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Copyright, 1930. 



1 

The Church and World Culture 

THIS is the first of a series of talks
1 on the general theme 

of the equipment which the Catholic Church desires for 
her laity and, according to her own opportunities and their 
capacity and circumstances, actually affords them. Our 
first study will be confined to what relates directly to the 
perfecting of the layman's intellect. 

In her God-given mission of applying Christ's redemptive 
graces to the human family , Catholicism aims, as the Pope 
has suggested in more than one of his recent Encyclicals, to 
help man to re-create in himself the Divine image after 
which he had been originally fashioned but which was sadly 
disfigured when our first father , Adam, sinned, and brought 
upon himself and his descendants the privation of sanctify-
ing grace, and, in consequence, darkness of intellect and 
weakness of will. Her function is to form men after the 
image of the "new Adam," as St. Paul styles Christ, to help 
them put off the old man that they may put on the new, 
" the perfect man," that with the same Apostle each may 
be able to say, "1 live, now not I, but Christ liveth with me." 

Obviously a religion with such a Divine mandate must 
have some body of knowledge to communicate to its mem-
bers that will offset their native intellectual darkness. It 
has. On the assumption that the object of the human in-
tellect is the attainment of truth, an assumption that is one 
of the primary conclusions of any sound system of psy-
chology, the Catholic Church can make the challenging 
statement, bold as it may seem, that she comes nearest of 
all institutions in the world, to being able to satisfy the 
mind's desire for truth. 

When the God-Man established His Church, He sent 
upon it the Holy Spirit, as we read in the Acts of the Apos-
tles, the spirit of Truth, that would teach it all truth, that 
would make it in the familiar Scriptural phrase, "the pillar 
and ground of the truth." As a result, it alone is the cus-
todian on this earth of the revealed truths that God wishes 

lBroadcast by the Paulist Radio Station, WLWL, J anuary 15, ' 22, 
29, 1930. 

1 



2 THE CHURCH AND WORLD CULTURE 

men to possess; it alone can teach them infallibly and with 
certainty. To some I fear that claim will sound irritatingly 
dogmatic. It is dogmatic. Only the Catholic Church can 
speak with authority about the most intriguing problems 
with which the human mind may speculate, God and the 
soul, the Trinity and the Incarnation, the creation and the 
Redemption, and the other mysteries of Faith. Only the 
Catholic Church is the mistress of the science of theology 
in its totality, that science which, because it treats of the 
Deity, is the most excellent of all branches of knowledge, 
and she offers it in its completeness to those who wish and 
can take it. 

CHURCH AND SECULAR LEARNING 

This evening, however, we are not precisely concerned 
with the religious truths, valuable and informative as they 
may be, which the Church proposes for the perfection of the 
human intellect. To know the Father and- Jesus Christ 
whom He has sent, may sum up, as St. John tells us , eternal 
life. But we would rather emphasize just now that, in ad-
dition to the revealed doctrines she has to communicate, the 
Catholic Church offers man a philosophy of life and a set 
of norms by which the principles, if not the facts , involved 
in purely secular branches of knowledge, may be safely 
tested and properly appraised, so that though primarily in-
stituted to convey religious truths to mSLnkind, even in the 
field of prc;>fane learning she has a distinctive and well 
worth-while contribution to make towards the perfection of 
the minds of those who listen with docility to her teachings. 

Please do not mistake the implications of that last re-
mark. Catholics do not foolishly maintain that without 
their Church the race would grovel in ignorance, much less 
that it has any monopoly of secular knowledge, or that it is 
entirely or immediately responsible for all the inventions 
and discoveries that have given us our civilization and cul-
ture. On the other hand, though often misrepresented as 
anything but favorable to the progress of learning, as a sort 
of intellectual reactionary, it is a thoroughly sound and his-
torically justifiable position to !lssume, that the Church has 
been the mistress and promoter of the arts and sciences 
through the centuries, so that the intellectual heritage we 



THE CHURCH AND WORLD CULTURE 3 

now enjoy is largely her bequest. In great part she has 
preserved for our age the intellectual treasures of antiquity 
and her benign influence has habitually fostered learning and 
scholarship. Above all , however, we owe it to her that the 
human mind has been safeguarded from the vagaries of 
error, for in the various departments of knowledge she has 
ever sifted the gold from the dross. This she was and is 
qualified to do because, protected by Divine assistance from 
making mistakes in matters that directly concern Faith or 
morals, as· a corollary she could not go astray on points of 
secular learning indirectly relating to Faith or morals, and 
most of the important fields of scholarship have some such 
relationship. 

