Mathieu Detchessahar is a University Professor at IAE at the University of Nantes.
There are, it seems to me, two ways of reading Pope Francis' last social encyclical.
The first is to list the different hot issues addressed by the encyclical (neoliberalism, migrants and migrations, place of the elderly or disabled or unborn, wars, private property, interfaith dialogue ...) and have fun distributing the positions of the Pope on the chessboard of current political quarrels.
At the end of this lazy reading, some will despair of the “leftism” of the Argentine Pope (criticism of neoliberalism, welcome from abroad, etc.) while others will regret the persistence of “ultra-conservative” positions (defense of the life from conception to death, condemnation of cultural relativism and the search for objective truth).
It is necessary to go beyond these superficial comments which, even if they make the happiness of the columnists, do not make it possible to grasp the overall project outside of which each particular position always risks being misunderstood.
This second level of reading is difficult.
The text is abundant.
It proceeds from a dialectical thought that operates by critical back and forth between opposing but also erroneous conceptions of politics, which often requires a synthesis to be made that the Pope is only sketching at times.
In addition, the Argentine Pope does not resist a few easy formulas that snap like the slogans of a school demo -
“all together, here is a very beautiful secret to dream”
(8),
“inclusive social friendship and open fraternity ”
(94)
“ each country is also that of the foreigner ”
(124) - formulas which do not entirely escape the
“ joyful superficiality ”
(113) which characterizes our time and which the Pope critical elsewhere.
Nevertheless, one must go beyond the personal style of François, which, although it is not that of his predecessors, sometimes has a dimension of energizing spontaneity, to discover a deep text.
The Pope's project is ambitious: it is about nothing less than to think, in the great tradition of classical political philosophy, the characteristics of a good society for our time.
At school, in the family or at work, man is the one who must "go out of himself to find in others an increase in being", Pope Francis reminds us.
The central proposition of the text is clear: the search for social friendship and universal fraternity must constitute the horizon of politics.
No flourishing political community without friendship between its members and no peaceful relations between political communities without the mediation of the fraternity.
This ambition is not new.
It is classic in the social doctrine of the Church not to reserve friendship for the private sphere and the domain of feeling but to make it a real public virtue in the principle of the quality of social ties in all areas of society. common life.
Benedict XVI recalled this from the introduction of his great social encyclical
Caritas in Veritate
:
“Love is the principle not only of micro-relations: friendly, family relations, in small groups, but also of macro-relations: social relations, economic, political. (…) It is a fundamental element of human relations, even of a public nature ”
(2 and 3).
Here, the Church takes up and develops the great ancient tradition which, from Aristotle in
Ethics to Nicomachus
to Cicero in his treatise
On Friendship
, has always seen in civic friendship the greatest good of cities, the source of their cohesion as of their vitality.
This political ambition is neither naive nor irenic; on the contrary, it is anchored in a realistic anthropology.
Man is a being of relationships who finds his full development only and through others.
No man is founded or built alone!
At school, in the family or at work, man is the one who must
"go out of himself to find in others an increase in being"
(88), Pope Francis reminds us, echoing Karol Wojtyla d 'Love and responsibilities.
At the same time, man is deeply marked by "a constant tendency to egoism".
This is why social friendship must be cultivated; it is the fruit of
"a real political will translated into education for fraternity, for dialogue, for the discovery of reciprocity and mutual enrichment"
(103).
Political friendship can only tend towards universal brotherhood on the condition that each nation cultivates "love for its land, its people, its cultural traits".
In a more original way, the Pope then returns on several occasions to the fact that political friendship cannot be achieved in an
“abstract and authoritarian”
(100) or
“abstract and globalizing”
(142) universalism which would be wary of force. of local cultures and
"would attempt to eliminate all differences and traditions in a superficial search for unity".
On the contrary, it is first in the concrete space of a shared territory and history that social friendship is born.
It is in this proximity that the friendly ways of being and of living together are invented that the culture of the community will preserve and transmit.
The
“culture of encounter”
that the Pope calls for is first born in a concrete people in a concrete territory.
This is why the Pope tells us
"that there is no worse alienation than to experience not having roots, of not belonging to anyone"
(53) and that he reminds us that
" the peoples who alienate their traditions (…) and who by unforgivable negligence or apathy, tolerate having their soul torn from them, lose with their spiritual identity, their moral consistency and finally, their ideological, economic and political independence ”
(14) .
