The Birth of Christ and
Sorrowing Humanity
Christmas Message of 1942.
My Dear
Children of the Whole World:
As the
Holy Christmas Season comes round each year, the message of Jesus, Who is light
in the midst of darkness, echoes once more from the Crib of Bethlehem in the
ears of Christians and re-echoes in their hearts with an ever new freshness of
joy and piety. It is a message which lights up with heavenly truth a world that
is plunged in darkness by fatal errors. It infuses exuberant and trustful joy into
mankind, torn by the anxiety of deep, bitter sorrow. It proclaims liberty to
the sons of Adam, shackled with the chains of sin and guilt. It promises mercy,
love, peace to the countless hosts of those in suffering and tribulation who
see their happiness Shattered and their efforts broken in the tempestuous
strife and hate of our stormy days.
The
church bells, which announce this message in every continent, not only recall
the gift which God made to mankind at the dawn of the Christian Era; they also
announce and proclaim a consoling reality of the present, a reality which is
eternally young, living and life-giving; it is the reality of the "True
Light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this World," and which
knows no setting. The Eternal Word, Who is the Way, the Truth and the Life,
began His mission of saving and redeeming the human race by being born in the
squalor of a stable and by thus ennobling and hallowing poverty.
He thus
proclaimed and consecrated a message which is still, today, the Word of Eternal
Life. That message can solve the most tortuous questions, unsolved and
insoluble for those who bring to their investigations a mentality and an
apparatus which are ephemeral and merely human; and those questions stand up,
bleeding, imperiously demanding an answer, before the thought and the feeling
of embittered and exasperated mankind.
The
watchword "I have compassion on the multitude" is for Us a sacred
trust which may not be abused; it remains strong, and impelling in all times
and in all human situations, as it was the distinguishing mark of Jesus.
The
Church would be untrue to herself, ceasing to be a mother, if she turned a deaf
ear to her children's anguished cries, which reach her from every class of the
human family. She does not intend to take sides for any of the particular forms
in which the several peoples and States strive to solve the gigantic problems
of domestic order or international collaboration, as long as these forms
conform to the law of God. But on the other hand, as the "Pillar and
Ground of Truth" and guardian, by the will of God and the mandate of
Christ, of the natural and supernatural order, the Church cannot renounce her
right to proclaim to her sons and to the whole world the unchanging basic laws,
saving them from every perversion, frustration, corruption, false
interpretation and error.
This is
all the more necessary for the fact that from the exact maintenance of these
laws, and not merely by the effort of noble and courageous wills, depends in
the last analysis the solidity of any national and international order, so
fervently desired by all peoples. We know the qualities of courage and
sacrifice of those peoples, and We also know their straitened conditions and
their sorrow; and in this hour of unspeakable trial and strife We feel
Ourselves bound to each and every one of them without exception, by a deep,
all-embracing, unmovable affection, and by an immense desire to bring them
every solace and help which is in any way at Our command.
Primary
Elements of Social Life
In our
last Christmas Message, We expounded the principles- which Christian thought
suggests, for the establishment of an international order of friendly relations
and collaboration such as conforming to the demands of God's Law. Today We
shall, with the consent, We feel, and the interested attention of all upright
men, pause to consider very carefully and with equal impartiality, the
fundamental laws of the internal order of the States and peoples.
International
relations and internal order are intimately related. International equilibrium
and harmony depend on the internal equilibrium and development of the
individual States in the material, social and intellectual spheres. A firm
steady peace policy towards other nations is, in fact, impossible without a
spirit of peace within the nation which inspires trust. It is only, then, by
striving for an integral peace, a peace in both fields, that people will be
freed from the cruel nightmare of war, and the material and psychological
causes of further discord and disorder will be diminished in a desire for
peace, and hence aims at attaining peace, that "tranquil living together
in order" in which St. Thomas finds the essence of peace. Two primary
elements, then, regulate social life, a living together in order, and a living
together in tranquility.
