From Social Friendship to Political Charity: Community Pantries in the Spirit of Fratelli Tutti

• Main Author: Lanuza, Gerardo
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2022
• Subjects: mutual aid; community pantries; fraternity; charity; neoliberalism
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/apssr/vol22/iss4/5; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/apssr/article/1474/viewcontent/RA_204.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

This paper, using Pope Francis’ latest social encyclical, Fratelli Tutti (On Fraternity and Social Friendship), issued on October 4, 2020, as a hermeneutic lens, will attempt to show that community pantries that proliferated during this time of pandemic in the Philippines are expressions of “social charity” and can be transformed into “political charity” that can provide an alternative to the failed promises of neoliberal ethos. Although the organizers of community pantries may be unfamiliar with the social teaching of Pope Francis and the Catholic Church, nevertheless, both the organizers of community pantries who follow secular sociopolitical orientations and Christians, both those who are already engaged in charitable activities and not, can mutually learn from each other in building the foundations of a post-pandemic society that will promote social friendship and universal fraternity.