Kenotic Solidarity in Discernment

Abstract

This article employs a Christological lens, deeply informed by Bernard J. F. Lonergan’s theology of history and soteriology, to discern the conditions necessary for all-inclusive solidarity. It highlights the twofold kenotic aspect of solidarity, addressing a gap in mainstream theological discourses that often emphasize ‘particular’ solidarity with those in need while neglecting its ‘universal’ (all-inclusive) dimension. Affirming ‘universal’ solidarity necessitates guarding against a misleading notion of neutrality and against totalization, as well as resisting a truncated understanding of intersubjectivity that is prone to group bias. After laying the foundations for understanding solidarity in light of its secular origins and Christian theological context, the article concludes that redemptive solidarity cannot exist without a christomorphic kenosis, which encompasses two incommensurable dimensions: solidarity with victims and solidarity with victimizers as potential converts (that is, as capable of metanoia). In the pursuit of transforming evil into good in history, kenotic solidarity requires prioritizing the common good over personal advantage, even to the extent of refusing to exploit what is (or seems to be) rightfully one’s own—whether privilege, possessions, or the right to strict retribution— just as Christ did when he did not exploit his equality with God to his own advantage (Phil 2:6).

Full text

Citation: Ryliškyt˙
e, Ligita. 2024.
Kenotic Solidarity in Discernment.
Religions 15: 1453. https://doi.org/
10.3390/rel15121453
Academic Editor: Denise Starkey
Received: 29 September 2024
Revised: 23 November 2024
Accepted: 27 November 2024
Published: 28 November 2024
Copyright: © 2024 by the author.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/).
Article
Kenotic Solidarity in Discernment
Ligita Ryliškyt˙
e
Theology Department, Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Ave, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA; ryliskyt@bc.edu
Abstract: This article employs a Christological lens, deeply informed by Bernard J. F. Lonergan’s
theology of history and soteriology, to discern the conditions necessary for all-inclusive solidarity. It
highlights the twofold kenotic aspect of solidarity, addressing a gap in mainstream theological dis-
courses that often emphasize ‘particular’ solidarity with those in need while neglecting its ‘universal’
(all-inclusive) dimension. Affirming ‘universal’ solidarity necessitates guarding against a misleading
notion of neutrality and against totalization, as well as resisting a truncated understanding of inter-
subjectivity that is prone to group bias. After laying the foundations for understanding solidarity in
light of its secular origins and Christian theological context, the article concludes that redemptive
solidarity cannot exist without a christomorphic kenosis, which encompasses two incommensurable
dimensions: solidarity with victims and solidarity with victimizers as potential converts (that is, as
capable of metanoia). In the pursuit of transforming evil into good in history, kenotic solidarity
requires prioritizing the common good over personal advantage, even to the extent of refusing to
exploit what is (or seems to be) rightfully one’s own—whether privilege, possessions, or the right
to strict retribution— just as Christ did when he did not exploit his equality with God to his own
advantage (Phil 2:6).
Keywords: Christ; kenosis; Lonergan; redemption; solidarity
1. Introduction
The world today faces a new surge of threats to human solidarity across the globe.
This surge is manifested in our populist, partisan, and de-globalizing politics, as well as
in the contemporary persons’ search for identities that demarcate them from others and
position them as superior to those others. Trumpism, Brexit, Russian neo-imperialism,
Chinese wolf-warrior diplomacy, the war in Ukraine, and the heartbreaking events in the
Middle East—these are just a few examples of the threats that have emerged more recently.
The multifaceted suffering in these fragile contexts invites a re-examination of the
kind of solidarity that can genuinely contribute to a more hopeful future for all. From
the Christian perspective shaped by Catholic Social Teaching, a concise response is: an
all-inclusive (or universal) solidarity.
1
However, any endeavor to rediscover solidarity as all-
inclusive encounters a series of interrelated challenges that necessitate careful discernment:
How can an argument for all-inclusive solidarity avoid a falsely construed neutrality
that undermines the preferential option for the most vulnerable? How can we affirm
all-inclusive solidarity in a manner that resists totalization and colonization? What type
of solidarity, if any, is possible with the victimizers? And what implications do these
considerations hold for Christian discipleship? With these questions in mind, this article
discerns the possibility of all-inclusive solidarity by using a Christological lens, deeply
informed by Bernard J. F. Lonergan’s theology of history and soteriology.2
The present work conceives solidarity as the restoration of an interpersonal and social
order of mutual interdependence, cooperation, and co-responsibility that is christomorphic
and therefore kenotic. I argue that such a redemptive notion of solidarity implies two
radically asymmetrical kinds of kenosis that make it possible to account for “standing with”
both the victims and the victimizers as potential converts (that is, capable of metanoia).
Religions 2024,15, 1453. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15121453 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions

Religions 2024,15, 1453 2 of 15
Looking ahead, kenosis here essentially refers to the graced not grasping onto what is one’s
own by right—be it one’s privilege, possessions, or right to strict retribution—for the sake
of transforming evil into good.
My argument proceeds in four steps. First, I examine the tension between “particular”
and “universal” solidarity, discerning the way between the Scylla of falsely construed
neutralities and the Charybdis of what might be called “a group solidarity gone wrong”.
Second, the latter danger is explained in more detail, using Lonergan’s notion of group
bias. By drawing on historical and contemporary sources, the third step introduces my
Christological interpretation of solidarity. The final section elaborates my constructive
proposal by discerning the possibility of kenotic solidarity.
2. Between Scylla and Charybdis
As all terms, the term “solidarity” has its history. Because its history is rather com-
plicated, so are its semantics and pragmatics—to the extent that a contemporary legal
scholar Maryvonne Hecquard-Théron calls “solidarity” a polyvalent word whose “vague,
evanescent content lends itself to a variety of interpretations and manipulations” (Blais
et al. 2017, p. 7).
3
To set the scene for my Christological interpretation of solidarity as
kenotic, permit me first to briefly outline the key shifts and ambiguities inherent in its
secular origins.
When the word “solidarity” first originated in 19th century France from a technical
juridical term “in solidum obligari”, it expressed a legal relationship of multiple debtors, each
of whom was obliged (obligari) to be liable for the whole (in solidum).
4
With the term’s early
appropriation in political and philosophical thought by thinkers such as Alfred Fouillée
and Léon Bourgeois, solidarity was predominantly conceived in connection with the notion
of an intra- and inter-generational social debt, stressing human interdependence and the
all-inclusive character of solidarity. With the positivist turn, as propelled by Auguste Comte,
Pierre Leroux, Ferdinand Lassale, and others, the emphasis fell on group solidarity based
on common interests—at the time a much-needed shift. But then socialist Marxism made of
solidarity an agonistic struggle between social classes, programmatically expressed in the
Communist Manifesto, especially in what Christian Lenhardt called its “empathic evocation
of hatred” (Lenhardt 1975, p. 136).5
On the way to the Catholic tradition’s appropriation of solidarity, perhaps the most
prominent figure was the German Jesuit ethicist and economist Heinrich Pesch
(1854–1926)
.
Building on Léon Bourgeois’ notion of social debt,
6
Pesch articulated a theory of solidarism
that focused on moral responsibility for the intergenerational social whole as interdepen-
dent and cooperative. The solidarism of Pesch had a decisive impact on the social teachings
of Roman Catholic popes from Pius XI to John Paul II (Ederer 1991, esp. pp. 596–97).
As noted by M. Shawn Copeland, starting with Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (1891), the
magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church showed signs of increasing awareness that
speaking simply of charity “could not meet the level of demand by the new structures and
problems in society” (Copeland 2010, p. 81). But neither could a merely moral concern
with social justice. What was needed, Copeland notes, was something beyond and deeper
than that—such as the notion of solidarity.
7
Gradually, solidarity became a theological
category in its own right. As exemplified by John Paul II’s Solicitudo Rei Socialis, Catholic
Social Teaching understands solidarity as a natural fact, an ethical principle, and a virtue,
expressly opposed to a then new term in the papal magisterium, “structures of sin” (John
Paul II 1987, §38).
8
Solidarity thus understood implies both the preferential love for those
in need and universal fraternity. Such a solidarity is arguably at the center of Pope Francis’
encyclical Fratelli Tutti (2020), even if he uses the term itself sparingly, rather speaking of
“social fraternity” and “universal friendship”. As the Pope urges, “unless we recover the
shared passion to create a community of belonging and solidarity worthy of our time, our
energy and our resources, the global illusion
. . .
will collapse and leave many in the grip of
anguish and emptiness” (Francis 2020, §36).
9
Similarly, in his preceding encyclical, Laudato

Religions 2024,15, 1453 3 of 15
Si’, he notes that “solidarity, understood in its most profound meaning, is a way of making
history” (Francis 2015, §116).
In light of the foregoing, keeping the ‘universal’ and ‘particular’ aspects of solidarity
together is a must for a Christian theologian. This task requires careful discernment.
On the one hand, we need to pay heed to a valid concern about falsely construed
neutralities, expressed already by Gustavo Gutiérrez. In his 1986 essay Theology and the
Social Sciences, Gutiérrez concurred with Karl Lehmann that “a decisive commitment to
specific groups must never be allowed to overshadow a fundamental part of the Christian
message—namely, that the church has an obligation to communicate God’s love to all
human beings without exception”. However, he also warned that a falsely construed
neutrality “contradicts the command of the gospel and can have deadly consequences” (Gutiérrez
1996, p. 122, emphasis original). In the contemporary context, this can be illustrated, for
instance, by the dire consequences of turning a deaf ear to the call “Black Lives Matter”.
Committing oneself to stand with those suffering injustice is, as Bryan Massingale puts it,
“the acid test of solidarity” (Massingale 2010, p. 117). Paradoxically, universal solidarity
cannot be realized without the “preferential option for the poor”.
10
In the idiom of Pope
Francis, the “marginalized stranded on the roadside” make us their neighbors (Francis
2020, §71).
On the other hand, some contemporary theologians, such as John Makransky, also
express a concern regarding the risks involved in overemphasizing group solidarity against
universal solidarity. Speaking from a Buddhist perspective, Makransky notes liberation
theology’s tendency “to construct and reify a duality between those who are preferred by
God and those who are not, a duality that makes it difficult, tactically speaking, actually to
love each person unconditionally in the way that Jesus taught” (Makransky 2014, p. 636,
emphasis original). Critiques along similar lines are also expressed by some liberation
theologians. For instance, in his recent book on Jon Sobrino’s Christological spirituality,
O. Ernesto Valiente notes that the Christian commitment to the ministry of reconciliation
remains a “thorny subject” for the Latin American liberation theology (Valiente 2015, p. 25).
Valiente addresses this question head-on. Balancing the demands of truth, justice, and
forgiveness, he offers a Christian liberationist account of the “praxis of reconciliation,
which first attends to the needs of suffering victims but never excludes or gives up on the
oppressor” (Valiente 2015, p. 30).
In summary, to uphold a genuinely Christian notion of solidarity, one needs to navigate
between the Scylla of falsely construed neutralities and the Charybdis of “party spirit”
that, for St. Paul, was contrary to the mind of Christ (cf. 1 Cor 1:10–17). Furthermore,
as proposed by the decolonial and other critical theorists, resisting the Scylla of falsely
construed neutralities involves unmasking the old and the new forms of colonization that, to
risk a simplification, take “the privileged” to mean “the universal”.
11
It also calls for leaving
behind what Susan Abraham calls “triumphalist solidarity”—a solidarity that promotes
homogeneity and hyper-similarity, masking and downplaying important differences that
need to be “ceaselessly negotiated under conditions of unequal power” (Abraham 2007,
p. 33).
12
Escaping the clutches of the opposite danger—the Charybdis of promoting a
kind of group solidarity that destroys universal solidarity—on the other hand, demands
discerning the workings of what Lonergan called “group bias”, to which we next turn.
3. Solidarity and Group Bias
According to Lonergan, group bias resists “the insights that reveal [the group’s] well-
being to be excessive or its usefulness at an end” (Lonergan 1992, p. 248).
13
Though the
group in power conceives itself as “the cultural flower of the age”, “the development,
guided by group egoism, is bound to be one-sided” (Lonergan 2017, p. 332). The common
good (the litmus test for which is concern for the most vulnerable) is disregarded; and the
policies that would serve the common good are postponed or mutilated, as the group in
power pursues its self-serving goals. In the measure that the group accepts “an ideology
to rationalize its own behavior
. . .
it will be blind to the real situation, and it will be

