We have inherited from past generations, and we have benefited from the work of our contemporaries: for this reason we have obligations towards all, and we cannot refuse to interest ourselves in those who will come after us to enlarge the human family. The reality of human solidarity, which is a benefit for us, also imposes a duty.

-On the Development of Peoples, #17

Legislation is necessary, but it is not sufficient for setting up true relationships of justice and equality...If, beyond legal rules, there is really no deeper feeling of respect for and service to others, then even equality before the law can serve as an alibi for flagrant discrimination, continued exploitation and actual contempt. Without a renewed education in solidarity, an over-emphasis on equality can give rise to an individualism in which each one claims his own rights without wishing to be answerable for the common good.

- A Call to Action, #23

I was looking through some quotations from Catholic Social Teaching for work today and these two jumped out at me because they speak to so much of what I have been feeling of late and they compliment each other nicely. I spend so much time trying to open minds to the first that I lose sight of the second and fail to reflect it in my own behavior.

Of course, I could use both to rail against the right wing, but my energy is spent and I would also be missing their true meaning. Solidarity is in one sense confrontational - to stand in solidarity with one group against an injustice, to give voice to that group's claims, to lay the case against the powerful......yet, too often we lose track of the humanity on both sides. We refuse to acknowledge that solidarity at our own peril - that deeper feeling, that if not trust at least hope that we can find common ground. And, legislation can't create that kind of mutuality - a frustrating thought because it's hard enough to get good laws, but I guess I know that no matter how good the laws are, the behavior (greed, selfishness, nationalism, social darwinism, etc.) won't be changed by them unless there's something personal, relational, communal undergirding them.

Perhaps it should be a requirement that before our legislators make any laws that they should spend a day or a week with each group that would be affected by the laws. I still think it is a much needed thing for all those who rail against welfare to spend several days in the life of a struggling family before passing more restrictive measures. The reality of solidarity (which is compassion itself) is that it imposes a duty to look beyond oneself, to try to see through another's eyes. We are all answerable to something outside ourselves - to someone.