CATHOLIC SCHOLARSHIP SECURE 

An illustration will clarify this point. Take, for ex-
ample, evolution. Any careful scientist may unearth and 
verify the facts and accurately inform us about them. When, 
however, it comes to philosophizing about those facts, unlike 
the atheist or agnostic or unbeliever, the Catholic scholar 
will never be led, in interpreting or theorizing about them, 
to conclusions opposed to the fundamental truths of life, for 
if his findings contradict Revelation or are at variance with 
religion, or promote immorality rather than make for edi-
fication and virtue, he will be sure that there is something 
radically wrong with his interpretative processes. In the 
same way the Catholic sociologist will never be tricked by 
the fallacies of birth control or euthanasia, or the Catholic 
political scientist deceived by exaggerated notions of the 
powers of government. 

To gain a better insight into the vast store-house of secu-
lar knowledge which the Church has so influenced that it 
may .be said to be her peculiar contribution to our times, and 
which makes up the rich intellectual inheritance of the Cath-
olic layman, it may be well to make a brief survey of the 
outstanding fields of secular learning and study her attitude 
towards them. 

ARTS AND LETTERS 

In the realm of the fine or <eSthetic arts it is a truism to 
say that the Catholic Church has ever made them the hand-



4 THE CHURCH AND WORLD CULTURE 

maid of religion, using them to convey religious instruction 
and stir up religious devotion. She is to be thanked for 
most that we have that is enduring in music, painting, sculp-
ture, architecture and, though not so noticeably, even let-
ters. It was in her monasteries during the early centuries 
that the best in the art and literature of the nations of pagan 
antiquity was treasured up and made available for future 
generations. To the rich legacy that Greece and Rome be-
queathed to the world the Church added her own magnifi-
cent contributions. One has but to recall the paintings of a 
Raphael, a Correggio, a Murillo ; the sculpture of a Michel-
angelo, a Da Vinci, a Pisano; the architecture of the great 
cathedrals of Amiens, Rouen, Chartres, Reims; or the musi-
cal compositions of a Palestrina, a Beethoven, an Allegri, all 
of which show the powerful influence of Catholicism. In-
deed, it may be said that almost without exception the great 
painters, sculptors, architects and musicians, even our more 
recent non-Catholic artists, found the inspiration for their 
best art in the Catholic tradition. In oratory the pulpit 
was ever the rival of the forum and the senate, and the 
masterpieces of a Chrysostom, a Bossuet, a Bourdaloue, and 
a Father Tom Burke are as significant a contribution to the 
world's finest oratory as those of Demosthenes, Cicero, Pitt 
and Edmund Burke. Dante and Petrarch, Chaucer and 
Milton, Tennyson and Wordsworth and the immortal Shake-
speare all betray the Catholic spirit and influence. And all 
this treasury of art the Church offers the laity for their en-
joyment, their inspiration, and their cultural and moral en-
noblement. 

PHYSICAL SCIENCES 

What is true of the fine arts is equally true of the nat-
ural and physical sciences, though because of the marvelous 
development the latter have undergone in modern times, 
especially in the materialistic countries of Germany, Eng-
land and the United States, it is not an unpopular parlor 
game to speak of the Church, indeed of all Christianity, 
as antagonistic to science. There are obvious. explanations 
for the contemporary movement, but that should not blind 
us to the fact that in every field of scientific research the 
Church has had her illustrious workers and has them to-



THE CHURCH AND WORLD CULTURE 5 

day-in archeology, in anthropology, in geology, in mathe-
matics, in biology, in physics, in chemistry, and the rest. 
Scientists like Clavi us, Copernicus and Mendel occur spon-
taneously, to say nothing of a Pasteur, an Ampere, a Volta, 
a Galvani, a Marconi. In the single field of electricity 
Catholic names have given us quite a vocabulary. Is it not 
to the Church that we owe our present calendar? Gun-
powder, the magic lantern, the laws of crystallography, even 
clocks, all originated with priests or monks. 

SCHOLASTICISM 

However, it is preeminently in the realm of philosophy 
that the Church's contribution to scholarship and learning 
shines out conspicuously. Master-minds like Augustine, 
Aquinas, Anselm, Suarez, and others too numerous to men-
tion, have cooperated to pass on to our time a system of 
philosophy, much decried, it may be admitted, in many 
quarters, but none the less the most intellectually consistent 
and satisfying that the world has even known. Carefully 
winnowing out the false in a Plato and an Aristotle, and 
clearly differentiating the possible and probable from the 
certain, these men and their colleagues have reared the tem-
ple of Scholasticism along side of which such philosophic 
systems as our contemporary Behaviorism, Evolutionism, 
Positivism, Pragmatism, Idealism and Mechanism, have lit-
tle to support them. 

