Hijacked Solidarity

Solidarity and subsidiarity are twin touchstones of Catholic social teaching. In general, these two principles are complementary and mutually enriching. In terms of the American polity, one thinks of the abolitionist cause and women’s suffrage movement of the nineteenth century as successful examples of what can be achieved by solidarity and subsidiarity. More recently, the late Pope John Paul II championed the Polish solidarity movement in the face of the totalitarian Soviet regime. What these nineteenth and twentieth century events share is a grassroots subsidiarity methodology wedded to great dreams of solidarity.

Surrendering to Love

Tears stung my eyes tonight as I listened to the cathartic testimony of Ms. Immaculée Ilibagiza, a Rwandan genocide survivor. Ms. Ilibagiza held the Acton University audience spellbound with the harrowing account of her desperate struggle to elude discovery, along with seven other women, for 91 days in the cramped bathroom of a Good Samaritan Hutu pastor. Meanwhile, outside the relative safety of this claustrophobic latrine, machete-wielding death squads butchered a million or more of Ms. Ilibagiza’s Tutsi tribe and family, including her parents and two of her brothers. She described in a poignant and unforgettable way how her fear and terror slowly boiled over into rage, only to grudgingly, and ever so slowly, yield to love and forgiveness through frequent and fervent recitations of the Rosary.