Christian tradition . . . has always understood this right [to private property] within the broader context of the right common to all to use the goods of the whole of creation: the right to private property is subordinated to the right to common use, to the fact that goods are meant for everyone.
—John Paul II, Laborem Exercens
Evangelii Gaudium, the apostolic exhortation dedicated to evangelization, is Pope Francis’s first real programmatic document. We could also say programmatic without a real program, because Francis does not intend to “trickle down” or dictate from the top any directives of reform nor indicate specific strategies, but rather he wishes to trigger processes without controlling or defining them. It could also be considered a post-synodal apostolic exhortation, gathering the suggestions and proposals coming from the Synod on Evangelization. Francis, however, has made it a key document of his pontificate. A “road map” pointing out “new paths for the Church’s journey in years to come.”1 Almost a prophecy of a profound renewal proposed to all Christians. An operational text, intended to shake up all the institutions and dynamics of the ecclesial structure, with the pressing exhortation to emancipate itself from all that encumbers the mission to proclaim the chore of the gospel message among today’s men and women, as they are and not as someone would like them to be, or should be. At the heart of it all, there is the joy of the gospel.
“The joy of the gospel,” as stated in the first lines of the document, “fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ joy is constantly born anew. . . . The great danger in today’s world, pervaded as it is by consumerism, is the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience.” Even many faithful, the pope observes, fall prey to this, “and end up resentful, angry and listless.” Instead, “whenever we take a step towards Jesus, we come to realize that he is already there, waiting for us with open arms.”
Evangelii Gaudium is not and does not want to be a document on social doctrine. The pope himself states: “This Exhortation is not a social document, and for reflection on those different themes we have a most suitable tool in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, whose use and study I heartily recommend.”
The short paragraphs that are dedicated to poverty, inequality, social injustice, and the idolatry of money do not therefore represent a systematic and specific treatment of the topic but fall within the broader context of a text that, once again, wants to call the church back to the heart of her mission. At several points in the exhortation, Pope Francis, reiterating what was stated by Paul VI in Octogesima Adveniens (1971), reminds us that the church is no longer able to say a valid and appropriate word for all the different and complex situations that arise in various parts of the world. For this reason, not only are references made to what has already been written by previous popes but also to documents of regional and national episcopal conferences from all continents, on which Francis himself draws several times, citing them “with a breadth and variety that is quite unusual,” as noted by the Jesuit priest Gian Paolo Salvini in his analysis of Evangelii Gaudium for the Italian Jesuit journal Civiltà Cattolica. “The evils of our world today,” continued Fr. Salvini, “are denounced with clarity, even harshly, but with the intention to better understand the context in which the church is called to evangelize today; and they are discussed in a positive and constructive manner, intended to encourage and not to rebuke, to never lose ‘the joy of evangelization.’ ”2 Yet, as we shall see, those few pages of the exhortation containing Francis’s words on the economy have attracted much attention and also sharp criticism.
“It is not the task of the pope,” writes Francis in this first apostolic exhortation of his pontificate, “to offer a detailed and complete analysis of contemporary reality, but I do exhort all the communities to an ‘ever watchful scrutiny of the signs of the times.’ This is in fact a grave responsibility, since certain present realities, unless effectively dealt with, are capable of setting off processes of dehumanization which would then be hard to reverse.” The reference here to “all the communities” means, above all, the laity, those who do not want to give up working to change reality.
“We need to distinguish clearly,” continues Francis, “what might be a fruit of the kingdom from what runs counter to God’s plan. This involves not only recognizing and discerning spirits, but also—and this is decisive—choosing movements of the spirit of good and rejecting those of the spirit of evil. I take for granted the different analyses which other documents of the universal magisterium have offered, as well as those proposed by the regional and national conferences of bishops.” This is another important passage: Evangelii Gaudium is not a document on social doctrine, but it supposes them all, and draws also on various documents proposed by the regional and national conferences of bishops, which pertain more to specific problems and circumstances of local realities.
