SLIKA BOŽJA – IZVOR SVEOPĆEG BRATSTVA I NJEZINO ZNAČENJE U ENCIKLICI FRATELLI TUTTI
THE IMAGE OF GOD - THE SOURCE OF UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD AND ITS MEANING IN THE ENCYCLICAL FRATELLI TUTTI

Summary/Abstract: On the feast of St. Francis of Assisi in 2020, Pope Francis published his social encyclical Fratelli tutti on universal human brotherhood and social friendship, inspired precisely by the Saint’s experience as brothers and sisters not only of sun, sea and wind, but in a special way of those who are flesh and blood, regardless of differences in origin, nationality, skin color and religion. Such love of St. Francis’s devotion to his brothers and sisters is proportional to his devotion to God. The reason for this lies in the biblical and anthropological truth that man was created in the image of God (Gen 1, 26). From this fact emerges the existential communion of every man with God, on the basis of which he inherits the inviolability of his own dignity and thus discovers the logical call of universal brotherhood. It is about living in primordial harmony with everyone, which belongs to the essence of human reality. The book of Genesis speaks of the original harmony disturbed by the first sin. This is precisely why it was necessary for the fullness of man’s primordial and eschatological brotherly reality to be revealed in Jesus Christ, God and man, the new Adam, who is not ashamed to call all men his brothers (cf. Heb 2:11). Christ is the ultimate image of the invisible God (cf. Col 1:15), equal to man in everything except sin (cf. Heb 4:15). Such a revelation about God and brother man in the incarnate Word not only restores man’s primordial identity and his dignity, but connects every man with filial bonds of God’s family and proclaims the truth of eschatological brotherhood. It is about agreeing with the natural announcement, announced already in the act of creation. In this sense, universal brotherhood stands against the experience of sin, which is manifested today in contemporary attempts to isolate, reject and ignore others, but painful relativization of human identity in gender ideology. This is exactly why Pope Francis necessarily and justifiably talks about humanity as a unique human family, considering all people, with their own characteristics, brothers and sisters, fellow travelersm who share the same body, that is, children of the same country that is their common home.

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