Religions 2024,15, 1453 4 of 15
bewildered by the emergence of a contrary ideology that will call to consciousness an
opposed group egoism” (Lonergan 2017, p. 332). The outcome can be anything in between
social polarization and heinous massacres, including the flourishing of classism, racism,
sexism, and other -isms, as well as the irruption of revolutions and genocides.
14
As Miroslav
Volf’s analysis of the Rwandan genocide shows, Christians must resist group bias at all
costs. Such bias constitutes an “idolatrous shift of loyalty”, in which their commitment to
their cultural, ethnic, or other group overrides their “ultimate allegiance to the gospel of
Jesus Christ”, even to the extent of weaponizing their faith (Volf 2000, p. 159).
In distinction from egoistic bias—which needs to overcome human intersubjectivity—
group bias is supported by human intersubjectivity—a pre-reflective “fellow feeling” that
reminds of the “social feeling” of Auguste Comte.
15
To be sure, human intersubjectivity
plays a vital role in spontaneous mutual aid and community building, and therefore is
essential for overcoming the egoistic bias—culpable distortion of human intelligence that
excludes further questions beyond the selfish “What’s in it for me?” Lonergan explains
intersubjectivity in terms of the innate capacity of the human person to spontaneously
identify with another:
Prior to the ‘we’ that results from the mutual love of an ‘I’ and a ‘thou,’ there is
the earlier ‘we’ that precedes the distinction of subjects and survives its oblivion.
This prior ‘we’ is vital and functional. Just as one spontaneously raises one’s arm
to ward off a blow against one’s head, so with the same spontaneity one reaches
out to save another from falling. Perception, feeling, and bodily movement are
involved, but the help given another is not deliberate but spontaneous. One
adverts to it not before it occurs but while it is occurring. It is as if ‘we’ were
members of one another prior to our distinctions of each from the others.16
(Lonergan 2017, p. 56)
The pre-reflective “we” is vital for human solidarity, underlying the shared feelings
and their communication. However, building on Max Scheler, Lonergan also shows how
intersubjectivity may solidify a group’s “solidarity in sin”, as manifested in the class
struggle that gets caught up in the vicious circle of yesterday’s oppressed turning into
today’s oppressors. In the extreme, the problematic aspect of intersubjectivity shows itself
in psychic contagion—an unintentional sharing of another’s emotion.
17
In the reign of sin,
psychic contagion can easily turn supposedly average people into a murderous lynching
mob in Waco, a frenzied crowd cheering Hitler in Berlin, or a squad of sadistic executioners
in Bucha or Kfar Azza.
Lonergan’s notion of group bias thus exposes the potential underside of group solidar-
ity: getting caught in the self-perpetuating cycles of retaliatory violence and oppression.
18
Drawing on postcolonial thought, we might add that group bias is supported by identity
politics that overlooks both the intersectional character and, to use Emmanuel Lévinas’
idiom, even the infinity, of any human identity, be it of victims or victimizers.
19
By imposing
single-line narrative identities, identity politics can not only create rigid oppositions, con-
demning entire groups to a “subaltern” existence, but also provides a quasi-mythological
justification for unspeakable crimes that sow long-lasting seeds of hatred. There needs to
be an all-inclusive and yet not totalizing solidarity that breaks away from both group bias
and identity politics: solidarity that is, in a sense, redemptive. Christians affirm that Christ
is the exemplar and the historical agent par excellence of such redemptive solidarity. Let us
examine this in greater detail.
4. Christ’s Solidarity with Us
For a Christian theologian, to talk of Christ’s solidarity with us—and, by extension, of
our “christomorphic” (that is, Christ-like) solidarity with others—means to talk of solidarity
in grace. In his 1943 essay, Finality, Love, Marriage, Lonergan thus makes a distinction: “just
as there is a human solidarity in sin with a dialectical descent deforming knowledge and
perverting will, so also there is a divine solidarity in grace which is the mystical body of

Religions 2024,15, 1453 5 of 15
Christ” (Lonergan 2005, p. 27).
20
As christomorphic, solidarity in grace implies a dialectical
unification of all things in Christ.
21
Lonergan’s Latin soteriology, especially his Law of the
Cross—the law that articulates the intrinsic meaning of redemption as the transformation
of evil into good—also demonstrates that, in its historical realization, solidarity in grace
implies conversion.
22
As explained in Method in Theology, conversion involves affective,
intellectual, moral, and spiritual transformation that manifests in the “easy freedom of
those that do all good because they are in love”, even to the point of willingly accepting
suffering for a good reason (Lonergan 2017, p. 103).23
In his 1935 essay, “Pant
¯
on Anakephalai
¯
osis: A Theory of Human Solidarity” (Lonergan
2019, pp. 38–64), Lonergan explicitly connects the reign of sin to Adam and the reign
of grace to Christ. Drawing on Thomist metaphysical concepts of instrumental causality
and premotion, he applies these to St. Paul’s notion of anakephalai
¯
osis (Eph 1:10)—the
gathering up of all things in Christ. In doing so, he contrasts two types of “solidary chains
of causation”:
Adam corrupted the premotion and set up the reign of sin, a reign of dishar-
mony and maladjustment in the corporate unity of man. Christ set up a new
motion to harmonize, readjust, redintegrate a humanity that had reached the
peak of disintegration and death described in the first chapter of Romans. This is
the anakephalai¯
osis.
(Lonergan 2019, p. 41)
In distinguishing between solidarity in sin and solidarity in grace/suffering, Lonergan
takes the lead of St. Augustine’s interpretation of the Fall. This interpretation has recently
been insightfully clarified by John Cavadini. According to Cavadini, in The City of God,
Augustine interprets Adam’s choice to follow Eve’s suit in eating the forbidden fruit
(Gen 3:1–24) as an inauguration of human solidarity in sin. In the confusion of the will
that already wills evil, Adam lacks imagination and a self-sacrificial attitude; faced with
the fact of Eve’s trespassing, he sees only two alternatives: either to enter a fellowship of
sin or to abandon Eve (Cavadini 2012). Adam overlooks a third alternative, which has
been chosen by the “second Adam”, Christ: to enter a fellowship in “punishment” (that
is, suffering consequent upon sin), but not a fellowship in sin.
24
The original solidarity
of companionship thus turns into a solidarity in sin, motivated by “social feeling” that
masquerades as true mercy because it lacks a self-donative attitude. This marks the creation
of a fallen solidarity—for Cavadini, a metaphor for original sin:
As Augustine sees it, Adam blamed Eve, expecting that God would judge her
and vindicate him—a version of the primal myth of empire invoking the divine
as being on one’s side. Like the literary presentations of human suffering that,
as Augustine explains in confessiones (conf.), invite a false compassion in order to
displace the true compassion of self-sacrifice, Adam, in following Eve into sin,
enacts a simulacrum of mercy justified by a myth. Moreover, in ratifying and
consummating Eve’s original sin, Adam transformed it into original sin in the strict
Augustinian sense. Original sin is the sin of Adam (ciu. 14.11), namely, the willing
of and the creation of a fallen solidarity.
(Cavadini 2012, p. 136; internal citations omitted, emphasis original)
Putting aside Augustine’s pessimistic views of human nature, as ruled by superbia
(pride) and libido dominandi (desire to dominate),
25
as well as the modern suspicion of the
soteriological paradigms that emphasize the notion of self-sacrifice, we learn from this exe-
gesis of Augustine several important things. First, the solidarity of Christ with humankind
is redemptive—it is meant to bring about the transformation of the evil situation. Second,
Augustine—just like the biblical tradition—foregrounds Christ’s solidarity with sinners,
thus not excusing us from some kind of solidarity even with the victimizers. Third, the
Augustinian thread of thought aligns well with the etymological meaning of solidarity as
collective responsibility for making amends for wrongdoing (as in the “in solidum obligari”).
Solidarity thus understood denotes not simply a factual interdependence, social cohesion,

