PopeWatch: FRATELLI TUTTI Summarized and Translated from the Original BOMFOG-Part V

Go here to read Part I, here to read Part II,  here to read part III and here to read part IV.

201.Pope is offended by the broad representation of views in the media.

202.We should strive to promote truthfulness.

203.Authentic social dialogue involves the ability to respect the other’s point of view and to admit that it may include legitimate convictions and concerns.

204.Need for greater interdisciplinary communication.

205.We need constantly to ensure that present-day forms of communication are in fact guiding us to generous encounter with others, to honest pursuit of the whole truth, to service, to closeness to the underprivileged and to the promotion of the common good. 

206.The solution is not relativism. Under the guise of tolerance, relativism ultimately leaves the interpretation of moral values to those in power, to be defined as they see fit.

207.A society is noble and decent not least for its support of the pursuit of truth and its adherence to the most basic of truths.

208. We need to learn how to unmask the various ways that the truth is manipulated, distorted and concealed in public and private discourse.

209.Yet, “when it is a matter of the moral norms prohibiting intrinsic evil, there are no privileges or exceptions for anyone. It makes no difference whether one is the master of the world or the ‘poorest of the poor’ on the face of the earth. Before the demands of morality we are all absolutely equal”.

210.What is now happening, and drawing us into a perverse and barren way of thinking, is the reduction of ethics and politics to physics. Good and evil no longer exist in themselves; there is only a calculus of benefits and burdens. 

211.Dialogue is the solution!  (Dialogue is the contemporary equivalent of asking the shaman to shake his magic sticks.)

212. There is no need, then, to oppose the interests of society, consensus and the reality of objective truth. These three realities can be harmonized whenever, through dialogue, people are unafraid to get to the heart of an issue.  (Human history, which consists of constant disagreements between groups, refutes this optimistic contention.)

213.For this reason, human beings have the same inviolable dignity in every age of history and no one can consider himself or herself authorized by particular situations to deny this conviction or to act against it.   (The history of the Church refutes this.  Presentism with a vengeance is the hallmark of the thought of Pope Francis.

214.To agnostics, this foundation could prove sufficient to confer a solid and stable universal validity on basic and non-negotiable ethical principles that could serve to prevent further catastrophes. As believers, we are convinced that human nature, as the source of ethical principles, was created by God, and that ultimately it is he who gives those principles their solid foundation.  (The occupants of the mass graves of the last century would be bleakly amused at the Pope’s optimism. The Pope has a complete inability to put himself into the intellectual shoes of someone who views the world differently from himself.)

215.“Life, for all its confrontations, is the art of encounter”.[204] I have frequently called for the growth of a culture of encounter capable of transcending our differences and divisions. This means working to create a many-faceted polyhedron whose different sides form a variegated unity, in which “the whole is greater than the part”.[205] The image of a polyhedron can represent a society where differences coexist, complementing, enriching and reciprocally illuminating one another, even amid disagreements and reservations.  (With all due respect to polyhedrons and other geometric forms, when peoples interact conflict is often likely to occur.  The most peaceful interactions tend to be economic, involving the same market mechanisms that the Pope is opposed to.)

216.Pope wants a culture of encounter.

217.What is important is to create processes of encounter, processes that build a people that can accept differences. Let us arm our children with the weapons of dialogue! Let us teach them to fight the good fight of the culture of encounter!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILSr9BbhoJQ

1. All this calls for the ability to recognize other people’s right to be themselves and to be different.

219. It often happens that good ideas are not accepted by the poorer sectors of society because they are presented in a cultural garb that is not their own and with which they cannot identify. A realistic and inclusive social covenant must also be a “cultural covenant”, one that respects and acknowledges the different worldviews, cultures and lifestyles that coexist in society.

220.Indigenous peoples, for example, are not opposed to progress, yet theirs is a different notion of progress, often more humanistic than the modern culture of developed peoples. (The myth of the noble savage is a favorite myth of the Pope.)

1. Such a covenant also demands the realization that some things may have to be renounced for the common good.  (Beatings will continue until morale improves.  The lockdowns have given a great demonstration of the economic well being and civil rights governments are eager to dispense with for the “common good”.)

222.Consumerist individualism has led to great injustice.  (Like most Leftists the Pope has a false zero sum view of the world.  A family in Ghana has no cars because a family in Illinois has two.)

223.Saint Paul on kindness.

224.The value of kindness.

225.The world needs peacemakers.

226.A dedication to truth is an important part of making peace.

227.Truth and reconciliation.  (The Pope is obviously a fan of the current fad of truth and reconciliation committees.  PopeWatch views them as virtue signaling enterprises which “work” only where there is a power imbalance, as in South Africa, that would make resuming hostilities a suicidal proposition for one faction, almost always the faction whose alleged misdeeds are the subject of endless rehashing by the truth and reconciliation process.)

228.The path to peace does not mean making society blandly uniform, but getting people to work together, side-by-side, in pursuing goals that benefit everyone.

229.The Bishops of South Africa have pointed out that true reconciliation is achieved proactively, “by forming a new society, a society based on service to others, rather than the desire to dominate; a society based on sharing what one has with others, rather than the selfish scramble by each for as much wealth as possible; a society in which the value of being together as human beings is ultimately more important than any lesser group, whether it be family, nation, race or culture”. 