Political friendship can only tend towards universal brotherhood on the condition that each nation cultivates
"the love of its land, of its people, of its cultural traits"
(143) and the Pope calls us to beware of
" false universalism of one who constantly needs to travel because he neither supports nor loves his own people ”
(99).
In short, Francis is neither an apostle of self-hatred, nor of the culture of systematic repentance, still less of “cancel culture”.
It is always from a rootedness, a culture and a people that a higher level of fraternity is conceived.
The paragraphs devoted to the notion of people are moreover very beautiful and do not yield anything to those who would like to make it disappear under the anathema of "populism".
Neither cosmopolitanism, nor blissful universalism therefore.
On a global level, it is indeed a “family of nations” that it is a question of uniting not a shapeless whole made up of uprooted monads.
Rooted political communities, strong in their traditions and their culture, do not have the vocation to be closed, to selfishly enjoy their possessions with the greatest indifference to the misfortunes of the world.
A political community united by social friendship, the substrate of which is always a shared culture, has therefore discovered some of the secrets of a good life together and this discovery gives it dynamism and capacity for welcoming.
This political community can then be a home to which the poor and the foreigner come to warm up and find help.
Rooted political communities, strong in their traditions and their culture, do not have the vocation to be closed, to selfishly enjoy their possessions with the greatest indifference to the misfortunes of the world.
They are
"neither dungeons nor prisons"
(142).
Just as private ownership of material goods is legitimate only insofar as it serves the good of the greatest number, the possession by a political community of social and cultural goods is intended to serve and enrich all humanity. .
Conversely, a healthy political community that is sure of its traditions must consider that welcoming foreigners can be an asset.
Son of the same Creator who made him a creator himself, it is possible that the foreigner has discovered, from his culture, other secrets of common life that can fertilize the local culture and that it is worth it. 'enter into a relationship of dialogue with him.
Against
“cultural sclerosis”
(134), the Pope affirms that “
the narcissisms obsessed with local particularism are not a healthy love of its people and its culture (…) [they] are incapable of admiration in front of the multitude of possibilities and beauties that the whole world offers ”
(145-146).
In short, at a good distance from "
nationalism of withdrawal into oneself"
(141) as from "
a conception of the human person detached from any social and anthropological context"
(110), François pleads for political communities rooted in a soil and a culture.
"Stimulating a healthy relationship between love of country and cordial integration into the world"
(149).
With François, universal fraternity is only possible if it is built from below, first in the concrete of the most daily relations: a loving family shines and can welcome, a nation united around a culture and a tradition can open up to a more universal communion.
Without the proper understanding of this global model, it is impossible to examine the concrete questions that today's world poses to us.
With François, universal fraternity is only possible if it is built from below, first in the concrete of the most daily relations: a loving family shines and can welcome, a nation united around a culture and a tradition can open up to a more universal communion.
Should we deduce a standard of unconditional reception and generalized traffic as some like to do to rejoice or to despair of it?
Certainly not!
The thought of François always invites us to reflect animated by the double concern of the preservation of local balances and the exercise of charity because I cannot be charitable,
"to welcome those who are different and to receive their original contribution only to the extent that I am anchored in my people with their culture ”
(143).
Never
"the solution lies in an opening which gives up its own treasure"
, it would then be a question of a
"false opening proceeding from the empty superficiality of the one who is not able to fully penetrate the realities of his homeland. or someone who harbors a resentment towards his people that he has not overcome ”
(145).
Because, we never welcome alone and never anyhow.
Pope Francis insists on this:
"love of neighbor is realistic"
(165).
The Good Samaritan, which he gives us at length as an example,
"needed the existence of an inn which enabled him to solve what he was not able to assume on his own at that time"
( 165).
A realistic charity supposes first of all to take care of the inn in order to be able to take care of the poor or the stranger.
This is why the decision to host must always be taken in a conscious and responsible manner, animated by the virtue of prudence which alone makes it possible to reconcile in a situation of moral imperatives in tension and to
"find the right balance between the moral duty to protect the rights of its own citizens and the right to guarantee the assistance and reception of migrants ”
(40).
