One of the most dramatic examples of solidarity in the 20th century, apart from the solidarity of populations at war, is the Polish Solidarity trade union^[1], founded in 1980 and led by Lech Wałęsa. According to Wikipedia,

...it was the first independent union in a Warsaw Pact country to be recognised by the state. The union's membership peaked at 10 million in September 1981, representing one-third of the country's working-age population. Solidarity's leader, Lech Wałęsa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 and the union is widely recognised as having played a central role in the end of communist rule in Poland.

The people of a country attacked by a foreign power, or whose way of life is otherwise threatened, typically respond instinctively with mutual solidarity. The U.S. increasingly supported the French and British against Germany (and the Ottoman Empire) after the latter's U-boat attacked the British ocean liner, RMS Lucitania, in 1915. That support inevitably led a frustrated German monarchy to increase U-boat attacks on America's commercial ships supplying England and France. That growing conflict led, in turn, to the US entering the war against Germany See footnote [2]. This was a gradual build-up in solidarity. Alas, that solidarity fractured when the British and French governments (under David Lloyd George and Georges Clemenceau, respectively) insisted on punitive reparations from Germany in the Treaty of Versailles.

While the US supported the Allied Powers against the Axis Powers in World War II, America did not enter the war until its Pacific fleet was attacked at Pearl Harbor by Japanese aircraft. This time the growth of American solidarity with the British and French was near instantaneous. The end result was even more fateful than that of World War I.

Such examples do much to highlight the natural instinct of people everywhere to unite when attacked by an aggressor. History has numerous examples of such attacks, and from a wide variety of motives. The so-called Modern Era experienced its first major disruption with the Protestant revolt and the 30-years War, which effectively ended the unity of the Holy Roman Empire and the unifying power of Catholicism. What was left were divisions based upon national identity and pride, in combination with the growth of ideologies. The Napoleonic Wars[3] of the early 19th century were echoed by the Franco-Prussian War of the late 19th century. Prior to the Protestant Revolt, great wars were not so much ethnically or ideologically based as dynastic.

It can be seen from this brief historical survey that solidarity arises naturally from a variety of motives and senses of identity, including love of one's religious faith, love of one's monarch[4], and love of one's country. The 20th century saw the rise of the national personality cult which gave ideological revolutions a new impetus, and yet another motive for solidarity[5] Religious cults, apart from Islam, seldom attained to national or supra-national status, yet inspired deep devotion to a variety of "peerless leaders".

A newly minted priest for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Ohio, Fr. Christopher Komoroski, had his first Mass at St. Cecelia Church in Cincinnati on May 17, 2020[6]. The homilist for this occasion was Msgr. Frank Lane. In his homily, he focused on the fact that priests are human beings, and, like everybody else, they have flaws. It is only the grace of God that keeps us humble and penitent. By way of contrast, Msgr. Lane illustrated his point with the examples of St. Peter the Apostle and Judas Iscariot. It is well known from the Gospel accounts that Peter denied knowing Jesus when Jesus was tried before the Sanhedrin. It is also well known from the Gospel accounts that Judas betrayed Jesus to those authorities by pointing him out to soldiers who had come to arrest him, doing so with a kiss[7]. Jesus had prophesied both the denial and the betrayal. When Peter recognized what he had done, he wept bitter tears of repentance, clinging desperately to hope. When Judas recognized what he had done, he repented, but hanged himself in despair. As Msgr. Lane pointed out, both were men of some pride[8], and both were humbled by events. Yet they responded differently[9]. That difference was enormously fateful.

It is that very recognition of personal weakness that helps a priest remain in solidarity, as Jesus did, even with great sinners. That solidarity is essential for the priest to effectively administer the sacraments to penitent sinners. The priest must be mindful of the fact that he (unless he has a supernatural charism, like St. Pio of Pietrelcina or St. John Vianney) cannot read the penitent's soul. Given that, he must obey Jesus stricture to not judge others[10]. At the same time, the priest must recognize the special need for grace of a penitent who confesses to mortal sin, and he must pray for that penitent as though for a loved one. It is this very mercy of Jesus that enabled him to offer his own life for our redemption. It is this very mercy of Jesus that drew "tax collectors and sinners" to him. It is this very mercy that healed Peter of his guilt[11]. And, it is this very healing, together with the grace bestowed upon him at Pentecost, that opened Peter's heart to evangelize to Gentiles[12].

