October 9: Invisible cities

An arresting phrase holds our attention: “Cities are multicultural; in the larger cities, a connective network is found in which groups of people share a common imagination and dreams about life, and new human interactions arise, new cultures, invisible cities. Various subcultures exist side by side, and often practise segregation and violence.”

The idea of invisible cities is often associated with the Italian fabulist Italo Calvino, but it seems clear that Pope Francis means something else, something altogether grimmer, by the phrase. “On the one hand, there are people who have the means needed to develop their personal and family lives, but there are also many ‘non-citizens’, ‘half citizens’ and ‘urban remnants’.”

The daily struggle to survive the demands of city life can render these urban remnants invisible to most city residents, and yet they exist. Perhaps it is not so much the beggars and the homeless we see on street corners (after all, we still see them); perhaps the Pope is referring to those who are just barely above the poverty line, those for instance who have to borrow P30 (less than the cost of a taxi flag down) to pay for bus fare from Muntinlupa to Taguig, just to meet an appointment, or those who have a house to live in but not enough day-to-day cash to buy or prepare three square meals.

The Synod on the New Evangelization which inspired Evangelii Gaudium speaks of a damning kind of absence too: “The Church also knows that in many cities one sees the absence of God, in the many attacks on human dignity.” Invisible cities in our midst are networks of half-citizens, who suffer indignities daily, hourly.