Order
Order,
which is fundamental in an association of men (of beings, that is, who strive
to attain an end appropriate to their nature) is not merely external linking up
of parts which are numerically distinct. It is rather, and must be, a tendency
and an ever more perfect approach to an internal union; and this does not
exclude differences founded in fact and sanctioned by the will of God or by
supernatural standard.
A clear
understanding of the genuine fundamentals of all social life has a capital
importance today as never before, when mankind, impregnated by the poison of
error and social aberrations, tormented by the fever of discordant desires,
doctrines, and aims, is excitedly tossing about in the disorder which it has
itself created, and is experiencing the destructive force of false ideas that
disregard the Law of God or are opposed to it. And since disorder can only be
overcome by an order which is not merely superimposed and fictitious (just as
darkness with its fearful and depressing effects can only be driven away by
light and not by will o' the wisps); so security, reorganizations, progressive
improvement cannot be expected and cannot be brought about unless by a return
of large and influential sections to correct notions about security.
It is a
return which calls for the Grace of God in large measure, and for a resolute
will, ready and prepared for sacrifice on the part of good farseeing men. From
these influential circles who are more capable of penetrating and appreciating
the beauty of just social norms, there will pass on and infiltrate into the
masses the clear knowledge of the true, divine, spiritual origin of social
life. Thus the way will be cleared for the reawakening, the growth and fixing
of those moral principles without which even the proudest achievements create
but a Babel
From
individual and social life we should rise to God, the First Cause and Ultimate
Foundation, as He is the Creator of the first conjugal society, from which we
have the society which is the family, and the society of peoples and of
nations. As an image, albeit imperfect, of its Exemplar, the One and Triune
God, Who through the Mystery of the Incarnation, redeemed and raised human
nature, life in society, in its ideals and in its end, possesses by the light
of reason and of revelation a moral authority and an absoluteness which
transcend every temporal change. It has a power of attraction that, far from
being weakened or lessened by delusions, errors, failures, draws irresistibly
the noblest and most faithful souls to the Lord, to take up with renewed
energy, with added knowledge, with new studies, methods and means, the enterprises
which in other times and circumstances were tried in vain.
The
origin and the primary scope of social life is the conservation, development
and perfection of the human person, helping him to realize accurately the
demands and values of religion and culture set by the Creator for every man and
for all mankind, both as a whole and in its natural ramifications.
A
social teaching or a social reconstruction program which denies or withdraws
from this internal essential relation to God of everything that regards men, is
on a false course; and while it builds up with one hand, it prepares with the
other the materials which sooner or later will undermine and destroy the whole
fabric. And when it disregards the respect due to the human person and to the
life which is proper to that person, and gives no thought to it in its
organization, in legislative and executive activity, then instead of serving
society, it harms it; instead of encouraging and stimulating social thought,
instead of realizing its hopes and expectations, it strips it of all real value
and reduces it to a utilitarian formula which is openly rejected by constantly
increasing groups.
If
social life implies intrinsic unity, it does not, at the same time, exclude
differences which are founded in fact and nature. When we hold fast to God, the
Supreme Controller of all that relates to man, then the similarities no less
than the differences of men find their allotted place in the fixed order of
being, of values, and hence also of morality. When, however, this foundation is
removed, there is a dangerous lack of cohesion in the various spheres of
culture; the frontier of true value becomes uncertain and shifting, even to the
point where mere external factors, and often blind instincts, come to determine,
according to the prevalent fashion of the day, who is to have control of this
or that direction.
After
the fateful economy of the past decades, during which the lives of all citizens
were subordinated to the stimulus of gain, there now succeeds another and no
less fateful policy which, while it considers everybody with reference to the
State, excludes all thought of ethics or religion. This is a fatal travesty, a
fatal error. It is calculated to bring about far-reaching consequences for
social life, which is never nearer to losing its noblest prerogatives than when
it thinks it can deny or forget with impunity the external source of its own
dignity: God.
