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Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future - Hardcover

Francis, Pope; Ivereigh, Austen

 
9781982171865: Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1982171863 ISBN 13: 9781982171865
Verlag: Simon & Schuster, 2020

Inhaltsangabe

In this uplifting and practical book, written in collaboration with his biographer, Austen Ivereigh, the preeminent spiritual leader explains why we must—and how we can—make the world safer, fairer, and healthier for all people now.

In the COVID crisis, the beloved shepherd of over one billion Catholics saw the cruelty and inequity of our society exposed more vividly than ever before. He also saw, in the resilience, generosity, and creativity of so many people, the means to rescue our society, our economy, and our planet. In direct, powerful prose, Pope Francis urges us not to let the pain be in vain.

He begins Let Us Dream by exploring what this crisis can teach us about how to handle upheaval of any kind in our own lives and the world at large. With unprecedented candor, he reveals how three crises in his own life changed him dramatically for the better. By its very nature, he shows, crisis presents us with a choice: we make a grievous error if we try to return to some pre-crisis state. But if we have the courage to change, we can emerge from the crisis better than before.

Francis then offers a brilliant, scathing critique of the systems and ideologies that conspired to produce the current crisis, from a global economy obsessed with profit and heedless of the people and environment it harms, to politicians who foment their people’s fear and use it to increase their own power at their people’s expense. He reminds us that Christians’ first duty is to serve others, especially the poor and the marginalized, just as Jesus did.

Finally, the Pope offers an inspiring and actionable blueprint for building a better world for all humanity by putting the poor and the planet at the heart of new thinking. For this plan, he draws not only on sacred sources, but on the latest findings from renowned scientists, economists, activists, and other thinkers. Yet rather than simply offer prescriptions, he shows how ordinary people acting together despite their differences can discover unforeseen possibilities.

Along the way, he offers dozens of wise and surprising observations on the value of unconventional thinking, on why we must dramatically increase women’s leadership in the Church and throughout society, on what he learned while scouring the streets of Buenos Aires with garbage-pickers, and much more.

Let Us Dream is an epiphany, a call to arms, and a pleasure to read. It is Pope Francis at his most personal, profound and passionate. With this book and with open hearts, we can change the world.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on December 17, 1936, the son of Italian immigrants. He was ordained a priest in the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in 1969 and made a bishop in 1992. He became Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and was named a cardinal in 2001. In March 2013 he was elected Bishop of Rome, the 266th pope of the Catholic Church.

Austen Ivereigh is a writer, journalist, and commentator best known for two highly regarded biographies of Pope Francis: The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope and Wounded Shepherd: Pope Francis and His Struggle to Convert the Catholic Church.

 

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Prologue Prologue
I see this time as a reckoning. I think of what Jesus tells Peter in Luke 22:31, that the devil wants him to be sifted like wheat. To enter into crisis is to be sifted. Your categories and ways of thinking get shaken up; your priorities and lifestyles are challenged. You cross a threshold, either by your own choice or by necessity, because there are crises, like the one we’re going through, that you can’t avoid.

The question is whether you’re going to come through this crisis and if so, how. The basic rule of a crisis is that you don’t come out of it the same. If you get through it, you come out better or worse, but never the same.

We are living a time of trial. The Bible talks of passing through fire to describe such trials, like a kiln testing the potter’s handiwork (Sirach 27:5). The fact is that we are all tested in life. It’s how we grow.

In the trials of life, you reveal your own heart: how solid it is, how merciful, how big or small. Normal times are like formal social situations: you never have to reveal yourself. You smile, you say the right things, and you come through unscathed, without ever having to show who you really are. But when you’re in a crisis, it’s the opposite. You have to choose. And in making your choice you reveal your heart.

Think of what happens in history. When people’s hearts are tested they become aware of what has held them down. They also feel the presence of the Lord, who is faithful, and responds to the cry of His people. The encounter that follows allows a new future to open up.

Think of what we’ve seen during this Covid-19 crisis. All those martyrs: men and women who have laid down their lives in service to those most in need. Think of the health workers, the doctors and nurses and other caregivers, as well as the chaplains and all who chose to accompany others in their pain. Taking the necessary precautions, they sought to offer others support and consolation. They were witnesses to closeness and tenderness. Many, tragically, died. To honor their witness, and the suffering of so many, we have to build tomorrow by following the paths they have lit for us.