“In this Exhortation,” the pope states, “I claim only to consider briefly, and from a pastoral perspective, certain factors which can restrain or weaken the impulse of missionary renewal in the Church, either because they threaten the life and dignity of God’s people or because they affect those who are directly involved in the Church’s institutions and in her work of evangelization.” Therefore, the document is not a systematic treatment but only makes a few references to “certain factors,” which are related to the overall theme of the document—that is, evangelization. Thus Francis describes “some challenges of today’s world” and observes that “humanity is experiencing a turning-point in its history, as we can see from the advances being made in so many fields. We can only praise the steps being taken to improve people’s welfare in areas such as health care, education and communications.” The pope’s vision is therefore realistic and does not intend to demean the progress made so far.
“At the same time we have to remember,” he adds, “that the majority of our contemporaries are barely living from day to day, with dire consequences. A number of diseases are spreading. The hearts of many people are gripped by fear and desperation, even in the so-called rich countries. The joy of living frequently fades, lack of respect for others and violence are on the rise, and inequality is increasingly evident.” Note here the word used by Francis, “inequality,” a term that, as Fr. Salvini observed, “has a socio-economic ring to it” rather than being used with a moral connotation.3
“It is a struggle to live,” continues the pope, “and often to live with precious little dignity. This epochal change has been set in motion by the enormous qualitative, quantitative, rapid and cumulative advances occuring in the sciences and in technology, and by their instant application in different areas of nature and of life. We are in an age of knowledge and information, which has led to new and often anonymous kinds of power.”
“Just as the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life,” says Francis in the most contested section of the document, “today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.
“Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a ‘throw away’ culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised—they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the ‘exploited’ but the outcast, the ‘leftovers.’ ”
Returning to a theme dear to “committed” Latin American writings, Fr. Salvini points out in his analysis of the pope’s exhortation that: “The pope is no longer denouncing, as did Rerum Novarum during the years of Leo XIII, the exploitation of workers, but the exclusion of many individuals from active society, from work, from the future, which makes them feel useless; the pope also stresses the fact that people are being used and then thrown away, to the point of creating a ‘culture of waste.’ ”4
It is also worth noting, as another Jesuit, Fr. Diego Alonso-Lasheras, pointed out in one of his comments on the few pages of the exhortation dedicated to the economy in his book Evangelii Gaudium: il testo c’interroga (Evangelii Gaudium: An Exhortation that Questions Us), that also in Spanish, the language of the original text,
Expressions such as No a una economía de la exclusion or No a un dinero que gobierna en lugar de server’ should not be interpreted as absolute rejections of the economy or money. If that were the case, the pope would have used the definite article la or el, thus conveying the idea of a more general, categorical, and absolute condemnation. The same goes for the expression No a la nueva idolatría del dinero, where the “idolatry of money” or of any other similar reality would be completely unacceptable for a Christian. . . . The use of the indefinite article una or uno means that there are acceptable alternatives. The pope does not reject in block the economy or money, but only a particular way of doing economy, and a particular way of using money.5
In the next paragraph of Evangelii Gaudium (no. 54), the pope makes the only explicit and “technical” example, as he mentions “trickle-down” economic theories: “In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world.”
It is a theory based on the optimistic views of the economic growth of the 1950s and 1960s, according to which even the most needy layers of the population come to benefit from the fruits of such growth, thanks to market forces: a greater labor demand and an increase in productivity and wages. In short, economic growth flows automatically from the top of the social pyramid down, without the need for state intervention in favor of a more equitable income distribution. The economic strategies of the 1990s were founded specifically on this theory.
“This opinion,” as Francis goes on to observe, “which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting. To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed.” “Globalization of indifference” was the term that the pope coined during his quick visit to Lampedusa to commemorate the migrants who died at sea and to draw attention to those ongoing tragedies.
“Almost without being aware of it,” writes Francis in his exhortation, “we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase. In the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us.” The inability to cry, to be touched, to feel a wound in the flesh in the face of the tragedies of our brothers and sisters who live thousands of miles from us or before our eyes—all this defines the “globalization of indifference” that Francis condemns by calling for a reaction to this “anesthesia” of consciences.