Reason,
enlightened by faith, assigns to individuals and to particular societies in the
social organization a definite and exalted place. It knows, to mention only the
most important, that the whole political and economic activity of the State is
directed to the permanent realization of the common good.
In a
conception of society which is pervaded and sanctioned by religious thought,
the influence of economics and of every other sphere of cultural activity
represents a universal and most exalted centre of activity, very rich in its
variety and coherent in its harmony, in which men's intellectual equality and diversity
of occupation come into their own and secure adequate expression. When this is
not so, work is depreciated and the worker is belittled.
That
social life, such as God willed it, may attain its scope, it needs a juridical
order to support it from without, to defend and protect it. The function of
this juridical order is not to dominate but to serve, to help the development
and increase of society's vitality in the rich multiplicity of its ends,
leading all the individual energies to their perfection in peaceful completion,
and defending them with appropriate and honest means against all that may
militate against those who only by this means can be held within the noble
discipline of social life. But in the just fulfilment of this right, an
authority which is truly worthy of the name will always be painfully conscious
of its responsibility in the sight of the Eternal Judge, before Whose Tribunal
every wrong judgment, and especially every revolt against the order established
by God, will receive without fail its sanction and its condemnation.
The
precise, bedrock, basic rules that govern society cannot be prejudiced by the
intervention of human agency. They can be denied, overlooked, despised,
transgressed, but they can never be overthrown with legal validity. It is true
indeed that, as time goes on, conditions of life change. But there is never a
complete break or a complete discontinuity between the law of yesterday and
that of today, between the disappearance of old powers and constitutions and
the appearance of a new order. In any case, whatever be the change or
transformation, the scope of every social life remains identical, sacred,
obligatory; it is the development of the personal values of man as the image of
God; and the obligation remains with every member of the human family to
realize his unchangeable destiny, whosoever be the legislator and the authority
whom he obeys.
In
consequence, there always remains, too, his inalienable right, which no
opposition can nullify—a right which must be respected by friend and foe—to a
legal order and practice which appreciate and understand that it is their
essential duty to serve the common good.
The
juridical order has, besides, the high and difficult scope of insuring
harmonious relations both between individuals and between societies, and within
these. This scope will be reached if legislators will abstain from following
those perilous theories and practices, so harmful to communities to their
spirit of union, which derive their origin and promulgation from false
postulates. Among such postulates We must count the juridical positivism which
attributes a deceptive majesty to the setting up of purely human laws, and
which leaves the way open for a fatal divorce of law from morality.
There
is, besides, the conception which claims for particular nations, or classes,
the juridical instinct as the final imperative and the norm from which there is
no appeal; finally, there are those various theories which, differing among
themselves, and deriving from opposite ideologies, agree in considering the
State, or a group which represents it, as an absolute and supreme entity,
exempt from control and from criticism even when its theoretical and practical
postulates result in and offend by, their open denial of essential tenets of
the human Christian conscience.
Anyone
who considers with an open and penetrating mind the vital connection between
social order and a genuine juridical order, and who is conscious of the fact
that internal order in all its complexity depends on the predominance of
spiritual forces, on the respect of human dignity in oneself and in others, on
the love of society and of its God-given ends, cannot wonder at the sad effects
of juridical conceptions which, far from the royal road of truth, proceed on the
insecure ground of materialistic postulates. But he will realize at once the
urgent need of a return to a conception of law which is spiritual and ethical,
serious and profound, vivified by the warmth of true humanity and illumined by
the splendour of the Christian Faith, which bids us seek in the juridical order
an outward refraction of the social order willed by God, a luminous product of
the spirit of man which is in turn the image of the Spirit of God.
