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Pope meets U.S. leaders patiently building ‘culture of solidarity’ | USCCB September 20th, 2023

Pope Francis sitting in prayer and holding hands of organizers to his left and right
Many Oblates and numerous public parishes throughout the country work in community organizing, and with IAF over the years. It is really encouraging to read about this conversation with Pope Francis.
 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — When Pope Francis told a group of U.S. community organizers that their work was “atomic,” Jorge Montiel said, “I thought, ‘Oh, you mean we blow things up?'”

But instead, the pope spoke about how the groups associated with the West/Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation in the United States take issues patiently, “atom by atom,” and end up building something that “penetrates” and changes entire communities, said Montiel, an IAF organizer in Colorado and New Mexico.

Pope Francis’ hourlong meeting Sept. 14 with 15 delegates from the group was a follow-up to a similar meeting a year ago. Neither meeting was listed on the pope’s official schedule and, the delegates said, both were conversations, not “audiences.”

“It was relaxed, it was engaging,” said Joe Rubio, national co-director of IAF. “Often you don’t see that even with parish priests,” he told Catholic News Service Sept. 15, garnering the laughter of other delegates.

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