By LEONARDO BOFF*

“Do not tire of setting sail for the high seas, cast your nets, do not tire of dreaming and building a civilization of peace”

Pope Francis is the subject of furious criticism from some conservative Catholic groups, unable to leave their traditional bubble. The reason lies in the way he cares for the Church. He does not do so in the traditional, I would say princely and pharaonic style, inherited from the first Christian emperors who passed on to priests, bishops and the Pope all the privileges, lifestyles and ways of dressing of emperors, senators and the wealthy imperial elites.

This has been going on since the third century and, fundamentally, continues to this day. When you see the parade of cardinals when they all meet in Rome, it seems as if you are at the Sambadrome in Rio or São Paulo, such is the pomp and the colorfulness of the costumes. None of this has anything to do with the poor Jesus of Nazareth.

But that is not what I want to talk about. I want to refer to a surprising innovation that Pope Francis has introduced. It could only come from him, outside the Central European Catholic galaxy, but from someone who “comes from the end of the world” as he has often expressed himself. Coming from the end of the world means that it comes from the experience of a Church that is no longer a mirror of the European Church, but rather its own source, that has its roots in the popular milieu, that makes a preferential option for the impoverished and those unjustly placed on the margins of the current social process, controlled by the dominant classes and organized in favor of their privileges. A type of Church that has nothing imperial or pharaonic about it, but that takes on the pain and tragic destiny of those discarded by the current system.

An example of this is the many meetings he held with Popular Social Movements from all over the world. This has never been seen before in history. The dominant ecclesiology, that is, the doctrine about the Church, still concentrates all decision-making power in the hands of the hierarchy. The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) introduced the concept of the Church as the “People of God” which presupposes equality among all.

But the concept of the Church as a communion prevailed. But it soon emptied the concept by saying that it is a hierarchical communion, which is to say, that it is like a ladder, within which there are people who are on the higher and lower levels. If it is communion, there is equality among all; hierarchies of people on top and people on the lower are not tolerated. If they exist, they are merely functional because no one does everything and takes on all the tasks, but distributes them to the various participants.

Saint Paul formulated it very well in his epistles, using the metaphor of the human body: “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you’” (1 Cor 12,21:XNUMX). All members are equally important. Let us not even think of women as being completely deprived of any decision-making power, even though they are the ones who perform the majority of ecclesiastical services.

In September, Rome will celebrate the tenth anniversary of the first meeting of the World Social Movements in 2014. Our João Pedro Stédile will be there among those who will speak to the crowd. This meeting will revive the mantra that began in 2014: the famous 3Ts.:Roof-Ground-Work detailed as follows: “No homeless family, no landless peasant, no worker without rights, no person without the dignity that work confers.”

At the meeting in September, the motto was already defined: “Planting the flag against dehumanization”. If there is one phenomenon that is currently one of the most perverse, it is an accelerated process of dehumanization. There is something more inhumane than the fact that almost half of the wealth in the world is in the hands of 1% of the population (Global Wealth Report 2023) next to about 800 million people suffering from hunger and one billion suffering from food insufficiency, according to the FAO? If the 3 billionaires paid only 2% of their fortunes in taxes, it would generate US$250 billion (R$1,32 trillion), as suggested by the G20 between Brazil and France. This would guarantee the lives of all those threatened by hunger and hunger-related diseases.

The genocide perpetrated by the State of Israel in the Gaza Strip, victimizing around 12.300 children, is being carried out with the support of a Catholic American President and the European Community, which has forgotten its tradition that founded the rights of citizens and the various forms of democracy. This is being done in the open, making its supporters complicit in the process, and denying food, water and energy to an entire population, a clear crime against humanity.

In addition to the Russia-Ukraine war in which a venerable sister civilization is being destroyed, Ukraine, there are 18 places of severe conflicts with a high fatality rate.

Meanwhile, the Pope in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, proclaimed at an interfaith event: “May all of us, together, each cultivating his or her own spirituality and practicing his or her own religion, journey in search of God and contribute to the building of open societies, founded on mutual respect and reciprocal love.” He challenged Christians with these words: “Do not tire of setting sail on the high seas, let down your nets, do not tire of dreaming and building a civilization of peace.”

These are words of almost desperate hope in the face of the prevailing dehumanization, with the awareness of what I said in the encyclical Fratelli tutti: “We are in the same boat, either we all save ourselves or no one is saved” (n. 32). But together and with awareness, we can give a new direction to our common history, pointing towards a biocivilization and a Land of Good Hope.

*Leonardo Boff He is a theologian, philosopher and writer. Author, among other books, of Sustainability: What it is – What it is not (Vozes). [https://amzn.to/4cOvulH]

the earth is round there is thanks to our readers and supporters.
Help us keep this idea going.
CONTRIBUTE