On this
organic conception which alone is living, in which the noblest humanity and the
most genuine Christian spirit flourish in harmony, there is marked the
Scripture thought, expounded by the great Aquinas: Opus Justitiae
Pax—The work of justice is peace—a thought which is applicable to the
internal as to the external aspect of social life. It admits of neither
contrast nor alternative such as expressed in the disjunction, love or right,
but of the fruitful synthesis, love and right. In the one as in the other,
since both radiate from the same Spirit of God, We read the program and the
seal of the human spirit; they complement one another, give each other life and
support, walk hand in hand along the road of concord and pacification, while
right clears the way for love and love makes right less stern, and gives it a
higher meaning. Both elevate human life to that social atmosphere where, even
amid the failings, the obstacles and the difficulties of this earth a fraternal
community of life is made possible.
But
once let the baneful spirit of materialist ideas predominate; let the urge for
power and for predominance take in its rough hands the direction of affairs;
you shall then find its disruptive effects appearing daily in greater measure;
you shall see love and justice disappear; all this as the sad foretaste of the
catastrophes that menace society when it abandons God.
Tranquility
The
second fundamental element of peace, towards which every human society tends
almost instinctively, is tranquillity.
O
blessed tranquility, thou has nothing in common with the spirit of holding
fixedly and obstinately, unrelenting and with childish stubbornness, to things
as they are; nor yet with the reluctance—child of cowardice and selfishness—to
put one's mind to the solution of problems and questions which the passage of
time and the succession of generations, with their different needs and
progress, make actual, and bring up a burning question of the day. But for a
Christian who is conscious of his responsibilities even towards the least of
his brethren, there is no such thing as slothful tranquility; nor is there
question of flight, but of struggle, of action against every inaction and
desertion in the great spiritual combat where the stakes are the construction,
nay the very soul, of the society of tomorrow.
In the
mind of Aquinas, tranquility and feverish activity are not opposed, but rather
form a well-balanced pair for him who is inspired by the beauty and the urgency
of the spiritual foundations of society, and of the nobility of its ideals. To
you, young people, who are wont to turn your back on the past, and to rely on
the future for your aspirations and your hopes, We address Ourselves with
ardent love and fatherly anxiety; enthusiasm and courage do not of themselves
suffice, if they be not, as they should be, placed in the service of good and
of a spotless cause. It is vain to agitate, to weary yourselves, to bustle
about without ever resting. You must be inspired with the conviction that you
are fighting for truth, that you are sacrificing in the cause of truth your own
tastes and energies wishes, and sacrifices; that you are fighting for the
eternal laws of God, for the dignity of the human person, and for the
attainment of its destiny.
When
mature men and young men, while remaining always at anchor, in the sea of the
eternally active tranquility of God, coordinate their differences of
temperament and activity in a genuine Christian spirit, then if the propelling
element is joined to the refraining element, the natural differences between
the generations will never become dangerous, and will even conduce vigorously
to the enforcement of the eternal laws of God in the changing course of times
and of conditions of life.
In one
field of social life, where for a whole century there was agitation and bitter
conflict, there is today a calm, at least on the surface. We speak of the vast
and ever growing world of labor, of the immense army of workers, of
breadwinners and dependents. If we consider the present with its wartime
exigencies, as an admitted fact, then this calm may be called a necessary and
reasonable demand; but if we look at the present situation in the light of
justice, and with reference to a legitimately regulated labor movement, then
the tranquility will remain only apparent, until the scope of such a movement
be attained.
Always
moved by religious motives, the Church has condemned the various forms of
Marxist Socialism; and she condemns them today, because it is her permanent
right and duty to safeguard men from currents as thought and influences that jeopardize
their external salvation. But the Church cannot ignore or overlook the fact
that the worker in his efforts to better his lot is opposed by a machinery
which is not only not in accordance with nature, but is at variance with God's
plan and with the purpose He had in creating the goods of earth.
