Solidarity: The anti-corruption superpower Filipinos (and others) need?

We've done marches before, most notably in 1986, when a prayerful housewife led our people to topple a dictator. Since then, little has changed. A wise Filipino Jesuit suggested this is because we have yet to learn that solidarity is a key Catholic teaching. 

I agree with him. When I graduated from my Catholic high school, I thought solidarity belonged to Catholic Marxists who, in my mind, were our local version of Pelagians (i.e., heretics). Teachers spoke to us about the true meaning of solidarity, of course, but rarely in a way that moved us to bring its letter to life. 

This perception changed when I encountered the mothers and sisters of the Early Church Fathers in graduate school. Their stories struck a deep chord because many of these women were aristocrats, resembling the socialite matriarchs of present-day Manila. Among these are the mother-daughter pair, Sts. Emilia and Macrina.

Yet unlike ours social elites today, they embraced solidarity without fear: They gave away significant portions of their possessions to the poor, and treated enslaved women as equals. Imagine Princess Diana joining the Missionaries of Charity, and you have a sense of what their testimonies mean. They didn't do this because they were "Marxists." They did this inspired by the Gospel. 

They nudged me to reframe solidarity as a natural impulse for every disciple, because Jesus is solidarity incarnate. Their odd stories led me to ponder this question with braver seriousness: "How can I claim to believe in Jesus if I refuse to live as he did?" 

This inner jolt reawakened when I went to live in a community of typhoon victims in Ormoc, Leyte. Of everyone there, the person I remember most was a mom who, despite her meager circumstances, had a gaze that shone with contentment. Her greatest joy was conversing and laughing with her husband and children every night. She radiated a peace that I had not encountered in the many I knew who were better provided for. 

That encounter woke me up to the humanity we shared. In her priceless joys, I saw my own hopes. In her telling of sorrows, I sensed her crosses becoming mine too. With her, I experienced solidarity as the ability to recognize the same humanity in her that I saw in me.

Still, it isn't difficult to see why this pillar of Catholic teaching is often downplayed. Solidarity isn't just charity. It isn't just about donations we give out of our abundance, even if it does include this. Solidarity has the potential to turn the social order we've grown used to upside down. It beckons us to recognize in every street child, every beggar, and every drunk slum dweller the same dignity as our most impressive relation. And then, rising to the moral demands that this recognition brings. 

To take those demands seriously is a scary, overwhelming project. It threatens to shatter the fragile hierarchy that keeps Philippine society harmonious on the surface. 

Yet, to ignore this teaching means allowing bad habits that fuel political corruption to fester. Without solidarity, we embolden those who believe that a privileged few, by virtue of blood, power, and position, deserve more than the rest of us.

To make the Church's social teaching less overwhelming, it is helpful to consider its principles in smaller doses. Below is an outline of its more easily appreciated aspects. Under each, I include a few active ways we can begin sowing seeds of solidarity in our homes and workplaces.

First, solidarity awakens an awareness that every human being matters, regardless of creed, wealth, gender, or age. To live in solidarity, we need to acknowledge that every human being bears the image of God. This is the guiding principle St. John Paul II referred to in his encyclical Centesimus Annus: 

To promote seeing this Godlike resemblance in each person, we can: 

1. Find as many opportunities as possible to have personal encounters with the disadvantaged. A few suggestions include asking hired help about their families and struggles, or spending time in underprivileged communities, speaking with the residents, and playing with the children. These encounters can make us see that those who suffer from poverty are valuable in the same way we are. 

As Cardinal Luis Tagle once shared: "They (the disadvantaged) aren't statistics. They can be me, my parents...(and the) power of that encounter can create cracks in my pre-existing presuppositions."

2. Speaking to everyone with kindness and respect, especially those in service professions. 

3. Pay employees as generously as we can. In the Philippines, blue-collar workers are typically poorly compensated. If an employer believes employees possess the same God-given dignity as himself, shouldn't he try hard to pay them for their work according to that dignity, rather than the meager price set by a profit-driven marketplace? 

Secondly, solidarity means working for the common good. When we recognize the image of God in every person, we deepen our conviction that the good of every person is tied to our own good. Solidarity means recognizing that goodness is a shared human project. In pursuing what is good for another person, we come closer to what is good for ourselves. 

Here are some words from another social encyclical of St. John Paul II that highlight this link between solidarity and the common good: 

To begin living this second aspect, we might: 

1. Ponder this question with greater frequency: "In our work and family life, do we find ways to improve the lives of everyone around us, especially those who still suffer from insufficient basic needs, such as hunger, transportation, education, and healthcare?" 

2. Setting aside a percentage of institutional or family revenue to fund a scholarship project or a feeding program. 

3. Opening businesses that pay employees a living wage. 

Finally, solidarity invites us to experience the greater joy in keeping less for ourselves. 

In recent news, there has been a lot of talk about how the children of public officials use questionable sources of wealth to fund their glamorous homes and meals. 

But a more relevant question might be: "Even if these funds were legitimately sourced, would their spending habits be appropriate given the high incidence of poverty in our country?"

In light of Catholic Social Teaching, it would be difficult to answer in the affirmative. Since we believe that every human being bears God's image and that we are responsible for one another, we cannot pretend that the hunger, disease, and the widespread lack of human needs around us aren't also our responsibility. 

As saints show us, part of taking our spiritual welfare into account and maximizing spiritual growth is living with material restraint. Sts. Francis and Claire of Assisi are two well-known examples. Yet even those who never embraced religious poverty show us that simplicity helped them grow in holiness and wholeness. Some examples are St. Monica, St. Thomas More, and Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin (St. Therese of Lisieux's parents). 

This trend emphasizes how living with less enables us to notice God's presence and to give more of what we have and who we are. Again, this isn't Marxism. This is Christianity. 

These habits aren't easy to build if we rely only on human strength. But grace always makes love's difficult demands easier to meet. Steeping ourselves in prayer, therefore, is as essential to solidarity as the suggestions above. 

If we do as the ancient Mothers of the Church did, imagine how much positive transformation our prayer-led habits would enable. Albeit a steep climb, this good change will be more enduring than anything any protest can inspire. Hence, solidarity might be the anti-corruption superpower we Filipinos need most right now. 

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Read more about Sts. Macrina and Emilia here:

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