The Spanish consultant is part of the board of the Fratelli Tutti Political School, which is promoted by Pope Francis, in which there are boys from 30 nations.
All Brothers is the title of the encyclical that Pope Francis launched in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, in which he reflects on social fraternity, evaluating politics, corruption, migration, dialogue, encounters and disagreements, and more situations of the societies of our days. And it is also the name of the political school that, with its endorsement, was created this year by the hand of two foundations. One is Schollas Occurrentes, promoted by Francisco when he was still Jorge Bergoglio, Argentine bishop, and which is led by José María Corrral; and the other is Leading with Common Sense, chaired by the Spanish political consultant Antonio Sola.
In a dialogue with this newspaper, Sola explains how this school seeks to create leaderships based on a new way of doing politics from compassion, from the encounter with the other. He is part of the board of directors of the institution. He constantly travels the world because of his work as a strategist for different political campaigns, but his home, he says, is Guayaquil, because here is his wife, the prefect of Guayas, Susana González. Although from the outset he asks not to talk about local politics, despite the fact that he knows well, since he has worked in several campaigns, including the first of three of the now president Guillermo Lasso.
How did the idea of this political school endorsed by Francisco come about?
Many intervened in this. Through my work I met an Argentine priest named Fabián Páez, who, knowing of my search for political leadership to build a different world, told me that I should speak with a friend of his named José María Corral, who is the president of Schollas Occurrentes, the Vatican foundation that Francis started when he was elected pope, but that comes from a previous movement, when he was Bergoglio in Buenos Aires. Schollas seeks to generate a new type of education “of classrooms without walls”, which has more to do with the heart than with reason, for boys and girls, based on the culture of the encounter promoted by the pope, and which is something in what I deeply believe. We met at a Zoom, we talked a couple of times and we met in Madrid. And there he suggests creating a political school with a new dynamic to form leaders of common sense, feeling, thinking and doing; and we started dreaming. It seemed like a great idea to me. And we worked for several months on it. Then he says, ‘Why don’t we show it to Francisco?’ And he showed it to him. He liked her, suggested calling her Fratelli Tutti, which was wonderful.
But it is one thing that the pope liked the idea and another that he endorsed her, blessed her and sponsored her… How did this happen?
I was not present when José María told Francisco about the idea; I understand that there were several meetings. Yes, I was in the private audience of about twelve minutes last May 20, in Rome, in which he told the eight people who were there: ‘You have to take care of this crap,’ referring to politics. What I think is that the Pope is very committed to the culture of the encounter and closing the cracks that divide us, something that I share and José María also; and that is why he decided to embrace a disruptive initiative within the framework of what he represents, as a great leader and within his papacy. So, he welcomes the school, he gives us permission to call it Fratelli Tutti and two weeks ago he gave the first class in Rome to boys and girls from all over the world, and he said very harsh things about what is happening in the world.
Who can enter this school? Do you have to be a Catholic?
There has already been a first selection process with hundreds of applications from 50 countries. 50 boys from 34 countries, between 18 and 30 years old, five religious confessions, non-denominational and even atheists were selected. It was a selection process where money, natural and standard did not count to enter: we have four refugees, a Rwandan living in South Africa whose parents were shot in the civil war …
And what do these guys have in common?
They come from below, from community movements, from the periphery, and they dream of building a different world through politics.
How does the school work?
We brought the boys and girls together for a week in Rome (last October). After this we will have a series of participations with avant-garde specialists who are thinking about the “future present”, and not about the “past present”, from dynamics that have to do with the new economy (such as cryptocurrency), emerging movements, the peripheries, the different views of doing politics. But we start from the culture of the encounter, from experiences of understanding the pain of the other, and not only our own, critical thinking …
Do they take virtual classes, read books, take notes?
Nothing of that. Those who arrived with a pen and paper did not use it. It is not a regulated education to standard use; they are fundamentally conversations and exchange of experiences. Then they will travel in groups of ten to different countries to take charge of understanding very local problems. And then we bring them all together again to form a community. And so a year. At the moment we are creating the platform of the school that allows us to fulfill the objective: to feel, think and do; to form in that dynamic, that we find ourselves and from there to the others.
From ten to ten. The Gospel said that Jesus sent his apostles two by two …
It is a wonderful coincidence.
And what is the ideal policy that you hope will emerge from this process?
Now I’m going to talk to you personally, not about the school. I believe that we are experiencing an end and a beginning of civilization due to many manifestations that are irrelevant …
Like the pandemic …
Yes, without a doubt, but there is also another: there is a clear interest of certain groups to detonate the religious foundations that gave solidity to the civilizing processes that we live now: Islam, Judaism and Christianity. We are witnessing the end and the beginning of a political cycle evidenced in the death of ideologies, political parties and this kind of bad politics. And here are manifestations of what is to come. Before us is a Y: on the one hand, highly ideological autocratic movements, which are part of the self-defense of those who do not want to die at this end of the cycle; and on the other hand, what we have called “humanitics”, which is politics centered on the human being, daughter of will and common sense, which is not anchored in what separates us but in what unites us, and that it has to do fundamentally with breaking the parameters that this class of politicians have imposed on us for decades, making us believe that it is the only possible model. What will emerge from this school? A network of political girls and boys, journalists, businessmen, who in their positions believe that from the compassionate gaze, which is not the religious term, a different way of doing politics will be built. A policy as an exercise by which the shared way of problems is the shared solution of people, and technology will allow us that. That is what is coming again: direct, participatory and deliberative digital democracy. What comes ten, fifteen, twenty years from now, is a radical change.
In the encyclical, Francisco speaks of two main “flaws” of politics: immediacy and populism …
And I agree. The populisms of any ideology are a scourge, it has been the bread for today and the hunger for tomorrow. And I associate immediacy with two other flaws: lacerating pragmatism, which is “anything goes”, although not everywhere, since there is decent politics, although anonymous; and the lie. In the pandemic, we saw, religiously speaking, the four capital sins of a cheapened policy: they lied to us, they underestimated the citizens, when decisions were made they sought political profitability and they did not build real solutions. All this is a reality, Francisco says it in the encyclical and he reads the policy very well. I live all the criticisms that he makes because of my work in the countries. And that must be changed.
Your job as a consultant is to win elections. How can this new policy be built if to win you have to lie in the campaigns?
That lie is not true … Why do you have to lie to win? What happens is something else. And that it happens does not mean that you cannot believe that a change is possible, because there are people who are setting an example that it can.
And a politician who does not lie in the campaigns wins elections?
Yes, of course, there are many examples. There are many candidates who win honestly with the norms of a democracy that is exhausted, a democracy that is narrow for such a great future, that is weak, that has prostituted itself …
You speak of the death of political parties. But in countries like Ecuador, for example, the only way to participate in elections, the real expression of democracies, is through them.
It is that you look at the present, not the future. Who creates the Constitution, the norms of the political parties? People. If a Constitution or a law is too small for us, then, we must enter into a process of renewal. Today’s law will not be the same in 50 or 100 years, and citizens can fight to change it. It has served us so far, but if it no longer works, let’s bury it.
Politics in Latin America, for example, has all these “flaws”; we have authoritarian regimes in Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba. And there are no signs of change. How can you tell me about these turns in civilizations that, according to you, are imminent? It seems that he speaks to me from faith …
I was once told that this is all utopian. Y I replied that in the 1950s a woman fought for the female vote and they told her the same thing, just like the first black woman who sat on a white bus. This of course is a matter of faith. But down to earth, kicking the street every day. Why do you have to be negative? In life there is a world of light, we are more people of good will than those of bad will.
After this first batch of students, what comes next? Are they going to accept politicians who suddenly want to change?
The school will have continuity. We want more promotions, that the seed grows.
Who finances the studies of these boys?
They are all on scholarships. We’re looking for funding, and that highlights it (laughs).
Here we also talk about the “Government of the meeting”, what do you think of that?
Promote it. (I)
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