In
spite of the fact that the ways they followed were and are false and to be
condemned, what man, and especially what priest or Christian, could remain deaf
to the cries that rise from the depths and call for justice and a spirit of
brotherly collaboration in a world ruled by a just God? Such silence would be
culpable and unjustifiable before God, and contrary to the inspired teaching of
the Apostle, who, while he inculcates the need of resolution in the fight
against error, also knows that we must be full of sympathy for those who err,
and open-minded in our understanding of their aspirations, hopes and motives.
When He
blessed our first parents, God said: "Increase and multiply and fill the
earth and subdue it." And to the first father of a family, He said later:
"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." The dignity of the
human person, then, requires normally as a natural foundation of life the right
to the use of the goods of the earth. To this right corresponds the fundamental
obligation to grant private ownership of property, if possible, to all.
Positive legislation regulating private ownership may change and more or less
restrict its use. But if legislation is to play its part in the pacification of
the community, it must prevent the worker, who is or will be a father of a
family, from being condemned to an economic dependence and slavery which is
irreconcilable with his rights as a person. Whether this slavery arises from
the exploitation of private capital or from the power of the state, the result
is the same. Indeed, under the pressure of a State which dominates all and
controls the whole field of public and private life, even going into the realm
of ideas and beliefs and of conscience, this lack of liberty can have the more
serious consequences, as experience shows and proves.
Five
Points for Ordering Society
Anyone
who considers in the light of reason and of faith the foundations and the aims
of social life, which we have traced in broad outline, and contemplates them in
their purity and moral sublimity, and in their benefits in every sphere of
life, cannot but be convinced of the powerful contribution to order and
pacification which efforts directed towards great ideals and resolved to face difficulties,
could present, or better, could restore to a world which is internally
unhinged, when once they had thrown down the intellectual and juridical
barriers, created by prejudice, errors, indifferences, and by a long tradition
of secularization of thought, feeling, action which succeeded in detaching and
subtracting the early city from the light and force of the City of God. Today,
as never before, the hour has come for reparation, for rousing the conscience
of the world from the heavy torpor into which the drugs of false ideas, widely
diffused, have sunk it. This is all the more so because in this hour of
material and moral disintegration the appreciation of the emptiness and
inconsistency of every purely human order is beginning to disillusion even those
who, in days of apparent happiness, were not conscious of the need of contact
with the eternal in themselves or in society, and did not look upon its absence
as an essential defect in their constitutions. What was clear to the Christian,
who in his deeply founded faith was pained by the ignorance of others, is now
presented to us in dazzling clearness by the din of appalling catastrophe which
the present upheaval brings to man and which portrays all the terrifying
lineaments of a general judgment even for the tepid, the indifferent, the
frivolous. It is indeed, an old truth which comes out in ever new forms and
thunders through the ages and through the nations from the mouth of the
Prophet: "All that forsake thee shall be confounded; they who depart from
thee, shall be written in the earth; because they have forsaken the Lord, the
Vein of Living Waters."
The
call of the moment is not lamentation but action; not lamentation over what has
been, but reconstruction of what is to arise and must arise for the good of
society. It is for the best and most distinguished members of the Christian
family, filled with the enthusiasm of Crusaders, to unite in the spirit of
truth, justice and love to the call; God wills it, ready to serve, to sacrifice
themselves, like the Crusaders of old.
If the
issue was then the liberation of the land hallowed by the life of the Incarnate
Word of God, the call today is, if We may so express Ourselves, to traverse the
sea of errors of our day and to march on to free the holy land of the spirit,
which is destined to sustain in its foundations the unchangeable norms and laws
on which will rise a social construction of solid internal consistency. With
this lofty purpose before Us, We turn from the crib of the Prince of Peace,
confident that His grace is diffused in all hearts, to you, beloved children,
who recognized and adore in Christ your Saviour; We turn to all those who are
united with Us at least by the bond of faith in God; We turn, finally to all
those who would be free of doubt and error, and who desire light and guidance;
and We exhort you with suppliant paternal insistence not only to realize fully
the dreadful gravity of this hour, but also to meditate upon the vistas of good
and supernatural benefit which it opens up, and to unite and collaborate
towards the renewal of society in spirit and truth.