Religions 2024,15, 1453 6 of 15
attitude, or even social virtue, but a graced restoration of the right interpersonal and social
order, which the Bible calls the reign of God: the all-encompassing God-willed order of
friendship, as inaugurated by Christ.26
To be sure, the notion of solidarity is not found (expressly) in the patristic or biblical
texts. As discussed earlier, in theology, it becomes fully explicit only in the political and
praxis-oriented theologies of modern times. Though vastly different from Augustine with
regard to their questions, methodologies, categories, and conclusions, like him, these more
recent theologies often approached the theme of solidarity through a christological lens.
This is witnessed in Edward Schillebeeckx’s programmatic focus on the praxis of the reign
of God in the context of “negative contrast experiences”
27
; in Johann Baptist Metz’s empha-
sis on memoria passionis Christi as a dangerous memory that empowers solidaristic practice;
in Jürgen Moltmann’s stress on the correlation between Deus absconditus and homo abscondi-
tus
28
; in Jon Sobrino’s conviction that solidaristic faith demands following Jesus of Nazareth
in his bringing of the good news to the “crucified people” (Sobrino 1994). Though critical of
Augustine (e.g., see Metz 1998, pp. 58–63), these modern and contemporary voices would
still agree with him that the Christian notion of human solidarity calls for condemning,
resisting, and transforming evil in a way that, in some sense, is christomorphic.
What does the “christmorphic” aspect of solidarity entail specifically? Praxis-oriented
theologies conceive of an authentic praxis of solidarity as the liberating praxis of the reign
of God. The exemplar and embodiment of such a praxis is Jesus of Nazareth himself.
On the one hand, as Sobrino noted, the Christian praxis of solidarity aims at bringing
down the crucified people from their crosses. On the other hand, as Shawn Copeland
shows, this does not mean shrinking from self-sacrificial love. In the vein of Lonergan’s
soteriology, Copeland insists on a theologia crucis as central for grounding the Christian
notion of solidarity:
The cross of Christ exposes our pretense to historical and personal innocence,
to social and personal neutrality. It uncovers the limitation of all human efforts
and solutions to meet the problem of evil. Thus, the praxis of solidarity is
made possible by the loving self-donation of the crucified Christ, whose cross
is its origin, standard, and judge. Solidarity can never be severed from this
self-giving love.29
(Copeland 2010, p. 99)
To conclude, what Cavadini called a “fallen solidarity”—our propensity to mess things
up with a probability always greater than zero—poses a challenge that only a solidarity
that does not shrink from suffering, even at the risk of losing one’s life, can match. Such is
the redemptive solidarity inaugurated by Christ.
5. Kenotic Solidarity
The christomorphic character of solidarity is perhaps best expressed in terms of
kenosis—my shorthand for the central message of the Christological hymn in Phil 2:6–11.
Both Cavadini’s’ reflection on Christ’s solidarity with us in Augustine and Copeland’s
reference to the cross as the standard and judge of human solidarity point to the deeper
dimension that is missing from the mainstream theological discourses on solidarity today:
namely, its kenotic aspect. Christ’s becoming one with us involves not just his ministry or
the praxis of the reign of God. It is an incarnate sharing in our human destiny, with all its
misery, so that the life of Christ, as Lonergan puts it in his 1963 essay The Mediation of Christ
in Prayer, was his “self-mediation with reference to others” to the point of owning their
cross (Lonergan 1996, p. 181).
30
At the heart of Christ’s solidarity with us is his kenotic
refusal to use his equality with God to his own advantage (Phil 2:6), even unto death. A
genuinely christomorphic solidarity is also kenotic, as the members of the body of Christ
“enflesh” his solidarity for their own times.
As the feminist and other contemporary debates on kenosis demonstrate, the word
kenosis, just like solidarity, can mean many things.
31
The present interpretation of Christ’s