CATHOLIC EDUCATION 

Education, too, is the debtor of the Catholic Church. 
The first popular schools were the monastic and episcopal 
schools. Her attitude toward the education of the masses 
is early evident from a decree of the Third Ecumenical 
Council of the Lateran, in 1178: "The Church of God, like 
a tender mother, is obliged to see that the poor who have 
not sufficient resources in the condition of their parents be 
not on that account deprived of the means of learning and 
making progress in letters and science." Indeed, the begin-
nings of nearly all the great universities of Europe were 
encouraged by the Holy See, if they were not its actual· 
handiwork: Bologna, Cambridge, Coimbra, Heidelberg, In-
golstadt, Louvain, Oxford, Padua, Paris, Salamanca, Va-
lencia and Valladolid, to mention but a few. 



6 THE CHURCH AND WORLD CULTURE 

ATTITUDE TO PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

While the Catholic philosophy of education is altogether 
alien to our contemporary American philosophy of educa-
tion, as the Holy Father has pointed out in his recent En-
cyclical, the Church is by no means an enemy of education. 
He and we American Catholics are often challenged for our 
opposition to the public schools. This is neither the time 
nor the occasion to go fully into this question but in view 
of recent utterances appearing in the daily press as the 
words of some of our prominent local educators, let me end 
this very superficial survey of what the Catholic Church of-
fers her laity intellectually, by noting that, in the first place, 
though popular education is an American tradition with 
which the Church is heartily in accord, the public schools 
as we know them today are not. Not a single one of our 
great statesmen up to the second quarter of the last century 
was trained under such a system. Historically our first 
schools were religious and mostly private, many of them 
actually subsidized by the various States. These were prac-
tically the only ones the Colonists knew. In the second 
place our original American schools were builded on the 
principle so splendidly enunciated by Washington and re-
peated by nearly every President since, that religion and 
morality cannot be divorced and that there can be no edu-
cation without morality. Today, thanks chiefly to Horace 
Mann, God is debarred from our public schools and so, too, 
though not nominally, morality, for without God there is no 
such thing as a stable morality. 

It is chiefly on this account that we say the public 
schools are unsafe places to train our little ones, though, 
even apart from that, we would still defend the right of the 
private school to function, and of the parent to send his 
children there, a claim that the Supreme Court of the United 
States has justified in its decision a few years ago in the 
Oregon school-law case. At most, a school where God is 
taboo can bring children up only as high-grade animals, with 
worldly ideals and influenced by natural motives. Catholics 
believe that children are more than animals, and that there 
is such a thing as another world, and supernatural virtue, 
and they want their children to imbibe these ideals and share 
the blessings that go with them. 



II 

The Moral Appeal of Catholicism 

THAT the Catholic Church has a body of revealed truth to offer the world amply justies its existence. That it is, 
in addition, the promoter of secular knowledge to such an 
extent as to make our intellectual culture largely its debtor, 
enhances its merit. However, learning is not the measure 
of a man's worth. Nobility of soul, strength of character, 
rectitude of life is what really counts. Ultimately it is 
upon one's good or bad will that personal merit and demerit 
depend. A man will be pardoned his ignorance if his heart 
be good. The highly intellectual scoundrel, on the other 
hand, is always anathema. 

Now, it is only religion that can furnish principles and 
ideals powerful enough to build up a stable and harmonious 
character. The claim that of all religions Catholicism does 
this most adequately and efficiently may sound extravagant; 
but it is well ,grounded. I am not maintaining that all Cath-
olics are men of character; rp.uch less, that none but 
Catholics are men of character. But there is in Catholicism 
a means of enriching one's spiritual nature, of cultivating a 
vigorous personality, of developing character, that will be 
looked for elsewhere in vain. 

NEED FOR CHARACTER TRAINING 

• 
It may not be amiss here to emphasize just how wide-

spread its need is. Statesmen and schoolmen are moralizing 
a good deal about the numerous social ills infecting the body 
politic. We are told that there is a want of rectitude among 
many in positions of public trust, an absence of a profes-
sional spirit among our doctors and lawyers, a disregard of 
ethical norms in much of our industrial and commercial life, 
a lack of respect for authority among the masses, a weaken-
ing in the traditional value in which men have heretofore 
held human life and personal and property rights. To cure 
these evils panaceas of all sorts are proposed by politicians 
and statesmen. What the nation needs, however, is not more 

7 



8 THE MORAL APPEAL OF CATHOLICISM 

statutes but more attention to the Ten Commandments, 
not more investigations and commissions but more men and 
women with the love and fear of God in their hearts. 