The
essential aim of this necessary and holy crusade is that the Star of Peace, the
Star of Bethlehem, may shine out again over the whole mankind in all its
brilliant splendor and reassuring consolation as a pledge and augury of a
future better, more fruitful and happier. It is true that the road from night
to full day will be long; but of decisive importance are the first steps on the
path, the first five mile-stones of which bear chiselled on them the following
maxims:
1.
Dignity of the Human Person.
He who would have the Star of Peace shine out and stand over
society should cooperate, for his part, in giving back to the human person the
dignity given to it by God from the very beginning; should oppose the excessive
herding of men, as if they were a mass without a soul; their economic, social,
political, intellectual and moral inconsistency; their dearth of solid
principles and strong convictions, their surfeit of instinctive sensible excitement
and their fickleness.
He
should favour, by every lawful means, in every sphere of life, social
institutions in which a full personal responsibility is assured and guaranteed
both in the early and the eternal order of things. He should uphold respect for
and the practical realization of the following fundamental personal rights; the
right to maintain and develop one's corporal, intellectual and moral life and
especially the right to religious formation and education; the right to worship
God in private and public and to carry on religious works of charity; the right
to marry and to achieve the aim of married life; the right to conjugal and
domestic society; the right to work, as the indispensable means towards the
maintenance of family life; the right to free choice of state of life, and
hence, too, of the priesthood or religious life; the right to the use of
material goods; in keeping with his duties and social limitations
2.
Defense of Social Unity.
He who would have the Star of Peace shine out and stand over
society should reject every form of materialism which sees in the people only a
herd of individuals who, divided and without any internal cohesion, are
considered as a mass to be forded over and treated arbitrarily; he should
strive to understand society as an intrinsic unity, which has grown up and
matured under the guidance of Providence, a unity which within the bounds
assigned to it and according to its own peculiar gifts—tends, with the
collaboration of the various classes and professions, towards the eternal and
ever new aims of culture and religion.
He
should defend the indissolubility of matrimony; he should give to the
family—that unique cell of the people—space, light and air so that it may
attend to its mission of perpetuating new life, and of educating children in a
spirit corresponding to its own true religious convictions, and that it may
preserve, fortify and reconstitute, according to its powers, its proper
economic, spiritual, moral and juridic unity. He should take care that the material
and spiritual advantages of the family be shared by the domestic servants; he
should strive to secure for every family a dwelling where a materially and
morally healthy family life may be seen in all its vigor and worth; he should
take care that the place of work be not so separated from the home as to make
the head of the family and educator of the children a virtual stranger to his
own household; he should take care above all that the bond of trust and mutual
help should be reestablished between the family and the public school, that
bond which in other times gave such happy results, but which now has been
replaced by mistrust where the school, influenced and controlled by the spirit
of materialism, corrupts and destroys what the parents have instilled into the
minds of the children.
3.
Dignity of Labour.
He who would have the Star of Peace shine out and stand over society should
give to work the place assigned to it by God from the beginning. As an
indispensable means towards gaining over the world that mastery which God
wishes, for His glory, all work has an inherent dignity and at the same time a
close connection with the perfection of the person; this is the noble dignity
and privilege of work which is not any way cheapened by the fatigue and the burden,
which have to be borne as the effect of original sin, in obedience and
submission to the will of God.
Those
who are familiar with the great Encyclicals of Our predecessors and Our Own
previous messages know well that the Church does not hesitate to draw the
practical conclusions which are derived from the moral nobility of work, and to
give them all the support of her authority. These exigencies include, besides a
just wage which covers the needs of the worker and his family, the conservation
and perfection of a social order which will make possible an assured, even if
modest, private property for all classes of society, which will promote higher
education for the children of the working class who are especially endowed with
intelligence and good will, will promote the care and the practice of the
social spirit in one's immediate neighborhood, in the district, the province,
the people and the nation, a spirit which, by smoothing over friction arising
from privileges or class interests, removes from the workers the sense of
isolation through the assuring experience of a genuinely human, and fraternally
Christian, solidarity.