In paragraph no. 55 of Evangelii Gaudium, Francis rejects the idolatry of money that characterizes our developed societies, which is a consequence of that “imperialism of money” courageously condemned eighty-two years before by Pope Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno.
“One cause of this situation,” observes the pope, referring to the current crisis, “is found in our relationship with money, since we calmly accept its dominion over ourselves and our societies. The current financial crisis can make us overlook the fact that it originated in a profound human crisis: the denial of the primacy of the human person! We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (Exod 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption.” Therefore, we are facing not only a financial-economic crisis or a stock market crisis due to speculative investments but first and foremost a crisis of humanity, one dominated by consumerism and one reduced to its needs alone.
“While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially,” continues Francis, “so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good.” Thus they call for the total freedom of markets, while any willingness on the part of nations to assume responsibility for the common good in order to protect the people “discarded” by the economy that “kills” is labeled as state control. In these few lines, Francis reminds us of the irreplaceable role of politics in the service of the common good of citizens, especially of those who are most in need. Globalization cannot prevent states, nations, or intermediary bodies from laying out a plan to build a system that, if not fair, at the very least does not increase economic inequality.
“A new tyranny,” continues the pope in his analysis, “is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules. Debt and the accumulation of interest also make it difficult for countries to realize the potential of their own economies and keep citizens from enjoying their real purchasing power. To all this we can add widespread corruption and self-serving tax evasion, which have taken on worldwide dimensions.” Corruption and “self-serving tax evasion” are well-known Italian phenomena—better yet, typically Italian—where hardly a week goes by without the revelation of new corruption cases at every level and where very often our political leaders behave in the most indecorous manner possible, to say the least. It is a country where the tax burden is also higher because of its large-scale evasion.
“The thirst for power and possessions,” writes Francis, “knows no limits. In this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which becomes the only rule.” Here, Francis makes an important point regarding the environment, seen as “fragile” before a “deified market.”
Thus the pope disapproves of money that rules instead of serving, money that from a means becomes an end. As the old proverb goes, money is a good servant, but a bad master. “Behind this attitude,” observes the pope in paragraph no. 57 of the exhortation,
lurks a rejection of ethics and a rejection of God. Ethics has come to be viewed with a certain scornful derision. It is seen as counterproductive, too human, because it makes money and power relative. It is felt to be a threat, since it condemns the manipulation and debasement of the person. In effect, ethics leads to a God who calls for a committed response which is outside the categories of the marketplace. When these latter are absolutized, God can only be seen as uncontrollable, unmanageable, even dangerous, since he calls human beings to their full realization and to freedom from all forms of enslavement. Ethics—a non-ideological ethics—would make it possible to bring about balance and a more humane social order. With this in mind, I encourage financial experts and political leaders to ponder the words of one of the sages of antiquity: “Not to share one’s wealth with the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood. It is not our own goods which we hold, but theirs.”
The passage quoted by Francis is from one of St. John Chrysostom’s sermons on Lazarus.
“A financial reform open to such ethical considerations,” writes the pope, “would require a vigorous change of approach on the part of political leaders. I urge them to face this challenge with determination and an eye to the future, while not ignoring, of course, the specifics of each case. Money must serve, not rule! The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but he is obliged in the name of Christ to remind all that the rich must help, respect and promote the poor. I exhort you to generous solidarity and to the return of economics and finance to an ethical approach which favours human beings.” This is a clear message to those who have political responsibilities. A call to accept less passively, almost as if they were inevitable, certain mechanisms and certain processes of the economy that “kills.” It is an appeal to politicians and politics in general to recover the appropriate leadership and a clear sense of their specific mission, which is to assume responsibility for all and build a society where no one is forced to fall behind. Of course, for the pope’s message and hope to become reality we would need politicians with a vision, able to trigger processes, and not just men and women concerned about their compensation or reelection and unwilling to implement positive reforms if they are not the ones to benefit directly from them at the polls. A clear example of the Italian situation is the absolute inability to implement policies in favor of families, with an adequate tax distribution based on the number of children or other dependents, and the absolute inability to come up, in a timely fashion, with research for adequate policies to encourage the rise of birthrates, as other countries have done decades ago (France, for example).