Religions 2024,15, 1453 7 of 15
kenosis—and thus of human solidarity as kenotic—is deeply influenced by the entirety of
the Christological hymn in Phil 2:6–11, but especially by verses 6 and 7:
6 The one existing in the form [morph¯
e] of God
did not consider it an advantage to exploit [harpagmos]
to be equal to God,
7 but he emptied [eken¯
osen] himself,
taking the form [morph¯
e] of a slave,
becoming in the likeness [eik¯
on] of human beings.32
Though the scope of this article does not allow for an extensive excursus into the
biblical scholarship, a brief comment is still in place. There are two major interpretations of
this hymn, which Pheme Perkins once called “the governing metaphor for Christian belief”
(Perkins 1993, p. 97). The majority interpretation takes the “form of God” in Phil 2:6 to
mean the preincarnate Christ in his divinity. The minority interpretation, as represented
by James Dunn, takes “the form of God” in Phil 2:6 to be an allusion to the Genesis claim
that human beings are created in the image of God (Gen 1:27).
33
This interpretation uses
Adam–Christ typology to argue that kenosis refers to the incarnate Christ’s recapitulation of
all things in himself, by which he reverses Adam’s prideful aspiration to be “like God”. In
particular, there are four parallels highlighted by Dunn:
Christ
Existing in the form of God
Did not grasp equality with God
Took the form of a slave
Obedient to death
Adam
Created in the image of God
Tempted to be like God
Enslaved to sin
Death after disobedience
(Dunn 1997, p. 284; 1996, p. 119)
Dunn’s proposal that the two words, “form” (morph
¯
e) and “image” (eik
¯
on), in Phil
2:6–7 are used interchangeably is opposed by the mainstream interpretation (Hawthorne
1998, p. 97). The absence of strict terminological correspondence notwithstanding, the
semantic fields of the two terms overlap considerably.
34
Thus, the mainstream scholarship
does not exclude the possibility that the terms of the hymn are, in a sense, determined by
the Adam–Christ typology. For instance, N. T. Wright notes that “the contrast between
Adam and Christ [in the hymn] works perfectly” (Wright 1991, pp. 91–92). Following this
line of interpretation, Cavadini’s juxtaposing of Christ’s solidarity in grace and Adam’s
solidarity in sin, as well as Lonergan’s reflection on human solidarity as the recapitulation
of all things in Christ, also point toward a kenotic aspect of christomorphic solidarity.
In light of the foregoing, the Pauline metaphor of kenosis expresses a certain acquisition
that involves self-donation.
35
Without losing his divinity, Christ took the humble nature
of the suffering human. Thereby he did not treat his equality to God—which he truly
possessed—as something to be selfishly exploited to his own advantage, as the Greek
harpagmos in Phil 2:6 suggests (Hansen 2009, p. 134). In Sarah Coakley’s idiom, Christ
chooses never to use certain kinds of power, revealing divine power in vulnerability
(Coakley 1996, pp. 82–111). He chooses so according to God’s salvific will, for the sake
of restoring the dignity of the human being, on both a personal and social level. Christ’s

Religions 2024,15, 1453 8 of 15
kenosis overturns the fallen solidarity of Adam so that sin, suffering, and death would not
have the final say. To speak of kenotic solidarity, then, is not to glorify suffering or promote
irresponsible passivity in the face of evil, nor is it to forego the demands of social justice.
On the contrary, as Lonergan’s soteriology tacitly suggests, kenotic solidarity is the only
kind of solidarity that is powerful enough to create the conditions for the possibility of
justice among sinners as sinners (Lonergan 2018, pp. 453–55). Permit me to elaborate on
this point in some greater detail.
Christ’s kenotic solidarity manifests both his identification with the multitude of
history’s victims and his antecedent offer of forgiveness. Shawn Copeland’s moving
meditation on the transgression of humanum in the story of Fatima Yusif, a Somali immigrant
in Italy, powerfully conveys this two-sidedness of Christ’s kenosis. Copeland recalls the
media reports of 1992 depicting how Fatima Yusif gave birth unassisted beside a road
in Southern Italy while the crowds of onlookers defaced her humanity by regarding her
predicament as no more than a thrilling and exotic spectacle. Turning to a Christological
reflection, Copeland observes:
Through incarnate love and self-sacrifice, Christ makes Fatima Yusif’s despised
body his own. In solidarity, he shares her suffering and anguish. In his body, in
his flesh, Christ, too, has known derision and shame; his broken and exposed
body is the consolation of her being. At the same time, his love is available for
the women, men, and children in the crowd; his body absorbs their anxiety and
sin, their failure to honor humanum (“Father forgive them”).
(Copeland 2010, p. 86)
Echoing Lonergan, Copeland emphasizes that Christ’s solidarity is all-encompassing:
even as he stands with the victims, he does not abandon the victimizers. Once again,
what this entails concretely is a matter of discernment. For Copeland, such discernment
is guided by conviction that “wrestling with concrete historical, cultural, religious, social,
and existential circumstances riddled with sin and irrationality” (Copeland 2023, p. ix), we
are called to enflesh the freedom of the children of God. She notes that we do so through
“the daily making and constituting of ourselves as ikons of the Holy, emanating centers of
solidarity, of true and authentic value and love” (Copeland 2023, p. x, emphasis original).
Taking up Jesus’ critique of empire also demands putting on his mind and participating in
his basileia practices that incarnate an alternative to the fallen solidarity that knows neither
repentance nor forgiveness (Copeland 2023, p. 43).36
This brings us to the heart of my proposal: kenotic solidarity in history encompasses
two dimensions: solidarity with the victims and solidarity with the victimizers as potential
converts. To be sure, the kinds of self-emptying involved in two radically asymmetrical
solidaristic practices—the practice of standing with the victims and the practice of holding
victimizers accountable and yet forgiving them—are incommensurable. And yet they both
make operative the same core attitude: not grasping onto what is (or seems to be) one’s
own by right. The practice of solidarity with the victims demands a refusal to use one’s
privilege to one’s own advantage against the common good—be it our privileged claims to
time, wealth, status, position, or superiority based on our birth, race, gender, or neoliberal
‘rights.’ The practice of solidarity with the victimizers as potential converts (that is, as
capable of metanoia) implies not grasping onto one’s right to strict retribution, thus letting
go of the desire for revenge.37
Why should those who seek first the reign of God uphold this second aspect of
solidarity? As Lonergan notes, in the reign of sin, “the evils of the situation and the
enmities they engender would only be perpetuated by an even-handed justice: charity
alone can wipe the slate clean”.
38
Or, as Gandhi is purported to have said, an eye for an eye
leaves the whole world blind. In other words, to be historically effective, human solidarity
cannot rely on merely human ingenuity or justice. Human history, as Lonergan argued,
is not simply progress, but a tripolar dialectic that comprises social progress, decline,
and redemptive recovery (Lonergan 2017, pp. 52–55; 2016, p. 228). While progress and

