Making everyone a neighbour

Description

Making everyone a neighbour involves fostering inclusive, supportive communities by encouraging direct engagement, empathy, and mutual assistance among individuals regardless of background. This strategy aims to break down social barriers, reduce isolation, and address prejudice by promoting shared responsibility and cooperation. Practical actions include community-building initiatives, cross-cultural exchanges, and local support networks, all designed to create environments where everyone feels valued, connected, and empowered to contribute to collective well-being.

Claim

In our times a special obligation binds us to make ourselves the neighbour of every person without exception, and of actively helping him when he comes across our path, whether he be an old person abandoned by all, a foreign labourer unjustly looked down upon, a refugee, a child born of an unlawful union and wrongly suffering for a sin he did not commit, or a hungry person who disturbs our conscience by recalling the voice of the Lord, "As long as you did it for one of these the least of my brethren, you did it for me" (Matt. 25:40). (Second Vatican Council. Gaudium et Spes, 1965).

Love thy neighbor as thyself: Do not to others what thou wouldst not wish be done to thyself: Forgive injuries. Forgive thy enemy, be reconciled to him, give him assistance, invoke the Principle in his behalf. (Confucius (B.C. 551-479)).