After the first presentation facilitated by Fr. Otfried Chan (secretary-general of the Secretariat of the Catholic Bishops' Conference in Taiwan) with an overarching presentation of the whole encyclical using as theme "I have seen a new heaven and a new earth" (Rev. 21:1), the second talk was facilitated by Fr. Louis Gendron (Prof. at St. Robert Bellarmine Faculty of Theology and superior of the local Jesuit community); he presented in depth three important themes of the encyclical: "Interpersonal Friendship", "Good Politics", and "Weapons Sales". 

Interpersonal friendship builds a spirit of global brother/sisterhood
    In the first theme "Interpersonal Friendship", Fr. Gendron started mentioning that "brotherhood" is the core idea of the "Fratelli Tutti" encyclical. Only by being able to experience and feel this idea can we truly put into practice the Christian society envisioned in the "Fratelli Tutti" encyclical. Not long ago (2019) the Pope visited Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, the Grand Imam in Abu Dhabi. In their dialogue both emphasized: God created all human beings with equal rights, duties and dignity, and called them to live together like brothers and sisters. The COVID-19 pandemic experience of the past two years clearly shows that cooperation between countries is difficult and highly divisive. Although globalization has made us neighbors, we are still not brothers and sisters, and we tend to emphasize personal interests and neglect group life. Once the pandemic is over, we will have to reflect on whether we want to return to self-centeredness and high consumerism, or to finally treat all people as a body; regardless of religion or culture, we can rebuild the spirit of global brother/sisterhood.
Pope Francis, said Fr. Gendron, made use of the Samaritan’s parable to express our inner struggle: deciding everyday what kind of person we want to be. There is only one way to fully achieve the purpose of creation: love. According to our faith, we are all portraits of God. We must love and affirm that others are good before we can have a positive mutual interaction. In the face of different economic, political, social and religious systems, we only need to observe, like in the parable, whether the system includes or excludes the injured and abandoned people lying on the roadside to know the quality of the system. And, as in the parable of the Samaritan, we must also seek the help of the hotel owner (social and civic organizations…) to help solve the social problems. Concluding this topic, Fr. Gendron said: "We are all created by God and we are all brothers and sisters. If we are aware of this, it would be much easier to solve the existing person-to- person, group-to-group and nation-to-nation problems that we encounter."

Good politics: seeking a government that truly serves the public good
    When explaining the second theme "good politics", Fr. Gendron first mentioned that today’s politics are “rooted in opposition”. At present, political parties do no longer seek to improve people's lives and pay attention to the common good. Some political leaders make use of populism to manipulate citizen's emotions and control the government, without considering the country's long-term progress. We must strive for a government that aims for universal brotherhood and truly serves the public good. The Pope mentioned in the encyclical "Fratelli Tutti" that job creation is the most important issue, and it is also the one of greatest help for the poor so that they can be able to live with dignity. While introducing high technology, the country must also help to solve the basic problems this process brings to workers’ lives. Governments need to adopt a more proactive economic policy and implement various market economic measures such as a due allocation of resources. The encyclical "Fratelli Tutti" also explained that "international power"-a new phenomenon in the 21st century- erodes the actual power of national governments, because the real power of transnational economic and financial companies is greater than that of political national entities. Therefore, it is necessary to establish stronger international institutions (co-founded by governments of different countries) to effectively protect global public welfare, solve hunger and poverty, and protect basic human rights. Fr Gendron continued stating that, in the encyclical, the pope mentioned many times the conflicts between states, and there are only three ways to solve this kind of conflicts and avoid war: negotiation, mediation, and arbitration.
The Pope also stated in the encyclical "Fratelli Tutti" that "political love" is love at its widest extent, an example of universal love. Many charitable behaviors are directed at people (individuals or groups), but apart from these, there are acts of love that aim to create better institutions, more unbiassed regulations, and more supportive structures. For example: directly providing lunch to the hungry is an act of love, and politicians providing job opportunities to the poor is also an act of love. Even more, the spiritual center of politics should also be love: a politician's "vision" that is full of love is able to express the spirit of true politics.

The sale of weapons: the outcome of war is the killing of innocent people
    In the encyclical, Pope Francis goes on mentioning the reality of war: war is the negation of all rights and a dramatic assault on the environment. When Fr. Gendron went into explaining the "good politics" theme, he explicitly described how the types of weapons that humanity has devised recently, such as nuclear, chemical, biological, and new technologies’ weaponry, have made wars an out-of-control reality that kills innocent people; in the end, each war was/is/will be a failure of politics and of humanity, a shameful capitulation. The current increase in international tensions has also increased the military expenditure among countries; this is a very serious matter. Fr. Gendron made use of news published in different newspapers and magazines about the purchase of weapons by countries to remind us that war is not the way to solve problems, and put forward the Pope’s idea: we need to build international mutual trust, and we need to transfer the money for weapons to an international fund to end hunger and assist the poorest countries on earth.
 
Worship God and love neighbors
    At the end of his presentation, Fr. Gendron emphasized that, as believers, we should pay attention to the what is most important: worship God and love our neighbors. In response to many social and moral issues, individuals or groups with different ideas can clearly express their positions in the process of intense discussions, but they should not fall into hatred, treating with despise, racist and violent attitudes that reject love. 
During the Q&A time, the participants were very concerned about how to build up this international consensus, put aside the manufacture and sale of weapons, and on the ways the Catholic Church can encourage the faithful to gradually give importance and strengthen the supervision of politics. In his reply, Fr. Gendron gave an example on how we can try our best to overcome the complicated international factors, keep rooted on our beliefs, make constructive suggestions and take significant actions. In his encyclical, the Pope also hoped that Catholics would raise their general awareness and understanding of social ethics, so they can become aware of the importance of political participation and of working together to build a society transformed by the values of the gospel.
 
To know more about the content of Fr. Louis Gendron's presentation, you can access the full session through the following links (in Chinese):

Verbiest Foundation website
"Voice of Catholicism" YouTube channel
"Kuangchi group” YouTube channel
 
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