(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 07.29.2024).- Pope Francis’s prayer intention for August is for political leaders. The Pope Video accompanies the Pope’s request in that context, as he invites politicians “to be at the service of their own people.”
In his video message, distributed by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, Pope Francis admits that, although “today politics doesn’t have a very good reputation, it is much more noble than it appears.” And he adds that moving “ahead toward universal fraternity” goes hand in hand with “good politics.”
A world without politics?
“Today, politics doesn’t have a very good reputation: corruption, scandals, distant from people’s day-to-day lives.” In his message introducing his prayer intention this month, the Pope’s opening words seem to say what many of us are thinking – that politics is a dirty business in the hands of those who only think of getting rich or holding power. In the eyes of the normal person, those who dedicate themselves to politics should be viewed with suspicion – it’s taken for granted they have some hidden personal interest.
Nevertheless, as the video goes by, it becomes clear that Pope Francis is saying something different. He is reminding us all that another type of politics is always possible, a “POLITICS with all capital letters,” as he calls it, at the service of the people, in particular, of the poorest. We all need “good politics,” Pope Francis highlights, if we want to “move ahead toward universal fraternity.” The temptation to get rid of politics, often raised by populists of every type, is a huge delusion.
The images accompanying his words attempt to show precisely this. Alternating real life situations from two different contexts: one in which people are on their own (a refugee woman, an unemployed man, children without water, a person on the street); and another in which people have instead found a response to their problem – sometimes an emergency response, other times, a more lasting one. In effect, a world without good politics versus the world with good politics.
A service of charity for the people
Politics can be challenging to the moral character of those who participate in it. Nevertheless, it can also be a vocation worthy of holiness and virtue. In this regard, at the beginning of the video, the Pope recalls the words of Pope Paul VI who defined politics as “one of the highest forms of charity because it seeks the common good.”
It’s a matter of a social consciousness that overcomes individualism in favor of a greater good – the people. This is why Christians, especially the laity, are called to participate in political life, to collaborate in building a more just and supportive society. “Individuals can help others in need, when they join together in initiating social processes of fraternity and justice for all, they enter the ‘field of charity at its most vast, namely political charity.’” Pope Francis wrote, reflecting on this theme in his encyclical Fratelli Tutti (2020).
At the service of the poor
In his message, Pope Francis asserts that good politics is not “holed up in huge buildings with large hallways,” but “listens to what is really going on,” is “at the service of the poor,” and is “concerned about the unemployed.”
When a politician does not allow space for dialogue, cooperation and the commitment to the dignity of people – key aspects that the Pope emphasizes in Fratelli Tutti – the integral development of society is not achieved. Problems such as hunger, poverty, war, or the environmental crisis, to name a few, continue to be exacerbated due to egotistical and power hungry political leadership.
The challenges of politics
Father Frédéric Fornos S.J., International Director of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, asks, “Pray for political leaders? Political leaders are who we make of them. Instead of fueling contempt for them with our words and thoughts, let’s help them to be the men and women we would like them to be. Let’s pray for them, as Pope Francis invites us to do. What courage it takes to be where they are and to try to live uprightly. They invest themselves totally: their time, their family life, their capabilities, their physical energy, their reputation…. How easy it is to think, “it’s greed, it’s power, it’s money, it’s their ego.” At times that is true. But at the same time, there are many who truly serve the common good. And us? What are we doing? What would we do in their place? The least we can do is pray for them.”
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