Fratelli Tutti
A Global Commentary
Edited by William T. Cavanaugh, Carlos Mendoza Álvarez, Ikenna Ugochuwku Okafor, and Daniel Franklin
Cascade Books, 360 pages, $64
Here a set of 32 critical essays from Roman Catholic theologians around the world offers a global commentary on Pope Francis’s 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti. You can’t but first ask: why a review for the largely Episcopal readers of The Living Church? The simple answer is, this global commentary is an invitation to read Pope Francis’ encyclical, which offers a compelling testimony of the nature of Christian faith as life in Christ, as the way of love in “walking together” in the time of our lives.
Clearly written and available to all, Fratelli Tutti is available free online and in print at a modest price. This commentary offers both a general introduction to the encyclical and detailed accounts from across the world on life in Christ. For overviews, see the introduction by William T. Cavanaugh, pp.1-5, and Roberto Tomicha-Charupa and Ernestina Lopez-Bac, “Dreaming a New Humanity: Human-Cosmic Synodality from the Perspective of the Foreigner and the Hidden Exile,” pp.101-10.
Further, the global commentary follows the encyclical in moving from the “dark clouds over a closed world” to the Good Samaritan and the love that calls persons into life together in Christ. Expressed in the image of synodality, life in Christ is walking together in love, not as an ideal to be achieved but in a way of life in which recognition of another draws persons together beyond themselves in friendship, in compassion, mutual care and joy, as one family — hence the title: Fratelli Tutti (all brothers).
Most significantly, the global commentary is an instrument of synodality, a forum among church leaders — ordained, religious, and lay, men and women, theologians, professors and indigenous community leaders.
The different essays begin with the crises of the worlds in which we live and give voice to how Christian communities experience the crises, have responded, and see how they need to respond to address what threatens life together As evidenced in pandemics, climate warming, the failure of a world economy, poverty and migrations, and all that leads to violence, failed states, and failed interventions, together the essays call and inform Christians as prophets and evangelists. In this sense, Fratelli Tutti and the Global Commentary offer a contemporary account of the social teachings of the church, not as a universal moral code but as a matter of a holy life that begins in walking together in love.
Altogether, this Global Commentary is a gift of the Roman Catholic Church to all who seek to hear what the Spirit is saying as a matter of walking together, and in that naming, supporting, and developing the instruments of synodality. Such is the nature of love as “walking together” in the life of the world. And such is the nature of synodality in the life of churches and between churches.
Dr. Timothy F. Sedgwick is the Clinton S. Quin professor emeritus of Christian Ethics at Virginia Theological Seminary. His is the author of The Christian Moral Life(Seabury Books), Sex, Moral Teaching, & The Unity of the Church (Morehouse Publishing), and Saving Memory and the Body of Christ: A Moral Liturgical Theology (Fortress Academic).