Religions 2024,15, 1453 9 of 15
decline reflect our human capabilities, efforts, and culpable failures, redemptive recovery
requires self-donative love that is beyond merely human capacity. Only this love can be the
principle of redemptive justice, restoring interpersonal and social order by transforming
evil into good.39
This is precisely where the notion of solidarity needs to be stretched beyond its original
meaning, making it fully explicit that love of one’s enemies cannot be simply a duty or
a virtue. Metanoia that makes reconciliation possible comes from an unmerited gift of
the Holy Spirit flooding our hearts (Rom 5:5). In other words, there is no—and cannot
be—merely ‘natural’ solidarity with the victimizers. In a sense, the debt is theirs to pay.
But there is a ‘supernatural’ solidarity that works for the restoration of the right order by
‘standing with’ the victimizers as potential penitents or converts. Such shouldering does not
take away their responsibility to seek forgiveness, to repent their wrongdoings, and to
amend for their sins. However, by not returning evil in kind, the solidarity that transcends
the boundaries of what seems ‘naturally’ possible, refuses to collude with the victimizers’
defacing of themselves.40
Nevertheless, the asymmetry between solidarity with the victims and solidarity with
the victimizers underscores that forgiveness cannot be rushed, demanded, or used to
silence or manipulate victims (Ormerod 2007, pp. 154–58). Forgiveness can only be freely
given as a gift, always keeping in mind that it is distinct from reconciliation. Genuine
reconciliation arises from the convergence of forgiveness (freely offered by the victim) and
repentance (undertaken by the wrongdoer). Moreover, as studies in conflict resolution show,
genuine reconciliation is rooted in truth-seeking and restorative justice. The journey toward
fuller truth entails kenotic broadening of perspective, as individuals and communities
progress from conceiving truth in merely ‘forensic’ terms to embracing it as ‘narrative,’
then as ‘dialogical,’ and ultimately as ‘restorative’ (Valiente 2015, p. 33).
41
This dynamic
still implies a ‘preferential option’: “it is the victims’ needs and concerns that must guide
the direction and efforts of any reconciliation process” (Valiente 2015, p. 23).
When properly understood, forgiveness then is a summons to repentance, as it man-
ifests an authentic power: the power of love to expose the irrationality and falsehood of
evil by refusing to pay in kind. In the Pauline idiom, by feeding our enemies, we heap
burning coals on their heads (Rom 12:20). From Calvary to the U.S. Civil Rights Movement
to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission to the ‘Singing Revolution’ of
the Baltic States, not returning evil in kind shifts the odds for the possibility of dialogue and
conversion, thus setting up the conditions for human solidarity that supports sustainable
peace and justice.
42
Such kenotic solidarity, as many have experienced in these troubled
times, implies not simply hearing but listening, not simply talking to but talking with, not
simply being in the same place but becoming a place for another—a place where another can
stand on her own feet, in truth, love, and justice.
6. Conclusions
Steinar Stjernø once noted that “solidarity is not morally good per se—it is good only
to the extent that its inclusiveness, goal and implications for the individual are morally
acceptable” (Stjernø 2005, p. 3). Thus, in keeping with the Ignatian rule that in order to see
what truly comes from God, we need to discern the beginning, the middle, and the end
of any spiritual movement,
43
this article began with the secular origins of solidarity and
explored an inherent tension between ‘particular’ and ‘universal’ solidarity, the neglect
of which could bear devastating consequences. This analysis led to the proposal of a
christomorphic notion of solidarity that, albeit in a radically asymmetrical manner, is
realized as a kenotic ‘standing with’ both victims and victimizers (as potential converts).
In discerning the conditions for affirming such redemptive solidarity, I argued that
only a kenotic solidarity—made possible by grace—can ultimately resist the culpable
refusal to move beyond the questions “What’s in it for me?” and “What’s in it for my
group?” Instead, it seeks the restoration of what Pope Francis called universal fraternity
and social friendship (Francis 2020). Insofar as kenosis implies an identity forged in mutual

