VATICAN CITY (CNS): “Solidarity is not the sharing of crumbs from the table, but to make space at the table for everyone,” Pope Francis said in a new book, Let Us Dream: The Path to A Better Future, written with Austen Ivereigh, and scheduled to be published on December 1 by Simon & Schuster.
Pope Francis admits he is not an economist but is a pastor, and as a pastor, he has seen how the global economy has cast aside many members of his flock, and he knows that the gospel and Catholic social teaching call for a different response.
The pope’s concerns about the current situation of the world, especially given the Covid-19 coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic, will not be new to anyone who followed his homilies as the pandemic developed in the spring, watched his weekly general audience series on Catholic social teaching or read his new encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship.
But the new book systematically sets out how he takes the “see-judge-act” method of social action—what he calls “contemplate-discern-propose”—and uses it to describe the current state of affairs, to look at attitudes behind many issues and to call for a new way of doing things.
Pope Francis said that the Covid-19 pandemic has been a global trauma or trial and that it is precisely how one acts in a trial that reveals the state of his or her heart: “How solid it is, how merciful, how big or small.”
Part of the new book, Ivereigh said, is based on Pope Francis’ recorded responses to his written questions and part on suggestions outlined by the pope, elaborated by Ivereigh and then revised by the pope.
Pope Francis said that the Covid-19 pandemic has been a global trauma or trial and that it is precisely how one acts in a trial that reveals the state of his or her heart: “How solid it is, how merciful, how big or small.”
The pope said, “God asks us to dare to create something new. We cannot return to the false securities of the political and economic systems we had before the crisis. We need economies that give to all access to the fruits of creation, to the basic needs of life: to land, lodging, and labour.”
“It is painful to behold how in many regions that see themselves as developed the practice is often urged because the children to come are disabled, or unplanned.”
He adds, “we need a politics that can integrate and dialogue with the poor, the excluded and the vulnerable, that gives people a say in the decisions that impact their lives. We need to slow down, take stock and design better ways of living together on this earth.”
To get a proper perspective is to go to the margins of society, to the places where people suffer most and allow that suffering to touch one’s heart, the pope said.
“I think often of persecuted peoples: the Rohingya, the poor Uyghurs, the Yazidi—what ISIS did to them was truly cruel—or Christians in Egypt and Pakistan killed by bombs that went off while they prayed in church,” he said.
Pope Francis’ prescription is centred on dialogue, a recognition of the God-given dignity of every human being and an understanding that the Earth and all the good it contains are meant by God to be a gift for everyone, not just those strong enough to grab the most the quickest.
“I cannot stay silent over 30 to 40 million unborn lives cast aside every year through abortion,” he said, adding, “It is painful to behold how in many regions that see themselves as developed the practice is often urged because the children to come are disabled, or unplanned.”
The pope emphasised: “Human life is never a burden. It demands we make space for it, not cast it off.”
He observed, “Of course, the arrival of a new human life in need—whether the unborn child in the womb or the migrant at our border—challenges and changes our priorities. With abortion and closed borders we refuse that readjustment of our priorities, sacrificing human life to defend our economic security or to assuage our fear that parenthood will upend our lives.”
To claim “to promote the gospel and not welcome the strangers in need, nor affirm their humanity as children of God, is to seek to encourage a culture that is Christian in name only, emptied of all that makes it distinctive,” Pope Francis remarked.
Abortion, anti-immigrant sentiments, racism, lack of care of the elderly and the embracing of an economic system that focuses on profit at all costs are all signs of the “erosion of the value of life,” he laments.
“Without a vision for society rooted in the dignity of all people, the logic of the unfettered market ends up turning life from a gift into a product,” the pope said in the book.
Pope Francis urged people to pause and look around for something new and different they could do to help someone else.
“When you feel the twitch, stop and pray, and then act. Call up, go visit, offer your service. Say you don’t have a clue what they do, but maybe you can help. Say you’d like to be part of a different world and you thought this might be a good place to start,” the pope urged.
