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Evan Rosa: From the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, this is for the life of the world. A podcast about seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity.
I'm Evan Rosa with the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. Pope Francis died on Monday, April 21st, 2025, and to remember and celebrate his life, we're bringing out an episode from our archives. It features social ethicist and associate Professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia. Nicole Flores, Brian McNally Linz interviewed her in early 2021 about FRA ti, an encyclical teaching that Pope Francis published six months into the CVID 19 pandemic.
And from that encyclical, which. Is a letter to the whole world, not just Christians. He writes, let us dream then as a single human family, as fellow travelers sharing the same flesh as children of the same earth, which is our common home. Each of us bringing the richness of his or her beliefs and convictions, each of us with his or her own voice.
Brothers and sisters, all
personally, I loved him. I'm gonna miss him. He was a world leader. I felt like I could trust because he was so consistently humble, so consistently focused on channeling the suffering of the world toward the possibility of love and friendship, especially across immense, apparently irreconcilable differences.
He spoke the truth in love. We actually did a three part series on the Fratelli Tutti in Cyclical, and you can find them in episodes 51, 52, and 55 from. Early 2021. Thanks for listening today, and I'm gonna leave you with these words from Pope Francis', final will in testament, which was released on Monday.
Quote, the suffering that has become present in the last part of my life. I have offered to the Lord for peace and the world and brotherhood among peoples. Rest in peace.
Ryan McAnnally-Linz: I'm Ryan McLin with the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. On October 3rd, 2020, Pope Francis released an encyclical called Fratelli Ti translated by Francis as brothers and sisters. All the message came six months into a worldwide pandemic in the midst of an American political nightmare with dark clouds seeming to cover the entirety of the globe.
A papal encyclical is a letter from all people of. When F TUI came out, we thought this was an important opportunity to think about what all people, not just Catholics can receive from this hopeful message. So we decided to interview a few Catholic thinkers about the moral vision of F Tui for everyone in the same spirit as the encyclical, we wanted to uncover the insight and encouragement of the Pope in ways that can, in the words of Pope Francis, let us dream as a single human family, as fellow travelers sharing the same flesh.
Children of the same Earth, which is our common home. So over the next few weeks, we'll be releasing a series of conversations on Catholic social teaching, especially as it lives in Pope Francis' thought and his moral leadership on the global stage. We'll be talking to Nicole Flores, an ethicist whose assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia, father Martin Schlog, professor of Catholic Social thought at the University of St.
Thomas. Sister Helen Alford, a professor at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas in Rome, who has been appointed by the Pope himself to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, which advises the Pope on pressing social issues. In this episode, Nicole Flores explains papal and cyclicals and works through the moral vision of Elli Tui, highlighting Pope Francis' views on.
And finally the language of dreaming together of a different world.
Nicole, thanks for taking some time to talk with us. Thanks for having me. There's a lot I feel like we could learn from this conversation starting with some really basic stuff. Could you, could you start off by just telling us. What exactly is a papal encyclical?
Nichole Flores: Uh, essentially an encyclical is a letter from promulgated or sent out by the Pope, uh, in response to a set of issues, uh, that our society is facing and not just one particular society.
The distinctive feature of a Catholic social and.
Of these teaching beyond.
Are, are concerned about. It really wants to, uh, reach a very broad audience. So if you're listening to this podcast and you, uh, are a person of goodwill, uh, and, uh, want, you know, uh, justice for society and want good things for the society, you're, you're a.
Uh, excitingly, capacious in their, their, their audience. Uh, at the same time, it's important to recognize that the encyclicals, while they draw on the Christian scriptural tradition, they are often building on.
Teaching thoughts and so to really understand them and understand their depth, there's a bit of work that needs to be done. Catholic social tradition draws not just from scripture, but on the theological teachings, the church on the moral teachings of the church, but also.
Examining the signs of the times with looking at the world around us and seeing what are the challenges that face us today. So it's really remarkable. For example, that will always be an encyclical that is identified with the year 2020. These couple of years that we'll be in the midst of pandemic, it's one that helps us to enter into conversation about the common good and about solidarity and about, uh, how we relate to others in our society.
Um, because this is the thing that.
Ryan McAnnally-Linz: How would you translate it and, and what's its, what is its significance?
