Dear Friends
I have just written the first draft of the paper I shall deliver at our conference at St Mary's on Laudato Si. It will be on November 17th and all are welcome (it is being organised by Prof Geoff Hunt) however if you need any further details please email me. I shall put the details up here once they are ready.
It really was a joy to read the encyclical carefully and I hope the following inspires you to turn to it again.
Best Wishes
Peter
The Francis Project: The Spirituality of Laudato Si’
Most
High, all powerful, good Lord,
Yours are the praises, the glory, the honor,
and all blessing.
To You
alone, Most High, do they belong,
and no-one is worthy to mention Your name.
Be
praised, my Lord, through all your creatures,
especially through my lord Brother Sun,
who brings the day; and you give light through him.
And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor!
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.
Praise
be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon
and the stars, in heaven you formed them
clear and precious and beautiful.
Praised
be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind,
and through the air, cloudy and serene,
and every kind of weather through which
You give sustenance to Your creatures.
Praised
be You, my Lord, through Sister Water,
which is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.
Praised
be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom you light the night and he is beautiful
and playful and robust and strong.
Praised
be You, my Lord, through Sister Mother Earth,
who sustains us and governs us and who produces
varied fruits with colored flowers and herbs.
Praised
be You, my Lord,
through those who give pardon for Your love,
and bear infirmity and tribulation.
Blessed
are those who endure in peace
for by You, Most High, they shall be crowned.
Praised
be You, my Lord,
through our Sister Bodily Death,
from whom no living man can escape.
Woe to
those who die in mortal sin.
Blessed are those whom death will
find in Your most holy willl,
for the second death shall do them no harm.
Praise
and bless my Lord,
and give Him thanks
and serve Him with great humility.
Introduction
The poetic hymn of St
Francis of Assisi from which Pope Francis takes the title of his encyclical
‘Laudato Si’ encompasses, as the pope acknowledges, much of what we could call
‘Franciscan’ – orientated spirituality. By taking the name of the Poverello at his enthronement, Cardinal
Jorge Bergoglio was clearly initiating what Leonardo Boff has termed the
‘Francis Project’ (Boff 36).
My argument in this short paper is that the encyclical as a whole can be
understood as a manifesto for an ‘integrated humanity’ as well, as is now
clear, a call for an ‘integral ecology’. In making this claim I shall stick
closely to the structure of the encyclical whilst suggesting links with
Franciscan sources such as the work of St Bonaventure.
However, before we get too excited with the conceptual,
ecclesial and spiritual possibilities of a new ‘Franciscan Revolution’ I think
it important to stress the continuities and, dare I say it, traditional aspects
of Laudato Si as it fits into the
broad stream of papal teaching over the past 50 years. In this respect, as was
celebrated at St Mary’s last year, I think the fons et origo for the Franciscan Revolution lies in the work of
his predecessor, Blessed Pope Paul VI, and especially his groundbreaking
encyclical Ecclesiam Suam. Here, Pope
Paul argues that for the Church to be true to itself
and its mission it must engage in a
dialogue with those beyond the boundaries of the Church (ES: 18). The dialogue
initiated by Pope Paul was to be non-coercive, universal, not aimed at conversion,
to produce clarity, to be expressed in ordinary language and to be centred on
humility. It was to be constructed in an atmosphere of mutual charity and
fellowship and adaptable to the needs of each participant (ES 75,76, 79, 81).
If we had time we could extrapolate this new spirit of dialogue through the
intervening pontificates of John Paul 1, Saint John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
Before his resignation, for example, Pope Benedict stressed in 2012 that the
church ‘represents the memory of what it is to be human in the face of a
civilization of forgetfulness’ and that dialogue ‘does not aim for conversion
but at understanding’ and that ‘both parties to the dialogue remain consciously
within their respective identities’.
Pope
Francis’ latest encyclical can thus be seen as the latest stage of that
engagement the Church has sought with the modern world since the ‘opening of
the windows’ of the Second Vatican Council. Francis pointedly addresses the
encyclical to ‘all people of good will’ and ends not only with a Christian
prayer but a prayer to share ‘with all who believe in a God’ (LS 246). In this
respect the encyclical goes further than that of his predecessors by
supplementing biblical and patristic quotes, and the sayings of his predecessor
popes with scientific and economic references as well as references to poets
(Dante Alghieri), non-Catholic writers such as HAH Bartholomew and John
Chryssavgis and even a Muslim sufi mystic (Ali al-Khawas, LS 223).
The
encyclical is therefore a dialogue
and aims to initiate dialogue, I am
sure the Pope would therefore be delighted with our little gathering today! All
of which, for Pope Francis, takes place around an extended reflection on the
person of St Francis who, for Pope Francis shows us ‘the heart of what it is to
be human’ (LS 3) and thumbnail sketches of whom occur throughout the narrative.
Such a meditation is what the pope calls an ‘integral ecology’ that ‘calls for
openness to categories which transcend the language of mathematics and biology,
and take us to the heart of what it is to be human’ (LS 11). In this respect
the structure of the Encyclical reminds us of one of the great followers and
interpreters of St Francis – the Seraphic Doctor, St
Bonaventure. In his
‘Ascent of the Mind to God’ (Like
Laudato
Si in 6 chapters) the saint envisages six steps on our path from imprints
of God in his creation, through reflection on that creation to the vision of
God himself. In this Bonaventure (consumed with six-ness) makes explicit
reference to St Francis’s own six-ted vision of the wings of the Seraphim
during the famous ecstasy at Mount La Verna.
Thus,
the encyclical calls for science and religion to enter urgently into a dialogue
fruitful for both whilst both having ‘distinctive approaches to understanding
reality’ (LS 17, 62) a conversation that the pontiff hopes will ultimately draw
in everyone (LS 17).
From
this perspective, then, the rest of the encyclical derives. Drawing, so the
pope says, on ‘the results of the best scientific research available’ (LS 15),
we must let ourselves be ‘touched deeply’ to provide a ‘concrete foundation for
the ethical and spiritual itinerary that follows’. Such solid scientific
foundations, once juxtaposed with ‘principles drawn from the Judaeo-Christian
tradition’ will, so hopes the Pope, lead to ‘broader proposals for dialogue and
action’ (LS 15). His Latin American background in the liberationist schools that exhorted Christians to
‘See-Judge-Act’ seems to surface here as he stresses that ‘change is impossible
without motivation and a process of education’. Again, throughout the
encyclical there are numerous emotive pictures of suffering humanity in
distress to ensure we are moved by the end to the change and action the Pope
wants (eg see LS 19). However, where Pope Francis’ work would differ from the
work of a Franciscan interpreter such as Bonaventure, is that instead of the
Seraphic Doctor’s journey upwards to the ‘vision of the Blessed Trinity in its
primary name’. Pope Francis, rather, presents us with a circle (a true encyclical?) whereby we end not with a clash of
cymbals and the Choirs Immortal but rather the ordinary everyday action whereby
we save the planet through being more careful with what we put in our dustbins
and how many times we walk to work. In this respect, I would argue, we see here
more the face of Fr Jorge Bergoglio SJ, the simple Jesuit who recalls St
Ignatius’ vision to ‘attain love’ at the end of his book of Spiritual Exercises where we are urged
not to disappear into the rapt embrace of the choirs invisible but rather to
take the difficult road of service of others as we find ‘God in all things’ (a
phrase lovingly referenced in LS itself).
