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Good People of Holy Spirit,
As we continue to look into Catholic Social Doctrine and how our social, civic, and political decisions are meant to be influenced by our Catholic faith, the next pillar of Social Doctrine I’d like to highlight is known as Solidarity. Solidarity, according to the Compendium of Social Doctrine, is illustrating “the intrinsic social nature of the human person” (CSD para 192). We are not rugged individuals, and there is no such thing as private vice nor private virtue. We are a human family, or in the terms of St. Paul, the Body of Christ. Therefore no matter how personal the sin (or the kindness) the effects are always social, communal, and familial. My sins affect the whole Body of Christ and my good deeds build up the Body of Christ. Solidarity is the principle by which we aid one another as members of the human family and acknowledge our various levels of responsibility among persons, groups, and nations.
For St. John Paul II, solidarity is not merely a feeling of sympathy for those who suffer or our ostracized, by a stable moral commitment to one another based on the truth. We are to “cultivate a greater awareness that they are debtors of the society of which they have become part” (CSD 195). What that means is we have received so many blessings in this life for which we should be grateful and in that gratitude build up those who struggle and suffer among us. So let us engage in public life from a Catholic vision of reality, promote authentic peace and reconciliation, and work for the common good.
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