“You all know that the duty of the conclave was to give a bishop to Rome. It seems that my brother cardinals have come almost to the ends of the Earth to get him... but here we are.” This is how Pope Francis greeted the crowd gathered in St. Peter's Square to welcome him after his election as bishop of Rome. The "ends of the Earth" to which the new pontiff refers is his birthplace, Argentina, a "peripheral" country with respect to the West. Behind what appears to be a simple witticism, Pope Francis suggested one of the crucial points of his pontificate: the possibility of changing the point of view, of rethinking Christianity not starting from what has so far been its "center"—Rome and the West—but from the suburbs, or the "forgotten" places where the need to operate according to Christian values has become more urgent every day.
In continuity with this new perspective on the "other," Pope Francis addresses each and every person as brothers and sisters. From this new perspective, the Abu Dhabi Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together and the encyclical Fratelli Tutti were born, which offer believers and non-believers tools for reflection and discernment. Even if the origin of the encyclical is the Christian faith, it provides space for a reflection on the problems of our time. A Christianity that is critical not only towards politics, the economy, communication, the environment, but also towards itself. A Christianity capable of questioning itself and asking questions rather than offering pre-packaged answers and, precisely for this reason, capable of calling every human being to take a stand in a conscious way.
Gianni Vattimo’s conversation with Debora Tonelli started from these reflections on the center and the other, on what it means to be Christian today, and on the value of the Christian message beyond belonging to the faith and to the Church. It was a dialogue that arises from the desire to consciously and responsibly accept the pontiff's invitation to discuss the theme of brotherhood and sisterhood with the aim not of developing a theory, but to stimulate constructive reflection on the problems of our time. The only possible Christianity is, in fact, the one embodied by each and every one in their own history, in their own time, in the web of relationships that today can no longer be limited to the small circle of "significant others"—those who are physically close to us—but rather extended to the human family.
This event was part of the series Questioni di Civiltà, co-sponsored by La Civiltà Cattolica and Georgetown University.
Participants
Antonio Cecere (moderator) is vice president of Filosofia in Movimento.
Gianni Vattimo is a philosopher.
Debora Tonelli is the Georgetown University representative in Rome.