Nichole Flores: The literal trans translation is, uh, brothers all, or we, you know, we're all brothers. Um, and Pope Francis in response to obvious, uh, criticism that he would receive, uh, and has received in, uh, addressing the.
That it is, uh, inclusive at least of, uh, uh, male and female identified people, uh, cis people. Uh, he hasn't said, he hasn't called it, uh, necessarily, uh, people all or siblings Hall. The use of an Italian title actually, uh, builds on the tradition that he already has. Place from LA where, uh, he moves away from the use of, uh, Latin in, in his, um, in encyclical titles and uses a vernacular, a particular vernacular language.
Uh, it doesn't translate the title into other languages. So when we receive the encyclical in.
Brothers and sisters all, uh, it's called. And um, this aspect of, um, Francis' naming convention is really fascinating because it see, it seeks to establish an intimacy with a particular community in a particular people. It's.
From Argentina. Uh, he's actually from, I, I take pride in this. Uh, he's, uh, from the Flores neighborhood of Enos Aires. So he's, uh, from, uh, from Argentina, but he, his family, he's from an, an Italian immigrant family. Uh, so Italian is a, a special language to him, but he also. Sees these naming conventions of using either, um, Italian or the case of, uh, a a recent ex, uh, on, uh, the Amazon, uh, Amazonia.
He uses it for, um, he use a Spanish for a vernacular language title, which is a way of indicating, uh, familiarity and.
More of a goal of being universal and being something that, uh, signals the universal applicability, uh, and not so much an emphasis on, uh, local identity. So that's, I think,
Ryan McAnnally-Linz: really, uh, an enlightening window to view this through because the, the main themes of, uh, f have to do with, uh, the universal.
Friendship. So you might think that, uh, a Latin title that's meant to instantiate universality would be the way to go. Uh, but Francis is choosing this, this particularity as his way of opening onto the universal, uh, implications. I'm wondering if you.
Nichole Flores: Absolute, I should confess here, my own, uh, situatedness as, uh, uh, Latina in the United States, one with great interest in Latin America. So this is particularly exciting to me. Uh, but Pope Francis, of course, is the, the first Latin American.
The experiences, um, with experiences that have shaped him specifically from his Argentinian culture and with relationships that have formed him, uh, not just theologically, but pastorally socially, politically, from a different part of the world. So we. Catholicism and Christianity in general really burgeoning in and continuing to burge in not just Latin America, but in Africa and other global south context.
So it, it's a really big deal. I think that he, uh, from Latin America, and really what has happened is that.
On the theme of particularity and local culture in a way that I think ends up creating the context for this more universal message that he has. Uh, he so beautiful different points. He, he talks about. Local is something pride and in cultivating our localities.
American anthropology in which he is. Um, uh, thinking about these questions, uh, often in Latin American families or in, um, uh, context in the United States, uh, the communal sense of communal belonging, uh, is, uh, there's an.
Of each local context really sets the stage for him, saying now each locality, each individual, each particular, uh, nation or community, or even uses the language of neighborhood, is giving something to the common good that helps to form this universal, uh, to which we all are, um, obligated.
Ryan McAnnally-Linz: Can I ask, what would you say are the, are the two to three biggest, most momentous things that Francis uh, says in this encyclical? Where do you see it breaking new ground or really saying something that's gonna have lasting significance?
Nichole Flores: That's a really interesting and challenging question because in some ways.
The.
Way of looking at, at the world in a way that invites us to see difference while also emphasizing the necessity of us being a part of a global community and balancing those, uh, differences together. And I think he does this through how. Define. So in, um, is an encyclical, um, where he, uh, the, the role of faith as seen with the eyes of Christ.
So he has this aesthetic way of, of even framing what faith is that we.
Gazing over and over again to frame, um, how we come into relationship and how we should be in relationship with other people in the world, whether within our own local communities, within our national communities, or around the world. He is. Open our eyes and to see what's, um, uh, what's in front of us. And to see the faces of, of other people in society relating to others within our current global context requires being able to see them, but at the same time, uh, seeing itself is not enough.
And he really takes on, uh, digital media and social media and other ways of relating to, um, to people that really, uh, uh, undermine human dignity. And this is a constant theme, not just in uh, but throughout, uh, Catholic social thought and teaching is, uh, the. Of the human person. But he, um, I, in this document, I see him taking further steps to say, the way we have discourse in society and the way that we treat people in our, in our economy, in our politics, uh, in our laws, uh, undermines human.
