CHURCH AND FRATERNITY IN FRANCISCO'S THOUGHT: NOTES FROM FRATELLI TUTTI

Abstract

This article aims to present some notes that make it possible to verify how Pope Francis understands the paths that the Church must take, as well as his exhortation to fraternity. In particular, the research will address Pope Francis' thinking on these two topics, since the Encyclical Letter Fratelli Tutti. In addition, it is intended to contribute with the notes presented, to the recognition in perspective of continuity the teachings of Pope Francis, contemplated not as a Pope "founder" of a new Church, or of an ecclesiology, but Successor of the Apostle Peter, that is, a continuator of the Magisterium already enunciated and initiated above all by the corpus of the Social Doctrine of the Church, especially in the Second Vatican Council. In order to carry out this investigation, the Encyclical in question will be analyzed, bringing out some of the principles of the text, relying on some other documents that make up the social teaching of the Church. The method adopted will be deductive. As for the methodology, this will be a literature review, in the form of an article. In this sense, it is possible to note that the Church presented by Pope Francis is a Church of 'presence' and 'dialogue' - which proposes a dialogue with all people of good will -, these terms being fundamental to understand his social writings as the result of a concern of the Church, not only of the Pontiff, since the Second Vatican Council.