Communion and Solidarity for All of “America”

The popular elections for the President of the United States of America are over. I have carried out my very small task on behalf of the candidate of the American Solidarity Party, a political movement that represents ideals that need to grow—in my opinion—if the United States is to survive as a nation. For all its colossal wealth, power, and influence, the United States is only one of the nations on this great hemispheric continent (north, central, and south) that constitutes the proper reference point for the term “America.” In my opinion, the tumultuous and in many ways transitional times in which we live constitute a challenge for all the nations of “America” to recognize the bonds they share and to live in greater solidarity. Through such a solidarity and communion, “America”—from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego—might one day become “great” in its contribution to the long history of humanity.

Jesus Christ is the Lord of history, and His Mother Mary has taken up a unique kind of “presence” at the geographical center of this “America,” through her astonishing and scientifically inexplicable image on the hill of Tepeyac at the edge of Mexico City: Our Lady of Guadalupe.

In January 1999, I traveled to Mexico for the closing of the “Synod on America,” where Pope Saint John Paul II presented the fruit of the dialogue carried out by bishops from all over the hemispheric continent. He proposed that American solidarity had not only an evangelical significance, but also a temporal significance in its increasing interdependence and in the responsibilities of the rich nations to help their poorer neighbors. I think this event of 25 years ago was a prophetic moment. It is a light for judging the larger context of our particular circumstances, and a great encouragement for prayer. Our Lady of Guadalupe, Queen of America—of all of America—pray for us.

Some words from Saint John Paul II’s Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in America (1999):

“I asked that the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops reflect on America as a single entity, by reason of all that is common to the peoples of the continent, including their shared Christian identity and their genuine attempt to strengthen the bonds of solidarity and communion between the different forms of the continent's rich cultural heritage. The decision to speak of ‘America’ in the singular was an attempt to express not only the unity which in some way already exists, but also to point to that closer bond which the peoples of the continent seek and which the Church wishes to foster as part of her own mission, as she works to promote the communion of all in the Lord...

“The Church is the place where men and women, by encountering Jesus, can come to know the love of the Father, for whoever has seen Jesus has seen the Father (cf. John 14:9). After his Ascension into heaven, Jesus acts through the powerful agency of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete (cf. John 16:17), who transforms believers by giving them new life. Thus they become capable of loving with God's own love, which ‘has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us’ (Romans 5:5). God's grace also enables Christians to work for the transformation of the world, in order to bring about a new civilization, … ‘the civilization of love’”