This way, uh, the ways that social media reduce our ability to relate, relate to others. He uses the example of dialogue and, you know, dialogue's a, a crucial theme for him in the, in this encyclical as well, the importance of dialogue that we need that in order to, uh, to relate to one another and to, uh, understand each other's.
Social media that we're just basically talking to, you know, we're having, uh, um, you know, uh, our own grandstanding in tandem rather than actually, uh, having any kind of, um, encounter with, with others. And I think that's, um, one.
Or an object outta another person, but is really encountering, uh, the humanity of another person and learning to be a person in both a fully human and a human way. But also I think he's saying some important things about solidarity here that.
Solidarity. He says that solidarity is sometimes treated as a dirty word. There are important, uh, and significant chasms among Catholics ourselves about the best way to go about pursuing justice and.
The United States in real time, concurrent toul of this.
Whether or not a Catholic can vote for a Democratic candidate or how, uh, a Catholic must relate to, um, the nomination of a fellow Catholic to the Supreme Court and Haney Coney Barrett. Uh, there, there's all of this, uh, Catholic infighting that's, that happens. Uh, and some of it you, I.
For lack of a, a better word here, but there there's been a lot of, um, a lot of conflict and frustration over the meaning of solidarity. So I think that Pope Francis is trying to acknowledge that ongoing frustration and those ongoing conflicts and to.
Major contributions that I see or developments happening within the work,
Ryan McAnnally-Linz: the concept of human dignity, the inherent and incommensurable value of human beings has an incredibly important role in Catholic social thought. This is a deeply important concept in f Tui and acts as a foundational idea for Pope Francis'. Appeal to our common life as a single human family. He suggests that our commitment to seeing the dignity in each other will enable us to quote, contribute to the rebirth of a universal aspiration to fraternity and social friendship.
Nicole, social friendship and human dignity are both very significant and Fratelli. Tui. Mm-hmm. Let's start with social friendship. Fraternity, what's their place in the encyclical?
Nichole Flores: Uh, of course, social friendship is in the subtitle for this document and in important ways. Francis, while it's such a wide ranging document covering everything from economy to politics to dialogue, he's really concerned about the central theme of.
Our boundaries of difference, whether that's difference of, um, national belonging or religious belonging, belonging, even, uh, so
entire.
Ryan McAnnally-Linz: Okay. Yeah. What about human dignity, not just the concept.
What's the theological backdrop for that?
Nichole Flores: Human dignity is of course, central to Catholic social teaching, and that, uh, begins even in the earliest, uh, documents of the tradition where we're thinking about, uh, the, the rights of, of workers, the rights.
Wages, earnings
employer.
We, um, those of us who are familiar with um, uh, Hebrew scripture are aware that the theological underpinnings for this teaching are not new to Catholic social thoughts. Um, they, uh, emerge in, uh, Genesis one when we think about, um, uh.
And the scripture becomes central to Catholic social teaching, um, and becomes a, a focal point for, uh, not just Catholic ethics, but Christian ethics, uh, more broadly construed. So when you see references in, uh, whether fratelli or other, uh, Catholic social and cyclicals to human dignity. A reference to a much deeper tradition, both theologically within Catholicism to, uh, the, the dignity of the human person, um, uh, but also, uh, the scriptural witness of, um, uh, of dignity of the human person based on our creation in God's image.
Ryan McAnnally-Linz: What kind of implications does Francis draw out from this principle of human dignity in the encyclical?
Nichole Flores: Well, I think it becomes the basis for, um, reasserting rights, not just of the most powerful in society, but of those who are vulnerable. And this is an I.
How we're responding to covid, to the economy, to even, to dialogue that, um, it's necessary in our society to foreground the inherent dignity of those who are most vulnerable in society. In part because, uh, of those who are.
I think.
Our, we, we all have our dignity undermined in important ways on a daily basis, but the effects of that for those who are on the economic margins of, uh, the global economy or are on the social margins of their societies, say, uh, black people in the United States of America, that, um, dignity is not something that.
That is theologically true, that Black lives matter, black lives do matter. This is not theologically controversial. Um, and Catholic social teaching has the resources for, uh, for comprehending that both scripturally but also within, uh, the tradition of, of Catholic social thought. And we do.
