this papacy. It is also an appeal to a dazed world emerging from a pandemic with serious problems requiring urgent attention.
Fratelli Tutti is also a long reflection on dialogue, and, in fact, it is the first major papal document after Vatican II primarily arising from interreligious experiences, having interreligious dialogue and cooperation as its impetus, and embracing religious pluralism as context for investigating fraternity and social friendship. Fratelli Tutti is the long-awaited encyclical on interreligious relations and dialogue.
In 1995, those of us already involved in ecumenical and interreligious work enthusiastically welcomed That All May Be One / Ut Unum Sint by Pope John Paul II, in which he confirmed the ecumenical teachings of Vatican II, re-endorsed the 1993 Ecumenical Directory, and welcomed the progress and growing consensus from dialogue and ecumenical relations of the intervening 30 years. That All May Be One was an anticipated ecumenical encyclical.
On September 3, 2020, Pope Francis gave us Fratelli Tutti, nearly 55 years after the close of Vatican II. The date is significant. It is the vigil of the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, from whose writings the title is taken, loosely translated as “all my close brothers and sisters.” Francis’ example of spreading the love of God by reaching out to Sultan Malik-el-Kamil during the Fifth Crusade’s venture into Egypt inspired Pope Francis in our present time. Eight hundred years after that historic meeting in 1219, on February 4, 2019, and in Abu Dhabi, during the first papal visit ever to the Arabian Peninsula, Pope Francis and Grand Imam Ahmad Al-Tayyeb of Al-Azhar University in Cairo signed The Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together. That too was an inspiration to Pope Francis to write this encyclical, and he cited it 8 times in Fratelli Tutti.
In the fifth paragraph, he wrote: “In this case, I have felt particularly encouraged by the Grand Imam Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, with whom I met in Abu Dhabi, where we declared that “God has created all human beings equal in rights, duties and dignity, and has called them to live together as brothers and sisters.” Pope Francis then immediately described that agreement as “no mere diplomatic gesture, but a reflection born of dialogue and common commitment.”
Like Ut Unum Sint, which became a document serving the process of ecumenical dialogue leading to greater unity and communion among Christians, Fratelli Tutti is already a document serving the process of interreligious dialogue.
Unlike Ut Unum Sint, which was about dialogue among Christians, Fratelli Tutti is not primarily about interreligious dialogue as such. Human fraternity and interreligious dialogue provide the encyclical’s framework, and religious and cultural pluralism provide the context for the encyclical’s message. But, the message of Fratelli Tutti is the universal scope of human fraternity, and the openness of every woman and man to a dialogue of encounter motivated by love.
Because religion serves an essential purpose for so many in our pluralistic world, Pope Francis urges us, in an effort to restore human fraternity, to accompany one another “as fellow travelers sharing the same flesh, as children of the same earth which is our common home, each of us bringing the richness of his or her beliefs and convictions, each of us with his or her own voice, brothers and sisters all.” (8) In paragraph 7, just before this description of interreligious dialogue as accompaniment, Pope Francis revealed that the Covid-19 pandemic unexpectedly erupted while he was writing the encyclical, inspired by the common agreement between himself and the Grand Imam Al-Tayyeb. The pandemic exposed so many false insecurities and caused greater fragmentation in societies such that the future of humanity increasingly depends upon our doing more than simply repairing and improving current human interaction. His major answer comes in the final chapter, “Religions at the Service of Fraternity in Our World,” where he wrote:
From our faith experience and from the wisdom accumulated over centuries, but also from lessons learned from our many weaknesses and failures, we, the believers of the different religions, know that our witness to God benefits our societies. The effort to seek God with a sincere heart, provided it is never sullied by ideological or self-serving aims, helps us recognize one another as travelling companions, truly brothers and sisters. (274)
Through a series of eight chapters, covering a range of topics from the effects of the pandemic, to the factors contributing to an openness toward others, to the needs for better political and social orders, Pope Francis redirects the course of interreligious dialogue. He is not concerned about the questions that troubled church officials and theologians decades ago: Are there many religions? What is their relationship to the Catholic religion, and how can other religions mediate salvation?
Pope Francis believes there are sufficient answers to those questions and they can be distractions from the critically important tasks ahead. He had already agreed with the Grand Imam in the Human Fraternity Document that “The pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom, through which He created human beings.” Furthermore, in Fratelli Tutti, he confirmed the teachings of Vatican II as presented in Nostra Aetate, The Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions: “The Church esteems the ways in which God works in other religions, and ‘rejects nothing of what is true and holy in these religions.’” (271) He also reiterated the interreligious teaching of Pope John Paul II: “If there is no transcendent truth, in obedience to which man achieves his full identity, then there is no sure principle for guaranteeing just relations between people.” (Centesimus Annus 44, 1991) Pope Francis knows that this perception applies to all religious believers.
Pope Francis also cited his own reflections on the urgency of acting now to preserve Amazonia and the need for believers to speak with one another and to act together for the common good and the promotion of the poor: “This has nothing to do with watering down or concealing our deepest convictions when we encounter others who think differently than ourselves… For the deeper, stronger and richer our own identity is, the more we will be capable of enriching others with our own proper contribution.” (Querida Amazonia, 106, 2020)
With 8 chapters, 278 paragraphs, and 288 footnotes, Fratelli Tutti is best read in installments with time for reflection and prayer, and discussion with friends from all religions. Pope Francis concludes with eleven appeals to members of religious communities that he and Grand Imam Al-Tayyeb made in the Human Fraternity Document. The final reads as follows: “In the name of God and of everything stated thus far, [we] declare the adoption of a culture of dialogue as the path; mutual cooperation as the code of conduct; reciprocal understanding as the method and standard.” (285) This is the vision of interreligious dialogue examined for us in Fratelli Tutti.
John Borelli received a doctorate in History of Religions and Theology in 1976 from Fordham University and has taught and promoted ecumenical and interreligious relations for five decades. He served sixteen years at the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and was a consultor to the Vatican. He is currently Special Assistant for Dialogue and Catholic Identity to the President of Georgetown University in Washington, DC.