In his Mission Intention this month, Pope Benedict asks us to join him in praying that Christians may promote solidarity. We’re all familiar with the Polish trade union “Solidarity” and how it led to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, but what does the Holy Father want us to strive to promote this month? The following is an explanation of solidarity from the “Catechism of the Catholic Church #1939-41. The principle of solidarity, also articulated in terms of "friendship" or "social charity," is a direct demand of human and Christian brotherhood. An error, "today abundantly widespread, is disregard for the law of human solidarity and charity, dictated and imposed both by our common origin and by the equality in rational nature of all men, whatever nation they belong to. This law is sealed by the sacrifice of redemption offered by Jesus Christ on the altar of the Cross to his heavenly Father, on behalf of sinful humanity." [quote from Pope Pius XII 1939 encyclical “Summi Pontificatus”]

Solidarity is manifested in the first place by the distribution of goods and remuneration for work. It also presupposes the effort for a more just social order where tensions are better able to be reduced and conflicts more readily settled by negotiation.

Socio-economic problems can be resolved only with the help of all the forms of solidarity: solidarity of the poor among themselves, between rich and poor, of workers among themselves, between employers and employees in a business, solidarity among nations and peoples. International solidarity is a requirement of the moral order; world peace depends in part upon this.