Four principles, many questions and the unfinished challenge of reconciled diversity

By Juan Maquieyra

Director of Fratelli Tutti Political School

Ten years into Francis' papacy, it occurs to me that the best way to "pay tribute" (I suspect the Pope would not like this phrasing) to his work in this decade is to bring some of his profound and powerful preaching to illuminate, or at least to challenge our present. Instead of enumerating or summarising his entire legacy of these first ten years, which has been done and much better than could be done here, to challenge our present with questions that emerge from his teachings.

Since this writer recognizes himself vocationally as a politician and is part of the Fratelli Tutti Political School, a learning community for men and women with a political vocation, each of the questions that follow from each principle are addressed to those who share that beautiful and deep calling to serve their communities through politics.

What comes next is a limited and partial attempt to take four principles that the Pope has been proposing for decades (the first version is from '74, when he was a Jesuit Provincial) to guide "the development of social coexistence and the construction of a people where differences are harmonized in a common project".

1° Time is greater than space

Any profound social transformation, any path that is truly rooted in the people, takes time and is nourished by time. Learning takes time, changes in habits take time, structural reforms take time.

Often, driven by the healthy desire to do good, we focus all our attention on making changes "right now" and, therefore, on occupying the spaces that allow us to make those changes. Politics is then transformed into an exercise of constant calculation and negotiation, to see who gets which "position", losing sight of the fact that any substantive transformation needs those spaces, but much more it needs to initiate processes that involve the different vital forces of the community in order to be sustained.

In the words of Pope Francis,

"prioritising space is about initiating processes rather than owning space. It is about giving priority to actions that generate new dynamism in society and involve other people and groups that will develop them, until they bear fruit in important historical events".

In our political activity, do we realise the importance of initiating rooted processes? Do we make the spaces we occupy aware of the importance of putting them at the service of the initiated process?

2° Unity is superior to conflict

In politics, with conflicts, there are always two great temptations: the first one is to ignore them, to hide them, to pretend that with good administration we can satisfy the needs and desires of each person and community. The other is to get caught up in the conflict, to develop an identity against the other, losing one's own resources, and pretending that the ultimate goal of politics is to win the conflict by taking the other out of the game.

In this sense, Francis says:

"Conflict cannot be ignored or disguised. It must be embraced. But if we get caught up in it, we lose perspective, horizons are limited and reality itself is fragmented. When we stop at the conjuncture of conflict, we lose the sense of the deep unity of reality".

Assuming conflict implies one of the most challenging tasks facing anyone who wants to do politics: the acceptance of the other, of their dignity, of their humanity; the realization that despite our ideological, political or identity differences, that "other" has the same right as anyone else to inhabit this soil and to want to represent the members of the community we share.

It is even more difficult to have the courage to take the first step, to open up to the possibility of encounter when the other seems closed or refuses to engage in dialogue. However, the stories of great human transformations that we often admire are the result of this greatness and of these first steps.

Perhaps this is the key: having the courage to build a community with those who think differently, a community in which everyone is welcomed in their uniqueness and has the tools to be able to unfold their full potential. This place of arrival, this embracing community, according to the Pope,

"overcomes any conflict in a new and promising synthesis. Diversity is beautiful when it constantly accepts to enter into a process of reconciliation, until a kind of cultural pact is sealed that brings about a reconciled diversity.

And back to the questions we could ask ourselves:

What are the major conflicts in our community? Which components of these conflicts are based on real differences that must be respected and sustained? Which respond to fears or ambitions of the "leaders" rather than to the needs and desires of the communities they represent? What part of these conflicts can we take charge of and take responsibility for in the quest to promote a culture of encounter?

3° Reality is more important than the idea

Politics is always at risk of falling in love with speeches, narratives, outlandish plans, closed ideologies or interpretations of reality that are not in dialogue either with reality itself or with the interpretations of others.

Anyone who has been involved in politics and has made mistakes, as this writer has, pretending that these plans or ideas were more relevant than reality, knows what we are talking about here. We must always, always, start from what is, from the concrete reality of the communities we serve, those of us who feel the call of a political vocation. The first thing that matters is the pain of the community we serve, the concrete need, the need to be addressed, then come the great projects, the great ideas, the great debates.

Once again Francis calls us from Evangelli Gauidum:

"There are politicians - and even religious leaders - who wonder why the people do not understand them and do not follow them, if their proposals are so logical and clear. Possibly it is because they have settled into the realm of pure ideas and reduced politics or faith to rhetoric. Others forgot simplicity and imported from outside a rationality alien to the people".

In the light of this principle we could ask ourselves: Are the projects and agendas I am promoting inspired and born in the reality of the community I serve or in the ideas/ideologies I profess? Is it possible to integrate the ideas and values from which I draw with the concrete reality of my community?

4° The whole is superior to the part

To illustrate this principle, I believe that the image of the polyhedron introduced by the Pope is necessary:

"The model is not the sphere, which is not superior to the parts, where each point is equidistant from the centre and there is no difference between one and the others. The model is the polyhedron, which reflects the confluence of all the parts that retain their originality".

The tension between prioritising the "whole" or the "part" is at the heart of every political community. Like any tension, it does not have a final, static, perfect solution. Time and again we will have to debate as a society about the public and the private, the group and the individual, the whole and the part. I believe that the image of the polyhedron is powerful because it does not provide a final solution, but it takes care of both poles of the tension, that of the whole and that of the uniqueness of the part, that of the community in general and the inviolability of the dignity of each person, and it gives us a key to make politics from there.

Inspired then by this last principle, we can ask ourselves:

Do we generate the conditions to be able to have a common project while allowing the potential of each person to unfold? When thinking about my community/my country, do we do so from models that standardise those who inhabit it or do we open ourselves to the vertigo of difference? Do we always have as an inviolable principle the dignity of each and every one of those who make up the community?

To conclude, and so that the Pope's gaze and work may continue to challenge us, I would like to share some lines from his latest book "I pray to you in the name of God". In Chapter No. 4, where he speaks again specifically about the importance of politics and highlights the enormous work of Scholas Ocurrentes in Argentina and the world, promoting the involvement of young people in building a culture of encounter. The Pope says:

"I believe in Politics, with a capital 'P', as a tool of transformation for the lives of our brothers and sisters. I believe in a Politics that is service and shows itself as a guide for the people to organise and express themselves".

What a great thing for those of us who have a political vocation and who try, with more mistakes than successes, to follow the path of service, to have a Pope who always puts Politics at the centre, contrary to the current culture. We are called to be up to the task, to allow ourselves to be challenged by his word, his work, his example, and to be able to build communities where everyone can unfold and where diversity is reconciled.