From Santa Cruz to Chiclayo: A Church That Organizes

When Pope Francis addressed thousands of grassroots leaders from 32 countries in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, in 2015, he told them: “The future of humanity does not lie solely in the hands of the great leaders, the great powers, and the elites. It is fundamentally in the hands of people and in their capacity to organize.”

That moment crystallized a vision of a Church that does not simply serve the poor but accompanies them in their struggle against injustice. With the election of Pope Leo XIV—a man formed by decades of ministry in Peru, including nearly a decade as Bishop of Chiclayo—we have an opportunity not just to carry forward but to deepen a model of social ministry rooted in empowerment rather than charity.

Too often, even within the Church, we’ve internalized models of change that rely on experts, projects, and helping others. Pope Francis offered something different. He invited us to see those excluded from decent work and living conditions not as victims but as protagonists. “The poor not only suffer injustice,” he said at the first World Meeting of Popular Movements in 2014, “they also struggle against it.”

Francis was not a community organizer, but he understood organizing. He saw that lasting change begins with people acting from below. He called grassroots leaders “social poets”—those who stand up to idolatrous systems and resist exclusion, who don’t “wait with folded arms for the aid of NGOs.” He warned against abstract theorizing and programs that domesticate or anesthetize people’s agency.

As community organizers who’ve worked for years with people fighting for housing, land rights, clean water, and dignity, we’re encouraged by Pope Leo’s choice of name and his inaugural words condemning hatred, violence, and “an economic paradigm that exploits the Earth’s resources and marginalizes the poorest.” They signal continuity with Francis—but also raise a question for all of us: What will we do to carry that vision forward?

We saw that vision come to life when 25 Catholic bishops spent a week with 650 grassroots leaders at the 2017 U.S. Regional Meeting of Popular Movements. Together, they explored how to make the Kingdom of God tangible by improving the lives of working families, confronting racism and polarization, and defending migrants.

Through our work with the Vatican and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on that regional meeting and with Faith in Action, a network of people organizing for social change in the U.S. and a dozen countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Eastern Europe, we’ve seen the promise and challenge of aligning faith leaders and institutions with people’s movements.

In El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, Communities of Faith Organizing for Action (COFOA) unites people from 162 communities to organize for access to water, electricity, schools, healthcare, and land rights. Inspired by Catholic teaching, COFOA’s organizing is a direct legacy of See, Judge, Act. It has the support of both Catholic bishops and Evangelical pastors. But it has not been easy to revive Saint Romero’s legacy and find clergy willing to risk promoting social action. Just as charity and justice are referred to as the two feet of Catholic solidarity, COFOA organizers describe social ministry as having two arms: charity and organizing. Both are essential. Still, organizing has become profoundly counter-cultural within the Church and society.

Reviving that tradition of bottom-up social action will require more than moral statements. It demands investment from bishops, dioceses, and religious orders in lay formation, grassroots leadership development, fundraising, and social analysis rooted in Scripture and Catholic Social Teaching. Many bishops and cardinals appointed by Pope Francis have built close relationships with social movements. That solidarity must continue—and deepen.

We are in a kairos moment. Around the world, people are losing faith in top-down models of development and democracy. Technocratic fixes have failed to deliver lasting change. Meanwhile, nationalist leaders attack global solidarity and pit people against one another. The Church must respond—not just with moral clarity but as a home for organizing among those pushed to the margins.

We cannot return to the status quo of neo-liberal democracy and elite-driven development. We need a new global economy rooted in justice and interdependence—one that expands access to land, housing, work, and a sense of belonging, especially as climate change and war displace so many. Building a different future will require people’s movements and faith communities to work side by side in mutual respect and shared purpose.

Pope Francis’s words in Santa Cruz still hold power: “How lovely is a change when we see peoples in movement, especially their poorest members and young people. Then the wind of promise is felt that revives the hope of a better world. My desire is that this wind be transformed into a whirlwind of hope.”

That whirlwind doesn’t start in Rome or Washington. It begins in neighborhoods, parishes, and communities where people choose to act. If Pope Leo XIV carries that spirit forward, we will realize Francis’s vision of a Church that walks with the poor, not only in service, but in struggle.

–Gordon Whitman and Joseph Fleming

Gordon Whitman is the Managing Director for International Organizing at Faith in Action International. Joseph Fleming is the Director of Federation Support and Catholic Outreach at Faith in Action.

Founded in 1973 by Fr. John Baumann, S.J. with support from the California Province of the Jesuits (now Jesuits West), Faith in Action is one of the largest Jesuit-sponsored ministries in the world, supporting multi-faith community organizing in 350 communities in twelve countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Eastern Europe and across the U.S.