Lacking a Plan for Everyone 1

15. The best way to dominate and gain control over people is to spread despair and discouragement, even under the guise of defending certain values. Today, in many countries, hyperbole, extremism and polarization have become political tools. Employing a strategy of ridicule, suspicion and relentless criticism, in a variety of ways one denies the right of others to exist or to have an opinion. Their share of the truth and their values are rejected and, as a result, the life of society is impoverished and subjected to the hubris of the powerful. Political life no longer has to do with healthy debates about long-term plans to improve people’s lives and to advance the common good, but only with slick marketing techniques primarily aimed at discrediting others. In this craven exchange of charges and counter-charges, debate degenerates into a permanent state of disagreement and confrontation.

16. Amid the fray of conflicting interests, where victory consists in eliminating one’s opponents, how is it possible to raise our sights to recognize our neighbours or to help those who have fallen along the way? A plan that would set great goals for the development of our entire human family nowadays sounds like madness. We are growing ever more distant from one another, while the slow and demanding march towards an increasingly united and just world is suffering a new and dramatic setback.

(From Pope Francis’ Encyclical Letter, Fratelli Tutti, On Fraternity and Social Friendship, articles 15-16)
 
COMMENT:

• ­I was thinking of the value and precious presence of the elderly in our parish. They are coming from a world, the world of their parents and great-grand parents, which still was a good listener. Their first reactions, through their life experience, are love, attention, patience and listening. They have a special call among us, namely, to show a living alternative to the present culture of mistrust and refusal. Resistance and renewal to the present maladies comes form grass-root level. And the love of our elderly is so real and so close at hand!