Is the Encyclical Fratelli Tutti inspired by St Thomas More’s Utopia?

10 October 20204 years ago babelfish

"I have the impression that the Encyclical Fratelli Tutti is not at all inspired by the thought of St. Francis of Assisi, that's why". The opinion of the economist and banker Ettore Gotti Tedeschi

I have the impression that the Encyclical Fratelli Tutti is not at all inspired by the thought of St. Francis of Assisi, but rather by the "satirical" novel Utopia by St. Thomas More.

Rereading Utopia it would seem to read Fratelli Tutti.

In Utopia private property is abolished, citizens have neither goods nor money, they use common goods as needed and all goods are shared, trade is not necessary. The economic system is essentially agricultural where the land is a precious asset in itself, not subordinated to the use made of it by man. In Utopia there is a principle of total and absolute equality, where any socio-economic difference is abolished. In Utopia the number of children is predetermined so that the population does not grow and does not exploit resources beyond certain limits of sustainable and planned development. In Utopia all religions are admitted, priests deal with religion but above all with social issues, women are also admitted to the priesthood. Utopia is pacifist, the death penalty does not exist. In Utopia the government belongs to the Magistrates.

Thinking back to the underlying values (with evident satire) by St. Thomas More, I approached the due reading of the Encyclical with the critical spirit of those who find themselves having to interpret utopias proposed as commercials.

Five hundred years after the publication of Utopia (1516) the world and the church have changed a little, but what is significant in this context is that until yesterday the church had to deal only with consciences and not with economics and politics, while today ( this Encyclical is an example) must deal with economics and politics and not so much only with consciences. But since economics is not a science, when used politically for ideological reasons, it invents socioeconomic utopias. But if these utopias are sponsored by the Moral Authority and become the magisterium of the church, they risk being transformed into "heresies".

That Fratelli Tutti could risk suffering this fate seems to me suspicious. It is proposed as an advertising spot complete with testimonials that have inspired it.

SanFrancesco aside (used, rather than imitated), the testimonials are prestigious personalities who fought for civil rights against oppression: Desmun Tutu, Gandhi, Martin Luther King. And they have already been used for commercials: we remember the Telecom commercials where Gandhi was used as a peacemaker or the Fiat-Chrysler commercials with Martin Luther King in the Atlanta sermon.

Here they are chosen as witnesses of solidarity, brotherhood, equality, peace. I must say that I would have expected a choice of different testimonials. For example, St. John Paul II with Sollecitudo Rei Socialis (who prophesies that the tools would get out of hand to those who used them) or Benedict XVI with Caritas in Veritate (which explains the risk that the tools take on moral autonomy). Above all, Benedict XVI, in order to cure the hallucinations of those who think they can improve the world by changing the tools when they don't work, proposes to reflect on original sin and to think of changing the heart of man, with conversion.

Instead we find a suggestive encyclical that allows us to imagine solutions oriented to utopian changes of tools (predistribution of wealth?), (Statist?) Structures and (demeritocratic?) Models.

With great class and undoubted intelligence, Andrea Riccardi also confirms this in Monday's Corriere , referring to the encyclical: "The Pope's third way. Between liberalism and populism", which allows us to imagine another paradigm shift, this time political (which presupposes a ?).

But the Third Way was the social doctrine of the Church that the great economist Luigi Einaudi, second president of the Italian Republic, fell in love with. Einaudi saw in the Social Doctrine of the Church the third way between liberalism and socialism, because it guaranteed entrepreneurial freedom and private property, but also demanded indispensable solidarity. But this wants the conversion of hearts in order to be applied. Today Riccardi replaces the old socialism with the despised populism, perhaps to re-propose a disguised Catholic socialism as a new third way?

But the real enemies of the common good today are not liberalism, socialism or populism, they are rather relativism and nihilism. The third way is only in the conversion of hearts. They don't want us to believe in "hell", but do they want us to believe in a new Catholic party founded on the assumptions and programs of an encyclical that is more utopian than realistic?

But St. Thomas More, writing Utopia, was joking, he was not serious. Instead, St. Francis was serious, for whom poverty was only a means of doing God's will better (and his choice was mystical, not social or political).

He meant it seriously when he invited man to praise God, exercising virtue meritocratically, while other creatures are called to do so according to their natural role. St. Francis was by no means a pacifist, but he was looking for Pax Christi. He was not a revolutionary, but a restorer of the Church of Christ. He was not at all egalitarian, but he preached the equality of men before God. He was not an animalist, he only sang praises to the Creator (he did not sing to creatures). He was not pauperist because to help the poor we must draw from the rich to teach solidarity. Yes, St. Francis was a realist and this Encyclical does not seem to me quite as inspired by his teaching as one would have us believe.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/enciclica-fratelli-tutti-piu-che-a-san-francesco-sembra-ispirarsi-a-san-tommaso-moro/ on Sat, 10 Oct 2020 05:10:21 +0000.