Therefore, Francis says “no to the inequality which spawns violence” and in paragraph no. 59 of Evangelii Gaudium he addresses the issue of security in our societies: “Today in many places we hear a call for greater security. But until exclusion and inequality in society and between peoples are reversed, it will be impossible to eliminate violence. The poor and the poorer peoples are accused of violence, yet without equal opportunities the different forms of aggression and conflict will find a fertile terrain for growth and eventually explode. When a society—whether local, national or global—is willing to leave a part of itself on the fringes, no political programmes or resources spent on law enforcement or surveillance systems can indefinitely guarantee tranquility.”
“This is not the case,” points out the pope, “simply because inequality provokes a violent reaction from those excluded from the system, but because the socioeconomic system is unjust at its root. Just as goodness tends to spread, the toleration of evil, which is injustice, tends to expand its baneful influence and quietly to undermine any political and social system, no matter how solid it may appear. If every action has its consequences, an evil embedded in the structures of a society has a constant potential for disintegration and death.”
Evil does not only dwell in our hearts. There is also an evil “crystallized in unjust social structures,” observes Francis, “which cannot be the basis of hope for a better future. We are far from the so-called ‘end of history,’ since the conditions for a sustainable and peaceful development have not yet been adequately articulated and realized.” This is one of the strongest statements in the document, recalling one of the distortions already denounced by John Paul II in the encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, when the then-pope spoke of “structures of sin.”
In the next paragaph of the exhortation, Pope Francis offers his reflections on consumerism:
Today’s economic mechanisms promote inordinate consumption, yet it is evident that unbridled consumerism combined with inequality proves doubly damaging to the social fabric. Inequality eventually engenders a violence which recourse to arms cannot and never will be able to resolve. It serves only to offer false hopes to those clamouring for heightened security, even though nowadays we know that weapons and violence, rather than providing solutions, create new and more serious conflicts. Some simply content themselves with blaming the poor and the poorer countries themselves for their troubles; indulging in unwarranted generalizations, they claim that the solution is an “education” that would tranquilize them, making them tame and harmless. All this becomes even more exasperating for the marginalized in the light of the widespread and deeply rooted corruption found in many countries—in their governments, businesses and institutions—whatever the political ideology of their leaders.
In a following passage, Francis also reflects on urban structures and the problems of big cities, which he well knows from his years as archbishop of Buenos Aires, the Argentinian capital and megalopolis. “Cities create a sort of permanent ambivalence because, while they offer their residents countless possibilities, they also present many people with any number of obstacles to the full development of their lives.” And for this reason, “Houses and neighbourhoods are more often built to isolate and protect than to connect and integrate.”
At the end of this brief analysis, one neither technical nor systematic, as this was not the purpose of the document, Pope Francis cites John XXIII’s famous speech at the solemn inauguration of the Second Vatican Council, when Francis’s predecessor distanced himself from the “prophets of doom,” explaining that “the evils of our world—and those of the Church—must not be excuses for diminishing our commitment and our fervour. Let us look upon them as challenges which can help us to grow.” By forcefully condemning a sterile pessimism, observes Fr. Gian Paolo Salvini in his analysis of Evangelii Gaudium, “the pope wants to remind us that one of the most serious temptations that ‘stifle boldness and zeal is a defeatism which turns us into querulous and disillusioned pessimists.’ One of our main challenges is to show that the solution will never be to escape from a personal relationship with God, which at the same time engages us with others.”6
Several pages later (paragraphs nos. 202–4), Francis’s exhortation returns to the theme of the economy and the distribution of income: “The need to resolve the structural causes of poverty cannot be delayed,” says Francis, “not only for the pragmatic reason of its urgency for the good order of society, but because society needs to be cured of a sickness which is weakening and frustrating it, and which can only lead to new crises. Welfare projects, which meet certain urgent needs, should be considered merely temporary responses. As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems. Inequality is the root of social ills.”
