By Nicolás Paz

"I am with you!" is Pope Leo XIV's message to the Fifth World Meeting of Popular Movements, showing unequivocal support for the strategies and tools of active nonviolence that Popular Movements are developing in different parts of the world to bring about social change from a culture of violence, militarization, and discarding to a culture of encounter. Popular movements today are a lived relational theology of nonviolence embodied in the world.

Last May, at the Arena della Pace in Verona, Pope Leo XIV had already stated: "Nonviolence as a method and as a style must characterize our decisions, our relationships, our actions." The message now at the Fifth World Meeting is a step further. It represents not only a continuation of a process begun with Pope Francis but also support for the organizational strategy of the Popular Movements and their strategies of prophetic denunciation and action. The final declaration of the Fifth World Meeting of Popular Movements also acknowledges the support of Pope Leo XIV: "We deeply appreciate the words of Pope Leo XIV: 'I am with you!' A support of immense value for walking together –universal and local Church– in the strategies of active nonviolence we carry out as prophetic denunciation and action against exclusion and inhumanity".

A fraternal relationship of love between the Popular Movements and the Church

It is in this mutual recognition, as theologian Emilce Cuda, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America and participant in the meeting, would say, that a fraternal relationship of love is forged between the Popular Movements and the Church, both universal and local, through Pope Francis and now Pope Leo XIV. Words of mutual recognition are the expression of this culture of incarnated encounter, of lived theology. It is the confirmation of a relational ethic of mutual recognition, of accompaniment, of walking together in synodality that makes the Popular Movements and their action in the world protagonists, historical subjects recognized and accompanied by the Church.

Dr. Cuda said it at the meeting: "to value the word that comes from the peripheries." That is what Pope Leo XIV has done. He has recognized the word and the witness of action of the Popular Movements of the world. The pontiff's accompaniment is a gesture that is embodied in his welcoming the Popular Movements at the audience.

The Popular Movements around the world

Now the question we must ask ourselves in response to that "I am with you!" is precisely where the Popular Movements are in the world, where their testimony of action and word are embodied. The answer is clear: grassroots movements are saving lives in the Mediterranean, protecting migrants from ICE in the US, boycotting injustice, staging sit-ins and pickets, organizing demonstrations and protests by informal economy workers, occupying land and housing for the excluded, campaigning against disarmament, war, and genocide, in vigils and prayers calling for peace and justice, in struggles against mining extractivism and for the protection of Creation, in complaints before national and international courts, in collective bargaining for workers' rights, in social dialogue, in the construction of alternative agricultural models, in the construction of energy cooperatives, in political advocacy campaigns, in the defense of access to medicines, in the building of bridges and not walls in a polarized world, in the Global Sumud Flotilla…in all those strategies that we call active nonviolence, "unarmed and disarming" civil resistance, organized hope.

Popular movements are where we "put our bodies on the line" to embody the message of the Gospel. I am with you! means precisely that: I am with you in each and every one of those actions in which you put your bodies on the line against exclusion and inhumanity. The Holy Father pointed this out twice to those who did not want to listen in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican: "… I want you to hear me, to listen to me say: I too! I am with you!" And that message is not a political message, it is a profound message from the Gospel. I am with you! is a call to organize hope through the direct participation of bodies in the public arena. It is not a political message, it is a prophetic message, an apostolate of nonviolence to change the world. It is a call to create a global network of organized nonviolent communities that embody the hope of a world hungry for justice and peace. And it is a call to do so with sufficient capacity to bring about real change and sit at the negotiating tables where decisions are made.

I am with you! is the concrete and simple expression of an incarnated, lived theology that calls on all of us to put our bodies on the line to embody the message of Jesus in the world.

Nicolás Paz is the Director of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative at Pax Christi International

Originally published in Spanish at Vida Nueva

By Nicolás Paz

"I am with you!" is Pope Leo XIV's message to the Fifth World Meeting of Popular Movements, showing unequivocal support for the strategies and tools of active nonviolence that Popular Movements are developing in different parts of the world to bring about social change from a culture of violence, militarization, and discarding to a culture of encounter. Popular movements today are a lived relational theology of nonviolence embodied in the world.

Last May, at the Arena della Pace in Verona, Pope Leo XIV had already stated: "Nonviolence as a method and as a style must characterize our decisions, our relationships, our actions." The message now at the Fifth World Meeting is a step further. It represents not only a continuation of a process begun with Pope Francis but also support for the organizational strategy of the Popular Movements and their strategies of prophetic denunciation and action. The final declaration of the Fifth World Meeting of Popular Movements also acknowledges the support of Pope Leo XIV: "We deeply appreciate the words of Pope Leo XIV: 'I am with you!' A support of immense value for walking together –universal and local Church– in the strategies of active nonviolence we carry out as prophetic denunciation and action against exclusion and inhumanity".

A fraternal relationship of love between the Popular Movements and the Church

It is in this mutual recognition, as theologian Emilce Cuda, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America and participant in the meeting, would say, that a fraternal relationship of love is forged between the Popular Movements and the Church, both universal and local, through Pope Francis and now Pope Leo XIV. Words of mutual recognition are the expression of this culture of incarnated encounter, of lived theology. It is the confirmation of a relational ethic of mutual recognition, of accompaniment, of walking together in synodality that makes the Popular Movements and their action in the world protagonists, historical subjects recognized and accompanied by the Church.

Dr. Cuda said it at the meeting: "to value the word that comes from the peripheries." That is what Pope Leo XIV has done. He has recognized the word and the witness of action of the Popular Movements of the world. The pontiff's accompaniment is a gesture that is embodied in his welcoming the Popular Movements at the audience.

The Popular Movements around the world

Now the question we must ask ourselves in response to that "I am with you!" is precisely where the Popular Movements are in the world, where their testimony of action and word are embodied. The answer is clear: grassroots movements are saving lives in the Mediterranean, protecting migrants from ICE in the US, boycotting injustice, staging sit-ins and pickets, organizing demonstrations and protests by informal economy workers, occupying land and housing for the excluded, campaigning against disarmament, war, and genocide, in vigils and prayers calling for peace and justice, in struggles against mining extractivism and for the protection of Creation, in complaints before national and international courts, in collective bargaining for workers' rights, in social dialogue, in the construction of alternative agricultural models, in the construction of energy cooperatives, in political advocacy campaigns, in the defense of access to medicines, in the building of bridges and not walls in a polarized world, in the Global Sumud Flotilla…in all those strategies that we call active nonviolence, "unarmed and disarming" civil resistance, organized hope.

Popular movements are where we "put our bodies on the line" to embody the message of the Gospel. I am with you! means precisely that: I am with you in each and every one of those actions in which you put your bodies on the line against exclusion and inhumanity. The Holy Father pointed this out twice to those who did not want to listen in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican: "… I want you to hear me, to listen to me say: I too! I am with you!" And that message is not a political message, it is a profound message from the Gospel. I am with you! is a call to organize hope through the direct participation of bodies in the public arena. It is not a political message, it is a prophetic message, an apostolate of nonviolence to change the world. It is a call to create a global network of organized nonviolent communities that embody the hope of a world hungry for justice and peace. And it is a call to do so with sufficient capacity to bring about real change and sit at the negotiating tables where decisions are made.

I am with you! is the concrete and simple expression of an incarnated, lived theology that calls on all of us to put our bodies on the line to embody the message of Jesus in the world.

Nicolás Paz is the Director of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative at Pax Christi International

Originally published in Spanish at Vida Nueva