Politics and fraternity

Politics and Fraternity

When love can reach out to an entire city

It would be good to invite all those involved in politics to make a pact of fraternity for the benefit of their country, one that puts its good above all partial interests whether those of individuals, groups, classes or parties.

Yes, fraternity offers surprising possibilities. It helps to bring together and give value to demands that otherwise could develop into insoluble conflicts. It harmonizes the experience of local autonomy with the sense of a shared history. It strengthens our awareness of the importance of international organizations and all those systems that attempt to overcome barriers and take important steps toward the unity of the human family.

Fraternity can give rise to projects and actions in the complex political, economic, cultural and social fabric of our world. Fraternity brings peoples out of their isolation and can offer the opportunity for development to those still excluded from it. It shows us how to resolve differences peacefully and relegates war to history books. Fraternity in action allows us to dream and even to hope for some kind of communion of goods between rich countries and poor countries.

The profound need for peace expressed by humanity today indicates that fraternity is not only a value, not only a method, but also the global paradigm for political development. This is why an increasingly interdependent world needs politicians, entrepreneurs, intellectuals and artists who put fraternity — an instrument of unity — at the center of their actions and thoughts. Martin Luther King dreamed that fraternity would become the organizing principle for business people and the principle of organization for people who govern …

One day I seemed to understand in what sense politics could be considered love. If we were to give a color to every human activity, to economy, to health, communication, art, culture, the administration of justice … politics would not have a color. It would be the background; it would be black so as to highlight all the other colors. For this reason politics should seek to be in constant dialogue with every other aspect of life in order to provide the conditions for society itself, in all its expressions, to achieve its design completely …

The politicians I am speaking of choose to seek office as an act of love. It is a response to a genuine vocation, to a personal calling. Those who are believers discern the voice of God calling them through circumstances, while those with no religious affiliation respond to a human call, to a social need, to a city’s problems, to the sufferings of their people that speak to their conscience. In both cases, it is love that motivates them to act …

This is the ideal of the Movement for Unity in Politics ... It forms politicians capable of recognizing and serving this vision for their community, their town and nation, indeed for all humanity, because fraternity is God’s vision for the whole human family. This is the kind of genuine, authoritative politics that every country needs. In fact, with power comes strength, but only love gives authority.

“Those who respond to their political vocation by practicing brotherhood enter into a universal dimension that gives them a vision open to all humanity … their most local gesture acquires a universal significance.” Chiara Lubich addressed the 1,300 participants at a conference for European mayors, “A Thousand Cities for Europe,” in Innsbruck, Austria, in November 2001. At her right is Romano Prodi, then president of the European Union, and at her left is Thomas Klestil, then president of the Federal Republic of Austria.

Excerpts from an address to British politicians, London, Palace of Westminster, June 22, 2004. From Chiara Lubich, Essential Writings