DEFICIENT MORAL PRINCIPLES 

Only last week at a meeting of the New York State Bar 
Association Judge Cuthbert W. Pound of our Court of Ap-
peals and other speakers deplored the type of men getting 
into the legal profession. As if more thorough scholastic 
requirements would remedy the evil and develop a proper 
esprit de corps, much was said of the need of modifying 
the intellectual preparation of the law student. Doubtless 
there is room for improvement here. But if the Association 
would honestly clean house it must go to the root of the 
evil. It is not numbers that hurt the profession but the 
fact that men, clever and brainy but characterless, get into 
it. Judge Pound admitted as much, and he conceded fur-
ther that the law schools, to quote his words, "shrink from 
the task of character training." Yet it would seem to be ob-
vious that raising scholastic standards will not give us a ' 
better Bench and Bar unless simultaneously a right attitude 
is inculCated in the schools regarding the natural princi-
ples of justice and charity. That can come only from ac-
cepting an eternal , unchangeable natural law, based on the 
admission that there is a personal God, and from fortifying 
the wills of the students by the ideals that admission im-
plies. Any other basis of reform must prove inadequate and 
futile. 

What is true of the law hold.:; also for medicine. Sta-
tistics record an unconscionable number of abortions and 
other types of malpractice in the country. These evils, how-
ever, do not bespeak an absence of intellectual training so 
much as a deficiency in moral principles. The same may be 
said of evil-doers in industrial , commercial and social life. 
In a sense we of the United States are the most well-in-
formed and educated people in the world. From the view-
point, however, of character, we are surprisingly lawless. 

SUPERNATURAL HELPS 

The Catholic Church's contribution to character 
ing is unique. Fundamentally it is supernatural. 

build-
Faith 



THE MORAL APPEAL OF CATHOLICISM 9 

teaches that without God 's help man cannot avoid evil or 
do good. As original sin darkened his intellect so it weak-
ened his will. Not only Catholics but orthodox Protestants 
who have not been infected with contemporary Naturalism 
and Modernism, accept that principle. Technically the Di-
vine help that man gets to act conformably to' his nature 
and God's good pleasure is called grace. Now grace comes 
'to man as God's gift, indirectly in answer to his prayer, 
and directly and more commonly through the Sacraments 
which Christ instituted. Of these the Catholic Church is the 
sole custodian. That may sound arrogant but certainly they 
were not entrusted to' any of the sixteenth-century or sub-
sequently established religious groups. In consequence the 
Catholic Church has in her keeping the supernatural means 
that men need to conquer passion and foster virtue. Ex-
perience proves that through them, particularly through the 
confessional and the Eucharist, great sinners have become 
great saints. If Augustine be recalled it is chiefly because 
his marvelous conversion is a matter Gf indisputable history. 

This evening, however, in emphasizing the character 
equipment the Church oers her laity we will prescind from 
what her supernatural graces can eect in their souls and 
stress rather her contributions in this important field from 
another angle. 

Without going too deeply into the philosophy of char-
acter training it may be asserted that it includes three im-
portant elements,-principles, motives, ideals. Now the 
Church has, as regards all of these, a decided advantage over 
other ethical and religious groups. 

THE CHRISTIAN CODE 

SO' far as principles are cGncerned the Gospel code of 
morality is the highest and best. Most people, even those 
who do not accept Christianity as a Divinely revealed re-
ligion, admit this. Now it is this code in its entirety that 
the Church proposes to. her laymen as the guide of their con-
duct. It covers all a man's duties to God, his neighbor and 
himself, and it is offered without any toning-down of its 
more difficult exactions, without any minimizing of obliga-
tions,· with the thou-shalt-nots as well as with what is at-
tractive to human nature. 



10 THE MORAL APPEAL OF CATHOLICISM 

That code teaches the fatherhood of God and the 
brotherhood of man, not as an empty slogan but as some-
thing very vital. That code teaches justice and charity, 
honesty and truthfulness, temperance and piety, filial love 
and civic loyalty, kindness and mercy, penance and morti-
fication, self-restraint. and unselfishness, continence and chas-
tity, and respect for the person and property of others. 
What God hath joined together no man may put asunder 
is insisted on equally with the cognate command, thou shalt 
not commit adultery. To render to Cesar the things that 
are Cresar 's is proclaimed as sacred a duty as to render to 
God the things that are God's. And' so the Catholic Chris-
tian who is ready to accept his Church 's teaching has a pro-
gram of life that suits his needs , magnificent, complete, con-
sistent, ennobling, that will reestablish in his fallen nature 
the image and likeness of God that he was originally meant 
to reflect. 

