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A Bird's-eye View

of the

FIVE KINDS

OF LAW
AN OPEN LETTER

ERICAN LEGISLATO

SIX RADIO ADDRESSES BY

REV. FRANCIS X. SALLAWAY, S.T.D., P.P.
Archdiocesan Director of Radio Activities

Archdiocese of Boston

*

DELIVERED OVER STATION WESX, SALEM, MASS.

APRIL— MAY, 1945

FOR COPIES ADDRESS

FATHERS RUMBLE AND CARTY
RADIO REPLIES PRESS

SAINT PAUL 1, MINNESOTA, U.S.A.



Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2016

https://archive.org/details/birdseyeviewoffiOOsall



A Bird’s'eye View

of the

FIVE KINDS

OF LAW

SIX RADIO ADDRESSES BY

REV. FRANCIS X. SALLAWAY, S.T.D., P.P.
Archdiocesan Director of Radio Activities

Archdiocese of Boston

DELIVERED OVER STATION WESX, SALEM, MASS.

APRIL— MAY, 1945



Cum peraiissu superiorum

IMPRIMATUR:

Most Reverend Richard J. Cushing, D.D.

Archbishop of Boston

Copyright 1948

RADIO REPLIES PRESS

St. Paul, Minnesota, TJ.S.A.

Printed in TJ.S.A.



CONTENTS

Page

I. The Natural Law 5

II. Positive Law 12

2) Divine 13

3) Christian 14

4) Ecclesiastical 15

III. Positive Law, 5) Human Civil 19

IV. Discrepancies between Divine and

American Civil Law 25

V. The Pope’s Peace Plan (Part I) 32

VI. The Pope’s Peace Plan (Part II) 40



EDITOR’S NOTE

This series of Radio Talks, given before the

close of World War II, contain, all unknowing

to the author, a strain of prophecy now being

fulfilled in ways more dramatic even than the

fears expressed in these writings.

Today’s sad events make more emphatic than

ever the need of recalling and insisting upon

the solution which the Holy Father expounds

in his Plan for Peace.

Basically there must be a realization by all

men, within and outside the Catholic Church,

legislators and subjects alike, that any Law,

before it can ever hope to govern the world

successfully must spring from, and continue to

be a true echo of that divine plan of God, or-

daining and promulgating a certain right order

of living for His human creature.

Otherwise it is not true Law, worthy to bind

the noble spirit and free conscience of man.

Indeed so enlightening an exposition of the

true source of all Law is this little treatise,
that it takes on the proportions of an

“OPEN LETTER TO AMERICAN

LEGISLATORS”

REV. C. M. CARTY



A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE FIVE KINDS
OF LAW

I. THE NATURAL LAW

The soul of man reflects the image of God

in four ways: 1) in its spirituality; 2) in its

immortality; 3) in its intellectuality and 4) in

its free will. We here study that reflection of
God’s image as it shines forth in man’s intellect

and free will. Both of these faculties of man’s

soul God governs by His Law. And thus a con-

sideration of the human intellect and will leads

us almost automatically into a broad survey of

the whole subject of Law, beginning with its

first expression, the Natural Law and ending
with its fifth and last and incidentally weakest

form: Human Civil Law.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

The Natural Law, the first and most basic of

all laws, is that mysterious, unseen, unheard,

unwritten, silent, all-pervading, irresistible gov-

ernment which activates and controls every-

thing known to us, throughout all ages and

stages of Creation. Whether it be the chemical

elements attracting or repelling one another

to build or to dissolve mines or mountains,

whether it be the raging ocean or peaceful rain-

bow or sunset, tinting the distant snow-capped

peaks, whether it be the fiery volcanoes or the

flowering trees, whether it be the habits or in-

stincts of the minutest insects, or the concep-

tion, birth, growth and death of human beings,

—all things are pervaded by it, directed and
limited by it, in their powers and functions.

5



No statute books contain it and yet everything

in the world ceaselessly proclaims it.