Religions 2024,15, 1453 10 of 15
giving and receiving that does not destroy otherness, kenotic solidarity is essential for
overturning social decline. It is realized by persons who do not cling to what is (or seems to
be) rightfully theirs—whether it be their privilege or their right to strict retribution—thereby
participating in Christ’s work of transforming evil into good in history.
Funding: This research received no external funding.
Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicable.
Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable.
Data Availability Statement: No new data were created or analyzed in this study. Data sharing is
not applicable to this article.
Conflicts of Interest: The author declares no conflict of interest.
Notes
1
See my brief overview of the Catholic perspective in the next section. For comprehensive accounts of Catholic Social Teaching on
solidarity, see Baumgartner et al. (2006); Grosse Kracht (2008); Clark (2014).
2
Contemporary Lonergan scholarship addresses the social aspect of grace, including some reflections on solidarity with those in
need (Lamb 1982;Gray 2017;Blackwood 2016;Whelan 2013;Doran 1990,2012;Ormerod 1992,2007;Ogbonnaya and Briola 2019).
However, studies on the all-inclusive and christomorphic aspects of human solidarity are still lacking. The present study aims to
fill this lacuna.
3
Unless otherwise indicated, all translations from foreign languages are mine. For more on the ambiguity of the term “solidarity”,
see Scholz (2008, pp. 4 and 17–18), Bayertz (2011, p. 3), and Copeland (1995, pp. 11–12).
4
For the secular genesis of the term, see Thomas Bohrmann, “Solidarität und Solidarismus bei Heinrich Pesch (1854–1926)”
(Baumgartner et al. 2006, p. 14). For a comprehensive account of the reflections, debates, and controversies surrounding the
notion of solidarity between 1830 and 1914, see Blais et al. (2017).
5
Lenhardt’s revisionist appraisal of the socialist Marxist notion of solidarity shows that Marxist universalist aspirations are
universalist only in appearance: though Marx aspires to show the way to the “total recovery of man”, for him, the universalistic
identification of the proletariat (its identification with humankind) was merely a means to defend its particularistic (class) interests
(Lenhardt 1975, pp. 134–35). In Marx’s own idiom, “For a popular revolution and the emancipation of a particular class of civil
society to coincide, for one class to represent the whole of society, another class must concentrate in itself all the evils of society, a
particular class must embody and represent a general obstacle and limitation. A particular social sphere must be regarded as
the notorious crime of the whole society, so that emancipation from this sphere appears as a general emancipation” (Marx 1963,
p. 56).
6Bourgeois, in turn, follows Alfred Fouillée (e.g., see Fouillée 1880, pp. 369–70).
7
“We need thoroughgoing, practical, genuine systemic change in the present global order. At the same time, we sense a need
for something deeper and beyond the moral attention that social justice accords to the distribution of the material and cultural
conditions for human living. That something deeper and beyond, I suggest, is solidarity”. (Copeland 2010, p. 81).
8
The encyclical presupposed the definition of social sin presented in John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation Reconcilatio et Paenetentia
(1983). For more on the history of Catholic social teaching on the structural aspects of sin, see Daly (2011). For more on solidarity
as a Christian theological category, see Krüggeler et al. (2005).
9
For an illuminating collection of essays on Fratelli Tutti and solidaristic ethics, see Pandikattu (2022), especially the contributions
by Thomas Karimundackal, SJ (pp. 1–36) and James B. Dabhi (pp. 58–75).
10
This notion, originating in the theology of Gustavo Gutiérrez, was first expressed by the Latin American Episcopal Council
at Medellín (Colombia 1968) and fully embraced at Puebla (Mexico 1979). It quickly became a guiding ethical principle in
Catholicism worldwide. The “preferential option for the poor” strongly shapes the contemporary Catholic understanding of
solidarity. For example, see Lamb (1982).
11
From the decolonial perspective, as Walter Mignolo argues, “the universal can only be pluriversal” (Mignolo 2018, p. x).
Correspondingly, Mignolo proposes a strategy of “epistemic disobedience” or “epistemic de-linking” (Mignolo 2011, pp. 122–123).
See also Gandhi (2019, pp. 28–30).
12
Susan Abraham argues that this also affects how otherness is construed: the other is perceived as exotic and desirable, and
solidarity tends to be “entirely self-serving to the Western subject” (Abraham 2007, p. 29).
13
For Lonergan, “bias” is a fourfold distortion of rationality that drives decline in human history. Starting with Insight, Lonergan
distinguishes dramatic, egoistic, group, and general bias (Lonergan 1992, p. 260). In Method in Theology, he summarizes the
fourfold bias as follows: “All men are subject to bias, for a bias is a block or distortion of intellectual development, and such
blocks or distortions occur in four principal manners. There is the bias of unconscious motivation brought to light by depth

Religions 2024,15, 1453 11 of 15
psychology. There is the bias of individual egoism, and the more powerful and blinder bias of group egoism. Finally, there is the
general bias of common sense, which is specialization of intelligence in the particular and concrete, but usually considers itself
omnicompetent” (Lonergan 2017, p. 217).
14 For an illuminating contextualization of Lonergan’s notion of group bias, see Copeland (2010), pp. 85–86, and Gray (2017).
15
An important figure in developing the secular notion of solidarity, Comte lauded “social feeling” as that which seeks common
interest, criticizing the prevalent religious ways of thinking as essentially individualistic and focused on self-interest. He saw
Christians as “occupied exclusively with their own salvation”, considering “participation [in the salvation] of others only as a
powerful means of earning their own” (Comte 1844, pp. 73–74).
16
Lonergan here follows Max Scheler in distinguishing four major ways in which intersubjective feelings are communicated:
community of feeling, fellow-feeling, psychic contagion, and emotional identification. The first two are intentional responses
(they presuppose the apprehension of objects that arouse feeling), while the other two share a vital rather than an intentional
basis (Lonergan 2017, pp. 56–57).
17
See Lonergan (2017), pp. 56–57: “Psychic contagion is a matter of sharing another’s emotion without adverting to the object of
the emotion. One grins when others are laughing although one does not know what they find funny. One becomes sorrowful
when others are weeping although one does not know the cause of their grief”.
18
Valiente makes a similar point: “innocent victims can rapidly transform themselves into violent victimizers” (Valiente 2015, p. 21).
19
Hence, Lévinas might find an unexpected ally in postcolonial theory: as suggested by Susan Abraham, “postcolonial theory
assiduously seeks to move beyond the binary of oppressor/oppressed because the web of relations between the colonizer and
colonized depends on negotiations, interdependence, and acknowledgment of mutual cultural contagion” (Abraham 2007, p. 22).
For more on Lévinas’ notion of infinity as an anthropological category, see Lévinas (1991). See also Fleming (2019) and Bajzek
(2022). Fleming shows how Lévinas’ philosophy applies to the Christian notion of solidarity, while Bajzek offers a Levinasian
expansion of Lonergan on intersubjectivity.
20
For more on Lonergan’s understanding of human solidarity as “christomorphic” and graced, see another early essay by Lonergan,
“Pant¯
on Anakephalai¯
osis: A Theory of Human Solidarity” (Lonergan 2019, pp. 38–64).
21
For a contemporary development on the dialectical aspect of the unification of the whole Christ that builds on Lonergan, see
Ryliškyt˙
e(2021,2023, pp. 389–438).
22
See Lonergan (2018), pp. 203–5 and 485. Note that, as our exemplar, Christ is a fully ‘converted’ subject (Lonergan 2018, p. 591).
23
What constitutes a good reason for accepting suffering in Lonergan’s terms has been recently illuminated by Jennifer Kendall
Sanders. To clarify how the Law of the Cross implies both resisting evil and transforming evil situations, she distinguishes
between suffering as earned/unearned and voluntary/involuntary (Kendall Sanders 2023). Her approach resonates with
Lonergan’s own warning against self-destructive sacrifices in Method in Theology (Lonergan 2017, p. 107).
24
In parallel to the two Augustinian notions of solidarity, Aquinas will develop the notion of malum poenae (the evil of punishment)
as distinct from malum culpae (the evil of fault). Lonergan’s Law of the Cross builds on these distinctions, arguing that a
self-donative attitude is essential for transforming evil situations (Lonergan 2018, pp. 196–263, 455–78).
25 See esp. St. Augustine’s The City of God,ciu. 1praef. and ciu. 1.30, 3.14, 12.23–28, 14.13–28 (Augustine 2014).
26
See Lonergan (2018, pp. 205, 485, 623–25). For more on Lonergan’s development of the Augustinian-Thomist analogy of
friendship, see Ryliškyt
˙
e(2020,2023). See also Patrick Riordan’s Aristotelian-Thomist understanding of human solidarity as
political friendship. Notably, Riordan advocates grounding solidarity epistemically in the pursuit of shared fulfillment rather
than recognition of shared vulnerability, as the latter “reinforces the view of the other as a threat, and as a limit to one’s own
possibilities” (Riordan 2015, p. 75).
27 For instance, see Schillebeeckx (1973) and Simon (2002).
28
See especially Metz (2007); Moltmann (1967); Metz and Moltmann (1995). Remarkably, Moltmann describes eschatology as “the
passionate suffering and passionate longing kindled by the Messiah” (Moltmann 1967, p. 16).
29
This resonates with Lonergan’s observation in Method in Theology, where he asserts that authentic Christian love embodies “a
love of others that does not shrink from self-sacrifice and suffering” (Lonergan 2017, p. 272).
30
In both this context and his Latin soteriology, Lonergan explains that the cross rightfully belongs to us because the sin is ours, not
Christ’s (Lonergan 1996, p. 181; 2018, p. 489).
31
For instance, see Hampson (1988,1996); Nimmo and Johnson (2022); Evans (2006); Coakley (2001); Papanikolaou (2003); Chau
(2012); Selak (2017); Coakley (2001).
32 Translation by G. Walter Hansen (Hansen 2009, p. 134). The addition of the transliterated key Greek words is mine.
33
In contrast to Dunn, many scholars argue that the hymn’s beginning refers to the pre-existent Christ, with the “form of God”
denoting the attributes of the Godhead (e.g., Bauckham 1999, p. 57; Hurtado 2003, p. 122). The “form of God” is often interpreted
as referencing the Old Testament’s outward manifestations of divine glory (Martin 1997, p. 103).
34
For instance, Hansen argues that “the equation of the form of God and ‘the image of God’ can be accepted when it is expanded to
include the middle term, the glory of God” (Hansen 2009, p. 140). He further observes that the connections between Philippians 2

Religions 2024,15, 1453 12 of 15
and Genesis 1–3 are “strongly supported by evidence in Paul’s letters, where we find Adam/Christ parallels (Rom 5:12–19; 1 Cor
15:45–48), the word ‘image’ in connection with Christ (Rom 8:29; Col 1:15), and the close association of ‘image’ and ‘glory’ in the
description of Christ (2 Cor 3:18; 4:4–6)” (Hansen 2009, p. 140).
35
Bauckham (1999, p. 58) clearly articulates that the Divine Son’s Incarnation does not entail a loss of divinity: “Christ’s radical
self-renunciation was his way of expressing and enacting his equality with God
. . .
His exaltation to the highest position, the
heavenly throne of God, is not a matter of gaining or regaining equality with God, which he has always had and never lost, but of
acquiring the function of implementing the eschatological sovereignty of God”.
36
Forgiveness is particularly pertinent in ongoing social and historical conflicts, most of which, as Miroslav Volf elucidates,
do not allow for a clear-cut distinction between victim and perpetrator: “the primary stress on liberation is suited only to
situations of manifest evil in which one side is unambiguously the victim—in the right—and the other unambiguously the
perpetrator—therefore in the wrong. Most situations, however, are not so clean. Especially in conflicts with a longer history, each
party, for good reasons, sees itself as the victim and perceives its rival as the perpetrator. As a consequence, each side can see
itself as engaged in the struggle for liberation. If social responsibility is organized around liberation, the Christian faith ends up
dangerously reducing the moral complexity of the situation and feeding into the self-righteousness of each party by assuring
them that God is on their side”. (Volf 2000, p. 163).
37
As demonstrated by Desmond Tutu’s No Future Without Forgiveness, this is the only viable stance regarding restorative justice on
a large scale (Tutu 2000). For a nuanced and critical discussion of forgiveness in Christian ethics, see Jones (1995); Leiner and
Schliesser (2018); Wallace (1994); Warmke et al. (2021); and Mayo (2015).
38 See Lonergan’s essay “The Transition from a Classicist Worldview to Historical Mindedness” (Lonergan 2016, p. 9).
39
In Insight, Lonergan identifies this principle with charity (e.g., see Lonergan 1992, pp. 720–24), while his mature works prefer a
term derived from his intentionality analysis, “the dynamic-state of being in love” (e.g., see Lonergan 2017, pp. 102–4). Among
contemporary thinkers, Patrick Riordan’s philosophical analysis of political conflicts and Charles Taylor’s exploration of the
limitations of secular humanism support Lonergan’s insight into the role of self-donative love in social recovery (Riordan 2012,
pp. 64–85; Taylor 2004, pp. 15–42).
40 This does not aim to create a separation between the natural and supernatural; rather, it emphasizes the role that grace plays in
healing and elevating human nature. In Lonergan’s terms, the theorem of the supernatural implies that divine action is radically
disproportionate to human action. However, the two do not compete with one another, as divine action in history is realized
in and through human rational and responsible freedom as graced. For an illuminating contemporary study of Lonergan’s
understanding of freedom and grace, see Heaps (2023).
41
The four dimensions of truth in this process, as outlined above, can be summarized as follows: factual or forensic truth establishes
verified facts about events; personal or narrative truth captures victims’ experiences in their own words; social or dialogical truth
emerges through interaction, discussion, and debate, revealing complex motives and perspectives; and healing or restorative
truth goes beyond acknowledging past abuses to restore victims’ dignity and prevent future conflicts. Valiente draws on the
final report of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which served as a model for subsequent commissions’
truth-seeking processes. See South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Final Report (1998), 1: 111–14.
42 For example, see Bass and King (2001); Tutu (2000); Villa-Vicencio (2009); Šmidchens (2014).
43
See Spiritual Exercises #332: “The fifth: We ought to note well the course of the thoughts, and if the beginning, middle and end is
all good, inclined to all good, it is a sign of the good Angel. ..” (Ignatius of Loyola 1991).
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