FEAR AND LOVE OF GOD 

In addition, however, to furnishing principles for the 
regulation of their conduct, the Church presents her mem-
bers with motives sufficiently powerful to make those prin-
ciples effective. Though proposed in many different forms 
these motives are reducible to the love and the fear of God. 
Man is told, on the one hand, that God is infinitely worthy 
of being served by the exercise of the most perfect virtue, 
and, on the other, that any serious infringement of His 
law or disregard of one's duties exposes one to the fires of 
hell and other Divine chastisements. 

Of the psychological value of love as a motive for right 
doing, there is no doubt. When love is strong no sacrifice 
is too great, no self-conquest impossible, and one can readily 
rise to heroic heights. To stress fear, however, as a motive 
for shunning evil or living virtuously, is, I admit, a bit out 
of harmony with most modern psychological systems. But 
theorizers to the contrary notwithstanding, the experience of 
centuries proves its deterrent effect. The wise man's saying 
still has merit, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of 
wisdom, and Christ Himself who understood human nature 
thoroughly, habitually employed it. While the higher mo-



THE MORAL APPEAL OF CATHOLICISM 11 

tive is certainly desirable, still when the intellect is clouded 
to the path of duty, when passion is clamoring for satisfac-
tion-revenge, lust, anger-when Divine love grows mo-
mentarily cold in the heart, then reverential fear of an 
avenging God can alone restrain corrupt nature. 

NATURAL MOTIVES 

Outside of the Catholic Church today insistence on vir-
tuous practices is motivated chiefly by mere social obliga-
tions, by altruism, by a vague sort of humanitarianism, by 
even such a naturalistic argument as that it carries' its own 
reward in mental quiet and physical well-being. But tak-
ing human nature as it is, under stress of strong temptation, 
these will not always keep a man upright, honest, temper-
ate, chaste or truthful. The will needs stronger stimulants. 
And they are afforded only by the fear and love of God. 

THE IDEAL OF CHRIST 

Besides high principles and strong motives there is an-
other element making for worth-while character formation 
that the Catholic Church is peculiarly fitted to offer her 
laymen. It is in line with the admitted basic truth that men 
are by nature hero-worshippers and that they are more 
readily influenced by example than by preaching so that, 
given the right ideal, there is nothing that may not be hoped 
for from them. N ow at every stage of life and in every 
shifting circumstance the Church proposes to her children 
for their admiration and imitation the most perfect model 
of manhood, Christ Jesus. Learn of Him, she says to them. 
Imitate Him. 

That the powerfully attractive personality of the God-
Man has a distinct fascination and is capable of inspiring 
the utmost enthusiastic imitation is a fact of history. Na-
poleon inspired men; Charlemagne inspired men; Washing-
ton inspired men; Lincoln inspired men, but none of these 
has inspired the human race as Christ. Inflamed with His 
love a Saul of Tarsus unflinchingly faced toil and hardship 
and suffering and even death, a Francis of Assisi, an Ignatius 
of Loyola, a Xavier, renounced all their worldly prospects 
to put themselves at the service of their fellows. It was 



12 THE MORAL APPEAL OF CATHOLICISM 

the ideal of Christ that made St. Louis of France a just and 
holy ruler; that made Blessed Thomas More a first-class 
statesman. Through the centuries that ideal has not failed 
to arouse generosity and magnanimity, to engender fortitude 
and courage 

One contemplates Christ's self-sacrifice and he is moved 
to unselfish thoughtfulness of others ; one studies His sym-
pathy with the needy, and the spirit of mercy and compas-
sion for suffering mankind takes root in his own heart; one 
notes His loyalty to civil government and he, in turn, is the 
readier to discharge his own civic duties; one ponders His 
meekness, His temperance, His charity, His self-restraint, 
His purity of life, and he is less hesitant when there is a call 
for the exercise of these virtues on his own part. 

THE PERFECT MAN 

Other leaders have left their mark on the world but in 
the last analysis always their human weaknesses appeared 
to mar the ideal or limit its influence. But Christ stands 
out as the perfect man without failing or blemish. In this 
lies His perennial power to help men control their passions 
and stabilize their fickle, vacillating wills, and put purpose 
and. steadfastness into their lives. And because today the 
Catholic Church stands practically alone in presenting Jesus 
Christ to mankind for what He is, the God-Man, who can 
show men what perfection is and help them to its attain-
ment, she has a decided advantage in character training that 
others lack. 

PRACTICAL CHARACTER BUILDING 

In practice Catholic character formation begins in the 
Catholic home at the knee of pious fathers and mothers; 
hence, in part, the opposition of the Church to mixed mar-
riages where principles, motives and ideals will not be uni-
form. It continues in the Catholic school where super-
natural as well as natural incentives are suggested to meet 
all crises; hence, too, the insistence of the Church on a 
specific type of education for Catholic youth, such as a 
godless school cannot give. It is fostered, finally, in sacra-
mental confession and by Holy Communion where Divine 



THE MORAL APPEAL OF CATHOLICISM 13 

grace more and more purifies the soul from its shortcomings 
and more and more fortifies it against its innate weakness. 

