Promoters of Solidarity

Solidarity is “a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good.”1 This orientation to the world is the bedrock for the motivation and organization of the Solidarity Family. Standing on this bedrock, we root ourselves in Catholic Social Teaching and its basic principles of human dignity, justice, subsidiarity, and the common good. Social justice insists that all human beings deserve to have the conditions necessary for individual, community, and country development. Powerful systems and structures cause and maintain inequities, with profound connections between the privilege of some and the oppression of others. We recognize that sporadic and individual acts of charity are insufficient to address systemic injustices. Therefore, we are committed to collective actions that are long-term, concrete, and sustainable, and thus capable of promoting equity and the common good.

The underlying unity of all human beings, and indeed of all creation, is rooted in the nature of God. Pope Francis describes this eloquently in Laudato Si’: 

The divine Persons are subsistent relations, and the world, created according to the divine model, is a web of relationships. This leads us not only to marvel at the manifold connections existing among creatures, but also to discover a key to our own fulfillment. The human person grows more, matures more and is sanctified more to the extent that he or she enters into relationships, going out from themselves to live in communion with God, with others and with all creatures. In this way, they make their own that trinitarian dynamism that God imprinted in them when they were created. Everything is interconnected, and this invites us to develop a spirituality of that global solidarity that flows from the mystery of the Trinity.2  

The primordial interconnectedness described by Pope Francis is the wellspring of the gift and virtue of solidarity, a constitutive element of Christian discipleship. As a gift to be received and passed on, solidarity infuses our hearts with compassion and binds individuals and groups together in relationships of mutual love. As a virtue to be cultivated and enacted, it obligates us to collective action on behalf of those whom God loves.

Because solidarity proceeds from our being created in the image of God whose very nature subsists in relationship, we prioritize relationship and mutuality over productivity and efficiency. We create community by gathering people, not simply by moving goods and services. We express this through encounters between doctor and patient, doctor and doctor, Bolivian missioner and U.S. missioner, and through our permanent search for organizational partners to collaborate in our mission for the sake of social and distributive justice.

Christians are called to foster the reign of God on earth and actively participate in the transformation God is bringing about. In response to this call, we work to promote coherence between faith and everyday life by encouraging and facilitating the spiritual formation of the staff of our apostolic works. Solidarity entails “something more than a few sporadic acts of generosity. It presumes the creation of a new mindset which thinks in terms of community and the priority of the life of all over the appropriation of goods by a few.”3 To achieve the new mindset that is necessary for true solidarity, the Solidarity Family works to raise awareness, beginning with understanding that our diverse communities are all part of the same reality.

1  Pope John Paul II, Solicitudo Rei Socialis, 1988, #38

2  Pope Francis, Laudato Si', 2015, #240

3  Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 2013, #188