Treating people with kindness is a serious responsibility

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

The sixth chapter of the 2020 papal encyclical Fratelli Tutti (On Fraternity and Social Friendship) is entitled “Recovering Kindness.” Pope Francis’s call for a return to a style of social interaction that is respectful, tolerant, and, in a word, “kind,” came just before the COVID-19 pandemic caught the whole world in its grip causing untold suffering, economic hardship and social unrest. The pope’s words also predate the outbreak of violence and the “madness of war” in Ukraine and other regions of the world.

As Pope Francis has repeatedly said, “Every war leaves our world worse than it was before. War is a failure of politics and of humanity, a shameful capitulation, a stinging defeat before the forces of evil” (Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti #261). With this in mind, today’s challenge to recover kindness through respectful dialogue, civility, and a commitment to genuine peace among nations is a serious responsibility that none of us should ignore.

Where does unkindness occur? In our homes and local communities, to be sure, but most often we see unkindness in the political arena. Public discussion and debate too often degenerate into name calling, accusations of callous indifference and wrongdoing, and “leaks” of sensitive (often scandalous) information by opponents seeking to gain an unfair advantage over people they disagree with. To recover kindness in our dealings with one another, we must have a significant change of heart—and of practice—in our social interaction at all levels of discourse.

The social problems addressed by Pope Francis in Fratelli Tutti are complex, but they all stem from a simple root cause. We have forgotten, or we never learned, that we are all members of God’s family. Whatever our differences may be, we remain united as brothers and sisters who share the same dignity inextricably bound to one another because we are all made in the image and likeness of God our Father.

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