230.People must be made to feel at home in their own society.

231.Peace is the result of the work of everyone.

232.Ditto domestic peace.  The Pope writes against violent demonstrations.

233.The bumper sticker slogan “If you want peace work for justice.”  (That slogan always struck PopeWatch as akin to the protection racket.  Treat  me fairly, or I’ll loot your business seems like a poor basis for domestic harmony.)

234.Excusing bad behavior of the poor.

235.Work for Justice or never know Peace.  (Once again not very distinguishable from a Protection racket.  Of course it is very rarely the poor who produce successful revolutions.  Those are produced almost always by members of the wealthy and upper middle class. Disaffected intellectuals are also ever a potent recruiting ground for revolutionaries.  It is the poor of course who usually pay the most in the sheer human misery produced by most revolutions.  The fondness for cosplaying revolution by the scions of well to do families, while the neighborhoods of the poor are wrecked in riots, is nothing new.)

236.There are those who prefer not to talk of reconciliation, for they think that conflict, violence and breakdown are part of the normal functioning of a society.  (Always and ever true.)

237.Forgiveness and reconciliation are central themes in Christianity and, in various ways, in other religions. Yet there is a risk that an inadequate understanding and presentation of these profound convictions can lead to fatalism, apathy and injustice, or even intolerance and violence.

238. Jesus never promoted violence or intolerance.  (Jesus was so far beyond our human categories that attempts to place Him in our human cubbyholes are ever an exercise in futility.  His refusal to condemn the manifestly unjust Roman occupation of Judaea is merely one example of things that He said that mystified and/or enraged many of His contemporaries.  Once Jesus is taken out of the purely religious context of His God with us mission, huge distortions of what He said and taught inevitably result.)

239.Description of early Christian communities.

240. Yet when we reflect upon forgiveness, peace and social harmony, we also encounter the jarring saying of Christ: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s foes will be members of his own household” (Mt 10:34-36). These words need to be understood in the context of the chapter in which they are found, where it is clear that Jesus is speaking of fidelity to our decision to follow him; we are not to be ashamed of that decision, even if it entails hardships of various sorts, and even our loved ones refuse to accept it. Christ’s words do not encourage us to seek conflict, but simply to endure it when it inevitably comes, lest deference to others, for the sake of supposed peace in our families or society, should detract from our own fidelity. Saint John Paul II observed that the Church “does not intend to condemn every possible form of social conflict. The Church is well aware that in the course of history conflicts of interest between different social groups inevitably arise, and that in the face of such conflicts Christians must often take a position, honestly and decisively”.  (The Church, wisely, has usually left purely secular political matters up to her sons and daughters.  Christian treatment of foes has usually been preached, with the Church often attempting to broker peace.  However, Christ was adamant that His Kingdom was not off this Earth and resisted any attempt to put His commands into a political straitjacket.)

241.Nor does this mean calling for forgiveness when it involves renouncing our own rights, confronting corrupt officials, criminals or those who would debase our dignity.  (True, and human history tells us that protests in such situations are usually useless unless they are backed up with, at least, the threat of armed force.)

242.The important thing is not to fuel anger, which is unhealthy for our own soul and the soul of our people, or to become obsessed with taking revenge and destroying the other.  (True, although justice may require stern measures.  At the defense of the Alcazar in Toledo at the onset of the Spanish Civil War, one of the Nationalist defenders would say after firing his rifle, “Kill without hate!  Wise advice. and hard for most of us mortals to follow in times of war.)

243.Each of us should realize that “even the harsh judgment I hold in my heart against my brother or my sister, the open wound that was never cured, the offense that was never forgiven, the rancour that is only going to hurt me, are all instances of a struggle that I carry within me, a little flame deep in my heart that needs to be extinguished before it turns into a great blaze”.  (All that hate is going to burn you up kid. Colonel Andrew Tanner, Screenplay, Red Dawn.)

244.Authentic reconciliation does not flee from conflict, but is achieved in conflict, resolving it through dialogue and open, honest and patient negotiation. (Sometimes yes, and sometimes no.)

245.Unity is greater than conflict. (A very debatable proposition.)

246.Of those who have endured much unjust and cruel suffering, a sort of “social forgiveness” must not be demanded. (Actually not a bad policy, but one hard to carry out, especially if certain groups are educated to cherish grievances and find them every place, as is the case currently in the US.)

1. The Shoah must not be forgotten. (The spread of anti-semitism on much of the Left already indicates that it has been.)

2. Nor must we forget the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (The Pope is so essentially a Leftist tool.  Juxtaposing those sadly necessary military actions with the Holocaust is beneath contempt.)

249.Nowadays, it is easy to be tempted to turn the page, to say that all these things happened long ago and we should look to the future. For God’s sake, no! We can never move forward without remembering the past; we do not progress without an honest and unclouded memory.  We need to “keep alive the flame of collective conscience, bearing witness to succeeding generations to the horror of what happened”, because that witness “awakens and preserves the memory of the victims, so that the conscience of humanity may rise up in the face of every desire for dominance and destruction”. The victims themselves – individuals, social groups or nations – need to do so, lest they succumb to the mindset that leads to justifying reprisals and every kind of violence in the name of the great evil endured.   (Cherishing grievances.  The Pope is ever able to contradict himself within a few sentences.)

250.Forgive but do not forget.

Conclusion tomorrow.