When Jorge Bergoglio first appeared on the balcony of St Peter’s as Pope Francis, it was difficult to know what to expect.
In Australia, it was early morning when Pope Francis asked the world to pray with him, and for one another. As his image, hazy in the darkness of a Roman winter afternoon, beamed across the world, one of the major themes of this pontificate came into view.
It was an ancient theme, that was to be renewed through a pontificate that emphasised our common humanity in the face of so many fracturing forces.
After praying with the crowd, he spoke of “a journey of brotherhood in love, of mutual trust.” As has become apparent over time, fostering “a great sense of brotherhood” was one of the most important goals of this pontificate.
At this moment in history, when the very notion of common humanity and shared human dignity is under such great pressure, the need to consider the implications of fraternity is urgent.
One of the great tasks of any successor of Peter is, after all, to raise and respond to the great issues of one’s time with a Christ-like heart.
Pope Francis’s expanded notion of fraternity does this, drawing from the spirituality of the saint from whom he took his name. St Francis of Assisi called the sun his brother and the moon his sister. Birds and wolves responded to the world differently, when they listened to St Francis. Other Christian brothers and sisters joined the mendicant, inspired by his great love for God, for humanity, and for all of creation.
The saint was in a radical relationship to all that God has made. He defied the social norms of his time, fighting back against the age in which he found himself, to live the Christian life to its fullest.
St Francis embraced everything and everyone in Creation, indicating the deepest source of solidarity: Christ’s love, which manifests most fully as love of one’s neighbour. A pioneer of religious dialogue, he refused to demonise anyone for being different, or for being in need.
Indubitably, St Francis has been a great inspiration to Pope Francis’s pontificate. Thus, much can be gleaned by considering St Francis’s fundamental teaching that that humans are related to everything and everyone that lives, through the source of all the living: God.
This inter-connectedness, which we are ever at risk of losing, is underlined for instance in Laudato Si, which teaches the importance of caring together for what we share: our common home. In Catholic Social Teaching, solidarity is usually expressed as a relationship between humans.
Pope Francis extended this further, so that we are co-responsible for each other, and at the same time for every living thing. Our common home is alive, and together we are called to prayerful awareness that the air that we breathe and the food we eat are gifts. Nothing we have from the earth should be kept to ourselves. All that we receive is to be given, cherished, and shared.
Writing Fratelli Tutti, the pope extended this notion still further. With St Francis, he insisted that one’s sister, brother, neighbour in Christ, may not be the person in closest spatial proximity. Instead, the Christian deals within a fraternity of love that crosses every human-made boundary.
As Pope Francis was writing this encyclical, the Covid pandemic erupted on the world stage, provoking the observation that: “For all our hyper-connectivity, we witnessed a fragmentation that made it more difficult to resolve problems that affect us all.” Instead of responding with charity, and the appreciation that all were in the same situation, societies across the world put up walls.
These walls, and the rhetoric to support them, have continued beyond the pandemic. Whether as physical or as social structures, walls have been erected against those deemed unwanted.
Pope Francis always championed the immigrant, even while emphasising the challenges that migration can bring to those involved. Balancing an appreciation both of challenge and of opportunity, he enjoined all Christians not to view migrants as problems or as enemies. After all, every person is a fellow traveller in this shared world.
All of this is aligned with that other great theme of Pope Francis’s pontificate: synodality. To be synodal is, after all, to journey with one another.
Drawing together those across the church and throughout the world to consider what this means, the pope was again attuned to the great mystery that God calls all to himself. Humans can achieve great things with and for Christ when they know that they are alongside one another.
The prophetic voice of Pope Francis perhaps resonates most profoundly when one recognises the implications of fraternity in a world torn by war, and by the rise of nationalistic leadership.
Entitlement, ownership and marginalisation of those deemed unworthy are swiftly becoming the currency or our time. Fallen by the wayside are love, fraternity, and human dignity.
The pope always remained concerned with the plight of the immigrant, and this issue brings to light again his main message. In an age that so swiftly seeks to demonise those who are different and in need, our first response must, as Christians, be one of love. God has given us a home that we share with others in common. Forgetting this, we become less human.
When Pope Francis first emerged onto that balcony, all those years ago, he asked us first to pray with him, and then to bless him, before he blessed us.
In that same spirit of humility, let us pray for him now, but also with him, that God may “pour into our hearts a fraternal spirit”, so that this world may be better, not worse, because Christians undertook a shared journey with humanity.