Each Pope is an immense gift to the ecclesial and the temporal society. The last three Popes of the Catholic Church, namely Blessed John Paul II, Benedict XVI and the current one, Francis, have enriched us by their different views on solidarity – a virtue that is pivotal in the continual unfolding of Christ’s Face.

Being himself an eminent philosopher and an influential thinker of the human person, Blessed John Paul II was particularly intrigued by deciphering the truth about the human person. Thus, for the Polish Pontiff, human solidarity is none other than the moral affirmation that a person can never be a closed being entrapped in him/herself. Rather, what makes a person is his/her innate openness for the other that makes him/her capable of entering into an interpersonal relationship.

In many ways throughout his Petrine ministry, Blessed John Paul highlighted the reality that we can only evolve as people if we are interdependent, if we are engaged in that constant and vital contact with others. Only in this way can we ever build true communities, in other words communions of people with one another.

In his social encyclical written on the 20th anniversary of Paul VI’s ‘Populorum Progressio’, entitled ‘Sollicitudo Rei Socialis’, Blessed John Paul II pointed out that the enemy of solidarity is selfishness. When one is not open to the needs of another, one lives in complete denial of one’s true nature as a person. “When interdependence becomes recognised in this way, the correlative response as a moral and social attitude, as a ‘virtue,’ is solidarity. This then is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.” (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 38).

With the important and life-giving pontificate of Benedict XVI we find the theological consolidation of solidarity. For the German Pontiff, in order for us to live out God’s image and likeness we should incorporate within our thoughts and actions his agape, his total self-giving love for us, His sinful children! In his first encyclical on Christian love, ‘Deus Caritas Est’, Pope Benedict wrote: “By contrast with an indeterminate, ‘searching’ love, this word [agape] expresses the experience of a love which involves a real discovery of the other, moving beyond the selfish character that prevailed earlier.

“Love now becomes concern and care for the other. No longer is it self-seeking, a sinking in the intoxication of happiness; instead it seeks the good of the beloved: it becomes renunciation and it is ready, and even willing, for sacrifice” (Deus Caritas Est, 6).

On the other hand, Pope Francis’ bedrock of solidarity, which is equated with mercy, is to be found within the inherent connection between “Thy will be done on earth....” and “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive” in a more direct manner. What is the common denominator among us human beings is that of having been immensely forgiven by God’s fatherly love. Hence it is in realising that even if I merit condemnation, I have been pardoned unconditionally. This is the essence of a flourishing Christian society. Therefore, evangelisation becomes the joyful sharing proclamation of God’s unconditional mercy between the deserve-nots of where and how can one accept the Father’s unmerited gifts! Solidarity then becomes our total acceptance of God’s merciful love as expressed in our concrete acts of mercy to those in need.

In his address to Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, Pope Francis said: “The primary task awaiting the Church is that of witnessing the mercy of God and of encouraging generous answers of solidarity to open to a future of hope because, where hope grows, energies and commitment are also multiplied for the construction of a social and civil order that is more human and just, and new potentialities emerge for a sustainable and healthy development.”

Am I ready to personally accept God’s merciful love for me by giving myself to others through my committed service to them?

Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap