With a sober solemnity, celebrating Mass, without delivering a homily, Pope Francis signed today in Assisi, Italy, his third encyclical, Fratelli tutti(Brothers all – no official translation of the title). He did so this Saturday afternoon, October 3, 2020, in the Lower Basilica of Assisi where the Tomb of St. Francis, the saint who died at the Portiuncula on the evening of a day like today in 1226, is located.
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I deliver this social encyclical as a humble contribution to reflection so that, in the face of various and current forms of eliminating or ignoring others, we may be able to react with a new dream of fraternity and social friendship that does not remain just words
“, reads the Pope’s Twitter account.
The text of the Encyclical “Fratelli tutti” will be published this Sunday, October 4, feast of the Saint of Assisi, after midday, until the end of Pope Francis’ greeting to pilgrims after the Angelus prayer.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s latest encyclical is also the first of the coronavirus era: “The pandemic is a crisis and from a crisis we do not come out the same: either we come out better or we come out worse”, he explained on more than one occasion in the cycle of nine catecheses on the theme of “healing the world”.