Naturally and supernaturally, then, the Church offers, 
the laity a philosophy and method of character building 
that makes good men and good citizens, honest, just, chari-
table, temperate, chaste, and adorned with all those domes-
tic and social virtues implied in the concept of a real man 
and a true Christian. 



III 

The Catholic Social Program 

HUMAN nature is essentially social. Pride himself as he will on his individuality man is, nevertheless, not self-
sufficient. From the cradle to the grave his life touches the 
lives of others. The patent fact needs no demonstration. 
Not from choice but of necessity at the very moment of 
birth we all get membership tickets in two great societies, 
the one domestic , the other civil. We are units in the family 
and units in the State. As such we have duties and re-
sponsibilities. Properly and successfully to discharge these 
supposes very definite personal qualifications. One will ful-
fil his domestic and civic obligations as he should only if 
he is suitably equipped for the task. 

Now just as the Catholic Church best fits man for his 
fuller individual living by affording him peculiar oppor-
tunities for intellectual culture, and principles, motives and 
ideals to develop a vigorous personality, so she has a dis-
tinctive contribution to make towards preparing one .for a 
happy family life and useful citizenship. The reason is that 
her theories about both the home and the State are rational 
and consistent, and because she teaches the Faithful that 
the duties these social relationships impose are matters of 
conscience and sacred, the while she offers them efficient 
helps, particularly supernatural graces, to enable them to 
perform those duties completely and perseveringly. 

STATE AND FAMILY IMPAIRED 

It is no over-statement of contemporary conditions to say 
that the family and the State have fallen on hard times. 
Domestic and civic virtues no longer enjoy the honored po-
sition accorded them by our fathers. Family stability is 
sadly impaired. The patriotism even of many public office-
holders is of a very questionable nature. The marked in-
crease of sexual vice among the young, the commonness of 
illicit familiarities during courtship, the advocacy of com-
panionate marriage, the lightness with which marital infi-

14 



THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL PROGRAM 15 

delity is coming to be viewed, the growing contempt mani-
festing itself for parenthood, the widespread propaganda to 
popularize contraceptive practices, the prevalency of divorce, 
all bespeak a lowering of ideals that threatens to undermine 
domestic society. On the other hand, those who are well 
informed about political science tell us that the country is 
honeycombed with organizations and individuals whose pro-
fessed purpose is to replace civic peace and order by Com-
munism, Sovietism and anarchy. Even in Ollr educational 
institutions which should be the promoters of a correct so-
cial idealism philosophies subversive of both family and 
State are defended and endorsed, and on the score of free 
speech and a free press charlatans are allowed to use our 
public platforms and the Sunday supplements of some of our 
daily journals to infect the masses with the deadly virus of 
social radicalism. 

THE CHURCH AND THE FAMILY 

As for domestic society, while the vast majority of the 
people have come to base it on a contract as rescindible as 
any other that two individuals may enter into, and to ques-
tion its permanence and sacredness, in the Catholic theory it 
is grounded in an agreement that postulates unity and in-
dissolubility, and that has a sacramental value. In conse-
quence for the Catholic Christian family life and the home 
have a supernatural foundation, and where the foundation 
is thus secure there is solid hope that the superstructure 
builded upon it will not collapse. 

Without going into the nature, origin or purpose of 
domestic society, much less the story of how a fallen race 
degraded it from its pristine dignity until Christ ennobled 
it with a sacramental character, it suffices to remark that 
as the Catholic Church conceives the family circle all its 
members, husband and wife, parents and children, have 
their distinctive functions, rights and obligations. Fifty 
years ago Leo XIII splendidly summarized these: 

The mutual duties of husband and wife have been defined and 
their several rights actually established. They are bound, namely, 
to have such feelings for one another as to cherish always very great 
mutual love, to be ever faithful to the marriage vow, and to giv.e 
to one another an unfailing and unselfish help. The husband is the 



16 THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL PROGRAM 

chief of the family and the head of the wife. The woman, because 
she is flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, must be subject to 
her husband and obey him ; not , indeed, as a servant , but as a com-
panion, so that her obedience shall be wanting in neither honor nor 
dignity. Since the husband represents Christ , and since the wife 
represents the Church [according to the analogy of St. Paul who 
likens the relations of husband and wife to those of Christ and His 
Church], let there always be, both in him who commands and her 
who obeys, a heaven-born love guiding both in their respective du-
ties. 

