"The social teaching of the Church does not have all the answers, but it does have some principles that along this journey can help to concretize the answers, principles useful to Christians and non-Christians alike," the pope said Oct 16.

The meeting brought together leaders of cooperatives and other grassroots organizations of the poor, the underemployed, indigenous communities and farmworkers.

"We have all suffered the pain of lockdown, but as usual you have had the worst of it," the pope told members of the groups.

"Migrants, undocumented persons, informal workers without a fixed income were deprived, in many cases, of any state aid and prevented from carrying out their usual tasks, thus exacerbating their already grinding poverty," he said.

And while one-third of the world's people live in such precarious situations, they garnered almost no media attention, but remained "huddled together and hidden."

He said the principles compiled in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, a manual of the Catholic Church's social teaching, are "tested, human, Christian."

"I recommend that you read it, you and all social, trade union, religious, political and business leaders," he said.

According to their website, Popular Movements purpose is to create an "encounter" between Church leadership and grassroots organizations working to address the "economy of exclusion and inequality" by working for structural changes that promote social, economic and racial justice.

Pope Francis compared popular movements to the Good Samaritan. He said that these two things reminded him of the protests because of George Floyd's death, a 46-year-old black man killed in 2020 by police officer Derek Chauvin.

Protests against police brutality were organized across the US and in other parts of the world in the wake of Floyd's unjust death.

"It is clear that this type of reaction against social, racial or macho injustice can be manipulated or exploited by political machinations or whatever, but the main thing is that, in that protest against this death, there was the Collective Samaritan who is no fool!" Pope Francis said.

"This movement did not pass by on the other side of the road when it saw the injury to human dignity caused by an abuse of power. The popular movements are not only social poets but also collective Samaritans."

Sources

• Catholic News Agency
• UCA News

The big deal was the under-reported U.S. Regional World Meeting of Popular Movements (WMPM) that recently gathered (Feb. 16-19) in Modesto, Calif.

Drawing together hundreds of faith-based and social justice organizers from across the United States and the world, the WMPM focused on the themes of "land, labor and lodging," along with immigration and racial issues (http://popularmovements.org/).

Sponsored in part by the Vatican's department of Integral Human Development and U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the WMPM in California was the first such regional gathering to follow three previous international meetings.

In 2014 Pope Francis convened the first-ever World Meeting of Popular Movements at the Vatican to address the basic need of everyone for adequate land, housing and work (http://bit.ly/2mdiMnK).

In a letter read to participants at the recent U.S. Regional WMPM in California, Pope Francis said, "It makes me very happy to see you working together towards social justice! How I wish that such constructive energy would spread to all dioceses, because it builds bridges between peoples and individuals. These are bridges that can overcome the walls of exclusion, indifference, racism and intolerance."

In Francis' call to dioceses to build bridges that overcome societal and economic injustices, it's important to note that those bridges need to be built on the solid foundation of Catholic social teaching - unfortunately our best kept secret.

Sadly, many Catholics - clergy and laity alike - view Catholic social teaching as a minor sub-topic of Catholicism. On the contrary, the social doctrine of the Catholic Church is nonnegotiable. It is an extremely important, absolute central part of Catholic teaching (see: http://www.catholicsocialteaching.org.uk/principles/).

Therefore, it is essential for every diocese and parish to finally make a firm commitment to learn about, pray over, and live out Catholic social teaching.

Then the essential bridges between peoples and individuals Pope Francis is calling us to construct, will be built on solid rock like that of the wise man in the Gospel whom Jesus praises for building his house on firm ground, so that when the storms came, the house stood strong.

And make no mistake about it, when we courageously stand with the poor and vulnerable, the evil one together with the violent forces of "the world" will mount a powerful storm against us. But if we are anchored firmly in the Gospel, and Gospel-based Catholic social teaching, we too will stand strong within the invincible armor of God!

Continuing his remarks to the U.S. Regional WMPM the Holy Father said, "I am speaking of a system that causes enormous suffering to the human family, simultaneously assaulting people's dignity and our common home in order to sustain the invisible tyranny of money that only guarantees the privileges of a few."

No mere window dressing will fix this immoral mess. The entire money-hungry, greed-driven system needs to be dismantled and replaced with an economic system that places human beings - every human being - above money and things.

Turning to the environment, Pope Francis warns that "The ecological crisis is real. A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system. … Let us not fall into denial. …

"There are fundamentalist and violent individuals in all peoples and religions - and with intolerant generalizations they become stronger because they feed on hate and xenophobia.

"By confronting terror with love, we work for peace."

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings about Catholic social teaching. His keynote address, "Advancing the Kingdom of God in the 21st Century," has been well received by diocesan and parish gatherings from Santa Clara, Calif. to Baltimore, Md. Tony can be reached at tmag@zoominternet.net