The contrast between Peter's denial of Christ and the apparently enduring adulation of the young for their cult leaders is striking. One should recognize, here, some key differences. Although Peter believed that Jesus, because of his miracles and his evident wisdom, was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament, his loss of nerve in the crowd witnessing the trial was motivated by several factors, including:

• He was alone in a crowd where he had sought anonymity. The last thing he wanted was to be identified, with Jesus, as a co-revolutionist and blasphemer.
• John's account identifies Peter as the one who drew his sword and used it to attack the slave of the high priest[13].
• Apart from his slumber at the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter was low on energy and sleep.
• Peter, like the other apostles, continued to believe that Jesus was destined to reestablish the sovereignty of Israel. Even though Jesus attempted on several occasions to disabuse them of that notion, they continued to cling to it. Peter, in particular, had seen two nature miracles and the Transfiguration. Jesus' trial didn't fit Peter's romantic vision.

Indeed, the Christian martyrs all recognized that, apart from the grace of God, they would not be able to endure the attacks on them without folding. By the time Peter faced his own death by crucifixion, he had that grace. History notes that Socrates refused his opportunity to escape death following his own trial. One should note, however, that Socrates' death by hemlock poisoning was relatively painless, and Socrates attributed his own fearlessness of death to his being a philosopher.

St. Joan of Arc (no longer on the US Ordo, but whose memorial is May 30th) sacrificed her life to help the legitimate aspirations of Charles VII to reclaim France from English rule. Captured by the Burgundian faction, she was turned over to the English, who tried her and had her burned at the stake on May 30, 1431. She was only 19 years old at the time[14]! As she died, she was heard to exclaim "Jesus!". Controversy kept her from being canonized until 1920, almost five hundred years later, by Pope Benedict XV. She, of course, is not the only martyr who was the target of hatred from high places! Her patriotism and sense of justice were divinely inspired. Her steadfast courage at such a young age cannot be explained by mere human enthusiasm.

Bishop Wojtyła (who would become Pope John Paul II) showed a similar nerve in the face of military threats as he led outdoor Mass on Christmas Eve at Nowa Huta[15]. According to George Weigel (see [16]).

By way of contrast with St. Joan of Arc, Pope St. John Paul II always took a non-violent approach to challenging unjust authority. Those challenges (beginning with his cofounding and leadership of the clandestine "Rhapsodic Theater"[17] in 1939 to preserve Polish culture, while Poland was under Nazi occupation) were surely divinely inspired.

There are several amazing instances of the love that undergirds true solidarity in modern human history. Consider the following…

• St. Maximilian Kolbe, a Conventual Franciscan Friar, founded a world-wide Catholic evangelization movement known as the Militia Immaculatae in 1917. The primary focus of the MI was to promote total consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary. In that sense, he followed in the footsteps of St. Louis de Montfort, who also inspired Pope St. John Paul IIThe pope famously followed the formula of dedication, expressed in Latin, "totus tuus". His devotion to the BVM was rooted in an early mystical experience[18]. That mystical connection may well have played a critical role in his mission work in Asia, when, in particular, he established a monastery on the side of a mountain away from Nagasaki, which survived the blast of the atomic bomb and whose personnel were able to come to the aid of the survivors on the exposed side[19]. Back in Poland at the outbreak of World War II, St. Maximilian remained in the monastery at Niepokalanów, where he helped to establish a temporary hospital. It was there that he was captured by the Gestapo and eventually sent to Auschwitz, where he continued to act as a priest. There, St. Maximilian would go on to offer his own life in exchange for that of a friend, Franciszek Gajowniczek[20].
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a cofounder of the Christian reform movement in Germany in the 1930s known as the Confessing Church in response to the Nazi regime's effort to unify all Protestant churches under a single national pro-Nazi German Evangelical Church. During a particularly challenging time (June, 1939), Bonhoeffer returned to the U.S. at the invitation of the New York Union Theological Seminary. Writing to Reinhold Niebuhr[21] about his desire to return to Germany to be with his people in this time of extreme peril, he wrote of his intention to return. For the next couple of years he acted as a double agent, doing what he could to get Jews safely out of Germany and serving as a communication channel between the Allies and the German resistance movement. For this he was arrested by the Nazis on April 5, 1943 and executed two years later. His book, The Cost of Discipleship, and his heroism were an inspiration to civil rights leaders around the world.