We must therefore “attack” the structural causes of “inequality”; we must question the “absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation” that for too long have been considered dogmatically unquestionable, to the point where financial perpetrators exploit the states’ political decisions to their advantage.
“The dignity of each human person and the pursuit of the common good,” writes Francis, “are concerns which ought to shape all economic policies. At times, however, they seem to be a mere addendum imported from without in order to fill out a political discourse lacking in perspectives or plans for true and integral development. How many words prove irksome to this system! It is irksome when the question of ethics is raised, when global solidarity is invoked, when the distribution of goods is mentioned, when reference is made to protecting labour and defending the dignity of the powerless, when allusion is made to a God who demands a commitment to justice. At other times these issues are exploited by a rhetoric which cheapens them.”
Only a few days after the publication of the exhortation, Francis received immediate proof of the level of irritation caused whenever someone decides to talk about global solidarity, distribution of wealth, and controversial financial-economic systems. The pope was rudely called a Marxist with little understanding of economics—and only because he does not worship the absolute autonomy of markets. This shows that his detractors understood very clearly the message of the Argentinian pope, who in another passage of the exhortation says: “We can no longer trust in the unseen forces and the invisible hand of the market. Growth in justice requires more than economic growth, while presupposing such growth: it requires decisions, programmes, mechanisms and processes specifically geared to a better distribution of income, the creation of sources of employment and an integral promotion of the poor which goes beyond a simple welfare mentality.”
In his exhortation, Francis also mentions the fundamentals of the Christian faith when facing the problems of the world, such as poverty and inequality. The gospel message is in fact characterized by a clear social content that is indisputable because “at the very heart of the Gospel is life in community and engagement with others.” For Christianity the infinite dignity of each human person is therefore essential; a dignity conferred by God with the creation of man “in his image and likeness.” And Jesus’ redemption has a social dimension, because “God, in Christ, redeems not only the individual person, but also the social relations existing between men.” Reiterating various points previously made, Francis writes: “From the heart of the Gospel we see the profound connection between evangelization and human advancement, which must necessarily find expression and develop in every work of evangelization.” Human advancement is closely connected with evangelization, because to evangelize means to take care of the needs of others, to be close to others, and to share the suffering of others; it is a commitment to respect the dignity of each human person. Related to this view is the pope’s insistence that the “protocol” by which Christians will be judged—as Jesus said—is to be found in chapter 25 of Matthew’s gospel. Therefore, everything we do for others has a transcendental dimension: “By her very nature the Church is missionary,” writes the pope, “she abounds in effective charity and a compassion which understands, assists and promotes.”
But Francis clearly explains, in this regard, that the commitment for the Christian is not merely about personal gestures to the poor and those in need: it calls for a commitment that engages us at every level of our human life and being. For this reason, Francis provides the following concrete examples while speaking of the inclusion of the poor in society, peace, and social dialogue.
Regarding inclusion of the poor in society, Francis explains that to remain indifferent to the cry of the poor, to be insensitive to their needs, excludes us from God’s plan. It requires a new mind-set, not just the generosity of some single random act. “We need to grow in a solidarity which ‘would allow all peoples to become the artisans of their destiny,’ since ‘every person is called to self-fulfilment.’ ” Francis here is quoting Paul VI’s encyclical Populorum Progressio. We have been entrusted with goods so that we preserve and increase them; but we do so serving the common good and giving back to the poor what they deserve.