The
progress and the extent of urgent social reforms depend on the economic
possibilities of single Nations. It is only through an intelligent and generous
sharing of forces between the strong and the weak that it will be possible to
effect a universal pacification in such wise as not to leave behind centres of
conflagration and infection from which new disasters may come.
There are evident
signs which go to show that, in the ferment of all the prejudices and feelings
of hate, those inevitable but lamentable offspring of the war psychosis, there
is still aflame in the people the consciousness of their intimate mutual
dependence for good or for evil, nay, that this consciousness is more alive and
active. It is not true that deep thinkers see ever more clearly in the
renunciation of egoism and national isolation, the way to general salvation,
ready as they are to demand of their peoples, a heavy participation in the
sacrifices necessary for social well-being in other peoples?
May
this Christmas Message of Ours, addressed to all those who are animated by a
good and generous heart, encourage and increase the legions of these social
crusades in every nation. And may God deign to give to their peaceful cause the
victory of which their noble enterprise is worthy.
4.
The Rehabilitation of Juridical Order.
He who would have the Star of Peace shine
out and stand over social life should collaborate towards a complete
rehabilitation of the juridical order. The juridic sense of today is often
altered and overturned by the profession and the practice of positivism and a
utilitarianism which are subjected and bound to the service of determined
groups, classes and movements, whose programs direct and determine the course
of legislation and the practices of the courts. The cure of this situation
becomes feasible when we awaken again the consciousness of a juridical order
resting on the supreme dominion of God, and safeguarded from all human whims; a
consciousness of an order which stretches forth its arm, in protection or
punishment, over the unforgettable rights of man and protects them against the
attacks of every human power.
From
the juridic order, as willed by God, flows man's inalienable right to juridical
security and by this very fact to a definite sphere of rights, immune from all
arbitrary attack. The relations of man to man, of the individual to society, to
authority, to civil duties; the relations of society and of authority to the
individual, should be placed on a firm juridic footing and be guarded, when the
need arises, by the authority of the courts. This supposes:
a) A
tribunal and a judge who take their directions from a clearly formulated and
defined right.
b)
Clear juridical norms which may not be overturned by unwarranted appeals to a
supposed popular sentiment or by merely utilitarian considerations.
c) The
recognition of the principle that even the State and the functionaries and
organizations depend on it are obliged to repair and to withdraw measures which
are harmful to the liberty, property, honour, progress of health of the
individuals.
5.
Christian Conception of the State.
He who would have the Star of Peace shine out and stand over human
society should cooperate towards the setting up of a State conception and
practice founded on reasonable discipline, exalted kindliness and responsible
Christian spirit. He should help to restore the State and its power to the
service of human society, to the full recognition of the respect due to the
human person and his efforts to attain his eternal destiny. He should apply and
devote himself to dispelling the errors which aim at causing the State and its
authority to deviate from the path of morality, at severing them from the
eminently ethical bond which links them to individual and social life, and at
making them deny or in practice ignore their essential dependence on the will
of the Creator. He should work for the recognition and diffusion of the truth
which teaches, even in matters of this world, that the deepest meaning, the
ultimate moral basis and the universal validity of "reigning" lies in
"serving."
Postwar
Renovation of Society
Beloved
Children, may God grant that while you listen to Our voice your heart may be
profoundly stirred and moved by the deeply felt seriousness, the loving
solicitude, the unremitting insistence, with which We drive home these
thoughts, which are meant as an appeal to the conscience of the world, and a
rallying-cry to all those who are ready to ponder and weigh the grandeur of
their mission and responsibility by the vastness of this universal disaster.
A great
part of mankind, and, let Us not shirk from saying it, not a few who call
themselves Christians, have to some extent their share in the collective
responsibility for the growth of error and for the harm and the lack of moral
fibre in the society of today.