But—and I say this with pain and shame—let’s also think of the usurers, the payday lenders who have appeared at the doors of desperate people. If they stretch out their hands, it is to offer loans that can never be repaid, and which end up permanently indebting those who accept them. Such lenders speculate with the suffering of others.

In moments of crisis you get both good and bad: people reveal themselves as they are. Some spend themselves in the service of those in need, and some get rich off other people’s need. Some move out to meet others—in new and creative ways, without leaving their houses—while some retreat behind defensive armor. The state of our hearts is exposed.

It’s not just particular individuals who are tested, but entire peoples. Think of governments having to choose in the pandemic. What matters more: to take care of people or keep the financial system going? Do we look after people, or sacrifice them for the sake of the stock market? Do we put the machinery of wealth on hold, knowing people will suffer, yet that way we save lives? In some cases governments have tried to protect the economy first, maybe because they didn’t understand the magnitude of the illness, or because they lacked the resources. Those governments have mortgaged their people. In making those choices, their priorities are tested and their values exposed.

In a crisis there’s always the temptation to retreat. Of course there are times when we must pull back for tactical reasons—as the Bible says: “To your tents, O Israel!” (1 Kings 12:16)—but there are situations when it is neither right nor human to do so. Jesus makes that clear in his famous parable of the Good Samaritan. When the Levite and the priest withdraw from the man left bleeding and beaten by thieves, they’re making a “functional” retreat, by which I mean they’re trying to preserve their own place—their roles, their status quo—when faced with a crisis that tests them.

In a crisis, our functionalism is shaken loose and we have to revise and modify our roles and habits in order to emerge from the crisis as better people. A crisis always demands that our whole self be present; you can’t retreat, pull back into old ways and roles. Think of the Samaritan: he stops, pulls up, acts, enters into the world of the wounded man, throws himself into the situation, into the other’s suffering, and so creates a new future.

To act in a Samaritan way in a crisis means letting myself be struck by what I see, knowing that the suffering will change me. We Christians talk about this as taking up and embracing the Cross. Embracing the Cross, confident that what will come is new life, gives us the courage to stop lamenting and move out and serve others and so enable change, which will come only from compassion and service.

Some respond to the suffering of a crisis with a shrug. They say, “God made the world that way, that’s just how it is.” But such a response misinterprets God’s creation as static, when it’s a dynamic process. The world is always being made. Paul in his Letter to the Romans 8:22 says creation is groaning from birth pangs. God wants to bring forth the world with us, as partners, continually. He has invited us to join Him from the very beginning, in peaceful times and in times of crisis—at all times. It’s not like we’ve been handed this thing all wrapped up and sealed: “Here, have the world.”

In the Genesis account God commands Adam and Eve to be fruitful. Humankind has a mandate to change, to build, to master creation in the positive sense of creating from it and with it. So what is to come doesn’t depend on some unseen mechanism, a future in which humanity is a passive spectator. No: we’re protagonists, we’re—if I can stretch the word—co-creators. When the Lord told us to go forth and multiply, to master the earth, he’s saying: Be the creators of your future.

From this crisis we can come out better or worse. We can slide backward, or we can create something new. For now, what we need is the chance to change, to make space for the new thing we need. It’s like God says to Isaiah: Come, let us talk this over. If you are ready to listen, we will have a great future. But if you refuse to listen, you’ll be devoured by the sword (Isaiah 1:18–20).

There are so many swords that threaten to devour us.

The Covid crisis may seem special because it affects most of humankind. But it is only special in how visible it is. There are a thousand other crises that are just as dire, but are just far enough from some of us that we can act as if they don’t exist. Think, for example, of the wars scattered across different parts of the world; of the production and trade in weapons; of the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing poverty, hunger, and lack of opportunity; of climate change. These tragedies may seem distant from us, as part of the daily news that, sadly, fails to move us to change our agendas and priorities. But like the Covid crisis, they affect the whole of humanity.

Just look at the figures, what a nation spends on weapons, and your blood runs cold. Then compare those figures with UNICEF’s statistics on how many children lack schooling and go to bed...

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Verlag
Simon & Schuster
Erscheinungsdatum
2020
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1982171863
ISBN 13 
9781982171865
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
160
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
Utrecht
3584 AA
Niederlande