Not, not just black Catholics, but black people in general in the United States, and the significance of reasserting dignity in, uh, our context today. But it takes a little bit of effort to kind of, um, draw out that theme a little bit, uh, in order to, uh, see its very clear relevance for our, um, racial situation in the United States.
Ryan McAnnally-Linz: Pope Francis uses the inspiring language of dreaming together. Nicole pointed this out to me during our conversation, and it's beautifully expressed in the encyclical writing, in the introduction about the very point of this letter to all people of goodwill. He says, here, we have a splendid secret that shows us how to dream and to turn our life into a wonderful adventure.
No one can face life in isolation. We need a community that supports and helps us in which we can help one another to keep looking ahead how important it is to dream together by ourselves. We risk seeing mirage things that are not there. Dreams, on the other hand, are built together. Let us dream then as a single human family, as fellow travelers sharing the same flesh as children of the same earth, which is our common home.
Each of us bringing the richness of his or her beliefs and convictions, each of us with his or her own voice. Brothers and sisters all here, Nicole, reflects on this language of dreaming together and its significance in Elli. Tui, you mentioned a while back that Francis is inviting or challenging us to into different dreams.
Mm-hmm. And I wondered.
Ways you feel yourself particularly challenged in your life by this text to dream differently? In what directions are you dreaming Broughted by Francis?
Nichole Flores: Hmm. When I was thinking about this encyclical with a couple of friends the other day, I, I was really ruminating on this, on this.
Meaningful dimension of the language. Because often, uh, often when an you, when.
I a young child, so now we talk about dreams all the time. Oh, what did dream about last night? You know, it's a very individualized thing. I'm in my sleep. It's a time when I'm, uh, by myself. You know, a dream is an actual thing that happens in an individual brain. So, so there's a way in, uh.
But that he's inviting us to dream together implies a, not only a conversation as he emphasizes, but I think for me, and related to, to the scholarship that I've done in, um, uh, solidarity and aesthetics, uh, it's.
Our aesthetic realities that attune us to the realities of others within what, at least in the United States, have often become very individualized realities. Maybe I'm in a distinct case because I don't live near people from my, uh, my originating, um.
I wouldn't have to really leave my little bubble of other university professionals or, you know, uh, uh, young professionals with families who live in my general neighborhood. I wouldn't have to, I have everything I need right at my fingertips, and unless I. Seek to encounter people who are different from me.
I don't really have to. And I think that language of Dream does more than just say, oh, you know, um, let's have a romantic vision of, uh, how reality could be for us if we dream together. We're, uh, coming into relationship.
I dream what we might be as a society. And now one risk of that language, both for, uh, Papa Francisco and for myself, is that it can be, um, fairly romantic. Like his, his teaching on politics is simultaneously, um, uh. Ent, but also very challenging. It's beguiling because he's saying, oh, we need a kind of, uh, politics of tenderness.
And a part of me says, yes, let's dream about that politics of tenderness. What does that look like? And then another part of me lives in the United States in 2020 and sees, you know, we've seen.
Politic, politic can be, you know, I might say one thing, uh, you know, four years ago with my fingers, uh, behind my back about what I think is right and good and what should be the norm. But when I have the opportunity to exercise power, I'm gonna do it. So we have on one hand the reality of where we're.
Invitation, perhaps a beguiling one to dream of what things might be. And I think for me, as someone who, uh, wants to have a political economic vision, social vision, that's, that takes into account reality. This encyclical is. Not just inviting me, but really even challenging me to imagine something different.
Or as my, my colleague, uh, at UVA as Sean Crowley says, uh, uh, imagine, um, an an otherwise possibility. What does our world look like if we suspend this need to cons? Be grounded in the real and start to entertain. What else might be
Ryan McAnnally-Linz: Nicole? Thanks so much for introducing us to Elli. Tui. Yeah,
Nichole Flores: you're quite welcome.
Ryan McAnnally-Linz: That's it for this episode, but we'll be back with another installment of our exploration of Ferelli TUI in the coming weeks. We'll continue our conversations with Nicole Flores, sister Helen Alford, and Father Martin Schlog on economics work and personal property. Thanks for listening. Friends
Evan Rosa: for The Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at Yale Divinity School. This episode featured Nicole Flores and Ryan McInally. Lins. Production assistance by Alexa Rollo, Emily Brookfield, Casey Barrett, Zoey Halliman, and Macy Bridge. I'm Evan Rosa and I edit and produce the show.
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