PARENTS AND CHURCHES 

In an age that has another philosophy about family life, 
doubtless those words of the Holy See sound quaintly medi-
eval. They are. But none the less they are true and they 
are wise , as are the injunctions laid down in the same letter 
of Leo XIII regarding children. 

They ought to submit to their parents and obey them and give 
them honor for conscience ' sake, while, on the other hand, parents 
are bound to give all care and watchful thought to the education 
of their offspring and their virtuous bringing-up. 

Similar sentiments are contained in the recent Encyclical 
of our present Pope, Pius X , on Christian education. After 
expressing regret over the lamentable decline in education 
for domestic responsibilities while endless time and energy 
are devoted to preparing men and women for business and 
professional careers, he deplores the "now too common re-
laxation of family discipline from which untamed passions 
grow in adolescence," and he warns parents "to see to it 
that they rightly use the authority given them by God, of 
whom they are in a true sense vicars, not for their own 
personal comfort, but for the right bringing-up of their 
children." 

THE MARRIAGE RITUAL 

The whole Catholic attitude about marriage and the 
home is so beautifully expressed in the exhortation which 
the Ritual suggests be addressed to the bridal couple as they 
stand before the priest to plight their troth, that its inclusion 
here is justified, despite its length. 

You are about to enter into a union which is most sacred and 
most serious. It is most sacred because established by God Himself; 
most serious, because it will bind you together for life in a rela-
tionship so close and so intimate, that it will profoundly influence 



THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL PROGRAM 17 

your whole future. That future with its hopes and disappointments, 
its successes and its failures , its pleasures and its pains, its joys 
and its sorrows, is hidden from your eyes. You know that these 
elements are mingled in every life , and are to be expected in your 
own. And so not knowing what is before you, you take each other 
for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in 
health, until death . 

Truly, then, these words are most serious. It is a beautiful 
tribute to your undoubted faith in each other that recognizing their 
full import, you are, nevertheless, so willing and ready to pronounce 
them. And because these words involve such solemn obligations, it 
is most fitting that you rest the security of your wedded life upon the 
great principle of self-sacrifice. And so you begin your married life 
by the complete surrender of your individual lives in the interest 
of that deeper and wider life which you are to have in common. 
Henceforth, you will belong . entirely to each other; you will be one 
in mind, one in heart, and one in affections. And whatever sacri-
fices you may hereafter be required to make to preserve this com-
mon life, always make them generously. Sacrifice is usually difficult 
and irksome. Only love can make it easy; and perfect love can 
make it a joy. We are willing to give in proportion as we love. 
And when love is perfect the sacrifice is complete. God so loved the 
world that He gave His dhly-begotten Son; and the Son so loved 
us that He gave Himself for our salvation. "Greater love than this 
no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends." 

No greater blessing can come to your married life than pure, 
conjugal love, loyal and true to the end. May, then, this love with 
which you join your hands and hearts today, never fail but grow 
deeper and stronger as the years go on. And if true love and the 
unselfish spirit of perfect sacrifice guide your every action, you can 
expect the greatest measure of earthly happiness that may be allotted 
to man in this vale of tears . The rest is in the hands of God. Nor 
will God be wanting to your needs; He will pledge you the life-long 
support of His graces in the holy sacrament that you are now going 
to receive. 

It would seem to be almost self-evident that the idealism 
of convictions such as these, reinforced by the assurance 
that Divine grace is at hand to help a married couple to 
weather the storms . incidental to every matrimonial ven-
ture, is the surest guarantee that domestic society will be 
stabilized, for it eschews both implicitly and explicity, hap-
hazard unions, marital infidelity, birth control, divorce, 
sexual indulgence outside of matrimony, and whatever else 
would debase the marriage relation-the very things that 
today create our so-called domestic problem and give all 
high-minded people, let alone Catholics, grave concern for 
the home and the family. 



18 THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL PROGRAM 

CIVIC DUTIES 

In the same inspiring and practical way in which the 
Catholic layman is instructed in his duties as a unit in the 
domestic circle, does the Church propose to him his civic 
obligations and assist him to meet them. Unlike the anar-
chist and the Bolshevist, he is not taught that government 
is an evil thing, that it stands in opposition to his individ-
ual welfare, that its destruction or annihilation will be to 
his advantage. It is no part of the Catholic doctrine that 
in the Communistic sense all men are equal. 

Contrarywise [to quote Pope Leo again], from the Gospel records 
equality among men consists in this, that one and all, possessing 
the same nature, are called to the sublime dignity of being sons of 
God; and, moreover, that one and the same end being set before all, 
each and every one has to be judged according to the same laws and 
to have punishments or rewards meted out according to individual 
deserts. 