A good example is food—specifically, how much of it is wasted in developed societies. We should all be scandalized by the fact that there is enough food for all and that hunger is caused by poor distribution and the income needed to purchase it. But we need to ensure not only food but well-being in all its aspects to make life worthwhile. Pope Francis asks for this care to become a priority, and to those who are shy and afraid of being manipulated, he says: “We should not be concerned simply about falling into doctrinal error, but about remaining faithful to this light-filled path of life and wisdom,” of service to the poor. “When Saint Paul approached the apostles in Jerusalem,” writes the pope, “to discern whether he was ‘running or had run in vain’ (Gal 2:2), the key criterion of authenticity which they presented was that he should not forget the poor (cf. Gal 2:10).” As Fr. Salvini observes in his analysis of Francis’s exhortation, “It is possible that in writing this, Pope Francis was thinking of one of the cardinal electors, also from South America, who had told him immediately after he had been elected pope, ‘don’t forget the poor.’ It is a criterion valid today, when we see growing around us a ‘new self-centered paganism.’ ”7
This is also why Francis repeated in Evangelii Gaudium his theme that the entire journey of the Christian experience is marked by the poor: “The option for the poor is primarily a theological category rather than a cultural, sociological, political or philosophical one.” And this option belongs to the most authentic tradition of the church. “This is why,” he says, “I want a Church which is poor and for the poor. They have much to teach us. Not only do they share in the sensus fidei, but in their difficulties they know the suffering Christ.”
Therefore, what Francis asks for, through the pages of Evangelii Gaudium, is to remove the structural causes of poverty by renouncing the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation. In short, we cannot let the markets govern themselves.
Francis makes clear that he is far from “proposing an irresponsible populism,” and adds, “If anyone feels offended by my words, I would respond that I speak them with affection and with the best of intentions, quite apart from any personal interest or political ideology. My words are not those of a foe or an opponent.” What Francis calls for is a “shared responsibility” for the good of all—that is, of the whole world. “We need a form of collaboration,” says Fr. Salvini, “that safeguards the sovereignty of nations, ensures the economic well-being of all countries, and not of just a few.”
“In particular, the pope would like us to be aware of the new forms of vulnerability that lead to new forms of poverty.”8
There are plenty of examples of this vulnerability: migrants, the victims of human trafficking, the new forms of slavery and exploitation, women, unborn children, “the most defenseless and innocent among us,” along with the natural environment.
In his exhortation, Francis reminds us of the duty to participate in political life, but he also states that “becoming a people demands something more” that requires an ongoing process in which “every new generation must take part.” Father Salvini summarizes for us the four principles set out by the pope, and of the greatest value to him, that are “related to constant tensions present in every social reality.”
These are principles that Francis believes will guide us in building peace. The first is: “Time is greater than space,” which means that we “need to give time to processes so that they can develop properly, without being obsessed with immediate results. In socio-political activities, it is essential to give the time necessary for processes to develop, more than possessing all the spaces of power.”
The second is: “Unity prevails over conflict.” Conflicts “are not preventable, but must be accepted, faced, and handled; they must be resolved in order to make them a link in the chain of new peace processes. ‘In this way it becomes possible to build communion amid disagreement,’ which does not mean erasing differences, but to resolve them on a higher plane that preserves the valuable potential of opposing positions. Christ has unified all things in himself, and the sign of this unity is peace.”
The third is: “Realities are more important than ideas.” “ ‘Realities simply are, whereas ideas are worked out,’ writes Francis in Evangelii Gaudium. Ideas are tools to capture, understand, and manage reality, but it is dangerous,” observes Fr. Salvini in his analysis of the exhortation, “to remain in the realm of words, images, or even sophistries. The proposals of politicians often seem clear and logical, but they are rejected because those who wrote them have kept them in the realm of pure ideas reducing politics to rhetoric. It’s not for nothing that Jesus, the word of God, became incarnate, became tangible reality. And this should never be lost from sight as a fundamental element of evangelization.”
The fourth principle is: “The whole is greater than the part.” There can be, and often there is, tension “between globalization and localization.” But we must avoid, as Fr. Salvini explained, “getting caught up either ‘in an abstract and globalized universe,’ or in a ‘museum of local folklore . . . doomed to doing the same things over and over, and incapable of being challenged by novelty or appreciating the beauty which God bestows beyond their borders. . . . The whole is greater than the part, but it is also greater than the sum of its parts.’ We work locally, but without losing sight of the broader perspective. The vision that the pope proposes, which has already become popular, is not the sphere, ‘where every point is equidistant from the centre,’ but the polyhedron, ‘which reflects the convergence of all its parts, each of which preserves its distinctiveness.’ ”9