What is
this world war, with all its attendant circumstances, whether they be remote or
proximate causes, its progress and material, legal and moral effects? What is
it but the crumbling process, not expected, perhaps, by the thoughtless but
seen and depreciated by those whose gaze penetrated into the realities of a
social order which hid its mortal weakness and its unbridled lust for gain and
power? That which in peace-time lay coiled up, broke loose at the outbreak of
war in a sad succession of acts at variance with the human and Christian sense.
International agreements to make war less inhuman by confining it to the
combatants to regulate the procedure of occupation and imprisonment of the
conquered remained in various places a dead letter. And who can see the end of
this progressive demoralization of the people, who can wish to watch helplessly
this disastrous progress? Should they not rather, over the ruins of a social
order which has given such tragic proof of its ineptitude as a factor for the
good of the people, gather together the hearts of all those who are magnanimous
and upright, in the solemn vow not to rest until in all peoples and all nations
of the earth a vast legion shall be formed of those handfuls of men who, bent
on bringing back society to its center of gravity, which is the law of God,
aspire to the service of the human person and of his common life ennobled in
God.
Mankind
owes that vow to the countless dead who lie buried on the field of battle: The
sacrifice of their lives in the fulfillment of their duty is a holocaust
offered for a new and better social order. Mankind owes that vow to the
innumerable sorrowing host of mothers, widows and orphans who have seen the
light, the solace and the support of their lives wrenched from them. Mankind
owes that vow to those numberless exiles whom the hurricane of war has torn
from their native land and scattered in the land of the stranger; who can make
their own the lament of the Prophet: "Our inheritance is turned to aliens;
our house to strangers."
Mankind
owes that vow to the hundreds of thousands of persons who, without any fault on
their part, sometimes only because of their nationality or race, have been
consigned to death or to a slow decline.
Mankind
owes that vow to the many thousands of non-combatants, women, children, sick
and aged, from whom aerial war-fare—whose horrors we have from the beginning
frequently denounced—has without discrimination or through inadequate
precautions, taken life, goods, health, home, charitable refuge, or house of
prayer. Mankind owes that vow to the flood of tears and bitterness, to the
accumulation of sorrow and suffering, emanating from the murderous ruin of the
dreadful conflict and crying to Heaven to send down the Holy Spirit to liberate
the world from the inundation of violence and terror.
And
where could you with greater assurance and trust and with more efficacious
faith place this vow for the renewal of society than at the foot of the
"Desired of all Nations" Who lies before us in the crib with all the
charm of His sweet humanity as a Babe, but also in the dynamic attraction of
His incipient mission as Redeemer? Where could this noble and holy crusade for
the cleaning and renewal of society have a more significant consecration or
find a more potent inspiration than at Bethlehem
His
light can overcome the darkness, the rays of His love can conquer the icy
egoism which holds so many back from becoming great and conspicuous in their
higher life. To you, crusader-volunteers of a distinguished new society, live
up to the new call for moral and Christian rebirth, declare war on the darkness
which comes from deserting God, of the coolness that comes from strife between
brothers. It is a fight for the human race, which is gravely ill and must be
healed in the name of conscience ennobled by Christianity.
May Our
blessing and Our paternal good wishes and encouragement go with your generous
enterprise, and may they remain with all those who do not shirk hard
sacrifices—those weapons which are more potent than any steel to combat the
evil from which society suffers.
Over your crusade for a social, human and
Christian ideal may there shine out as a consolation and an inspiration the
star that stands over the Grotto of Bethlehem, the first and the perennial star
of the Christian Era. From the sign of it every faithful heart drew, draws and
ever will draw strength; "If armies in camp should stand against me, my
heart shall not fear." Where that star shines, there is Christ. "With
Him for leader we shall not wander; through Him let us go to Him, that with the
Child that is born today we may rejoice forever."
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