There is, however, an inequality of right and authority which 
emanates from the Author of nature Himself, "of whom all paternity 
in heaven and on earth is named." As regards rulers and subjects, 
all without exception, according to Catholic teaching and precept, 
are mutually bound by duties and rights, in such manner, that, on 
the one hand, moderation is enjoined on the appetite for power and, 
on the other, obedience is shown t<lo be easy, stable and wholly 
honorable. 

The Church teaches the citizen that "there is no power 
but from God," and that the legitimately enacted laws of 
the State are as much His will as is the Decalogue or eccle-
ciastical legislation. She teaches him, too, that patriotism 
is no mere matter of flag-waving and hurrahing and sing-
ing patriotic airs, but a virtue to which at times even per-
sonal and family convenience must be generously sacrificed. 

RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS OF STATESMEN 

What more salutary advice for statesmen and the 
masses than the following from another Encyclical of Pope 
Leo XIII? 

They, therefore, who rule should rule with even-handed justice, 
not as masters, but rather as fathers, for the rule of God over man 
is most just and tempered always with a father's kindness. Gov-
ernment should, moreover, be administered for the well-being of the 
citizens, because they who govern others possess authority solely 
for the welfare of the State. Furthermore, the civil power must not 



THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL PROGRAM 19 

be subservient to the advantage of anyone individual, or of some 
few persons j "in as much as it was established for the common good of 
all . But if those who are in authority rule unjustly, if they govern 
overbearingly or arrogantly, and if their measures prove hurtful to 
the " people, they must remember that the Almighty will one day 
bring them to account, the more strictly in proportion to the sacred-
ness of their office and pre-eminence of their dignity. . . . 

Then truly will the majesty of the law me"et with the dutiful 
and willing homage of the people, when they are convinced that 
their rulers hold authority from God, and feel that it is a matter 
of justice and duty to obey them, and to show them reverence 
and fealty, united to a love not unlike that which children show 
their parents. To despise legitimate authority, in whomsoever vested, 
is unlawful , as a rebellion against the Divine will j and whoever 
resists that, rushes wilfully to destruction. "He that resisteth the 
power resisteth the ordinance of God, and they that resist purchase 
to themselves damnation." To cast aside obedience and by popular 
violence to incite to revolt is, therefore, treason, not against man only 
but against God. 

Elsewhere the same Sovereign Pontiff wrote: 

Should it, however, happen at any time, that in the public exer-
cise of authority rulers act rashly and arbitrarily, the teaching of the 
Catholic Church does not allow subjects to rise against them without 
further warranty, lest peace and order become more and more dis-
turbed, and society run the risk of greater detriment. And when 
things have come to such a pass as to hold out no further hope 
she teaches that a remedy is to be sought in the virtue of Christian 
patience and in urgent prayer to God. 

CATHOLICS AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS 

It is with such and similar principles and injunctions 
that the Church prepares her laity for the discharge of their 
civic duties. They are told that it is characteristic of a 
good citizen to take a prudent part in public affairs lest 
"if they hold aloof, men whose principles offer but small 
guarantee for the welfare of the State will the more readily 
seize the reins of government." Finally, their philosophy 
of civil society warns them to guard against the errors of 
a too narrow nationalism and to realize that their perspec-
tive must be clear and broad enough to make proper allow-
ance for a legitimate internationalism that will make for 
peace and good will on earth. In consequence, there is only 
one type of Catholic dangerous to any government, and that 
is the man who is Catholic in name only. No one who is 



20 THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL PROGRAM 

disloyal to God will be loyal to civil government. No prac-
tical Catholic was ever an anarchist or Communist: only 
such as may have given up their religion. 

In his whole social program, whether there be question 
of family life or civil society, the Catholic is made to see 
that it is nothing more nor less than a specialized applica-
tion to concrete human problems of the great Second Com-
mandment, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself ." It 
is on love, Divine love, that the Church's theory of society 
is founded. Based on their common natural origin, all 
men are, in a very real sense, brothers. This relationship 
gets a supernatural character because Divine Providence 
has raised man above the exigencies of his nature and given 
him a supernatural destiny. For Christians it is enhanced 
by the Incarnation through which they are incorporated 
into Christ 's mystical body, the Church. Only on this 
triple assumption, a common creation, a common destiny, 
a common fellowship with Christ, has the Fatherhood of 
God and man 's brotherhood significance. In our highly in-
dividualistic age man needs his social sense developed and it 
may safely be said that only the Catholic Church is giving 
him the principles on which to develop it safely and sanely, 
along with the inspiration and encouragement that will 
stimulate him to abide by those principles. 



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