Solidarity from the Point of View of European Catholic Experts

Abstract

In n. 38 of Sollicitudo Rei Socialis Pope John Paul II calls solidarity a virtue for the fi rst time. Previously in his speeches and writtings he had referred to solidarity as an attitude, duty or principle. Thanks to the Pope in 1987 the Church articulated a new concept of social teaching where it looks at the power of virtue and the power of solidarity as virtues capable of tearing down unjust structrues that hold millions in poverty and abuse, and build up structures of virtue that will form us into one human family. Solidarity is key to an understanding of John Paul II’s thought on social questions. The innovative dimensions of the Pope’s teaching were an inspiration for the international conference on the topic of solidarity under the auspices of the Department of Applied and Pastoral Theology at the Faculty of Theology in Ljubljana in Slovenia on 13 April 2011. Nineteen international experts in the fi eld from Austria, Poland, Switzerland, Serbia and Slovenia lectured on this topic. In this paper we are going to present some of their refl ections and draw some inferences from them.