With the original planning or promulgation

of it, or constant sustaining of it, we know man

has had nothing whatever to do. This law ex-

isted from the beginning of time before man

was. In fact it formed him, and it will con-

tinue, no matter what he thinks or does, until

time shall be no more. To it, man has contrib-

uted nothing, unless perhaps his own boundless

wonderment at it and ever mounting admira-

tion of it. When called upon to explain it, we

can only exclaim “Such is Nature,” and in all

honesty add: “as God made it. and as we find

it!”

I have called it irresistible. Only one power

can ignore it: the human mind. Only one force

can oppose it: the human will. For of all crea-

tures, only man can stubbornly say: “I don’t

believe it. I won’t obey it.”

NATURAL LAW FOR THE “KINGDOM OF
THING-DOM”

When the Almighty Creator made the world,

He said to the sun: “You give light and heat,

and play with the ocean. Draw it to your warm

bosom in clouds. My winds will carry it over
the land, where they will drop it in the form

of rain. After watering the trees and the plants

and the flowers, it will run back gladly in

streams and rivers to the sea. All this, you shall

continue to do, without understanding, without

argument, without complaint, without possibil-

ity of disobedience, until I tell you to stop.”

And that was the Natural Law for the sun
and ocean and the clouds and the winds and

the rain and the rivers!

6



NATURAL LAW FOR THE VEGETABLE
KINGDOM

Then He said to the trees: “You shall give

shade and temper the heat of the sun. Your

life will be shorter than that of the sun and the

ocean. When you grow old, you will fling your
seeds to the breeze. They will fall on the earth

and behold, new trees as beautiful and strong

as yourselves will grow up in your places, and

will continue to do just as you have done, with-

out understanding, without argument, without

complaint, without possibility of disobedience,

until I stop the process.”

And that was the Natural Law for the trees
and all forms of the vegetable kingdom!

NATURAL LAW FOR THE ANIMAL
KINGDOM

And then He said to the animals, the birds

and the fishes: “I give you all very different and

varied powers: the power to walk, to fly, to

swim. I establish for you still shorter limits of

life, and a different law of reproduction of your

kind. You shall serve man, as servants and as

food, and he is to be your complete master.

These duties I assign to you. Do them, without

understanding, without argument, without com-

plaint, and without possibility of disobedience,

until I tell you to stop!”

And that was the Natural Law for the animal
kingdom!

NATURAL LAW NOT VOCAL NOR
EXPLICIT

I said that God said all this, but that was only

a dramatic figure of speech on my part. It was
not necessary for God to say a word. He ex-
plained nothing to the sun, nor ocean, nor trees,

7



nor flowers, nor birds, nor fishes, nor animals.

They had no intelligences to understand His

words anyway. He simply wrote His intentions

into the various natures which He assigned to

them.

And that is why these wishes of God are

called the Natural Law, i. e., the law written

by the creative hand of God into the very

Nature of things!

NATURAL LAW FOR MAN
He did quite the same thing, with a few varia-

tions, in the case of man, whom He made half-
way between the animals and the angels. He

assigned to him likewise various powers and

functions, some of them like the animals, some

of them like the angels. God gave to man a
very complicated nature, composed of body and

soul, material and spirit, and crowned it all

with two gifts borrowed from the Divinity and

shared only by the angels: Understanding and

Free Will.

IMPLICIT AT FIRST IN INTELLECT
The first of these, man’s intelligence, enabled

him, wiser than all other creatures, to read his

own nature and interpret therein, the wishes

of his Creator. To man, God did not say: “Do

these things without understanding.” He said

rather: “I give you an intellect. Use it! Study

the heavens and they will tell you of My power.
Study the flowers and they will tell you of My
beauty. Study My profusion of gifts to you and
they will tell you of My goodness and generosity
and love for you. Study your origin and your

intellect will tell you that you owe your exist-

ence to Me. Study yourself, and you will find

My moral Law written all over the body and

8



soul which I have given you. You will find that

your wonderful gift called intelligence will

enable you to govern and regulate all your

other various and seemingly contradictory

powers, appetites and passions, according to

right reason,— the first dictate of which will

tell you that the higher, nobler, spiritual facul-

ties of your soul must dominate the lower in-

stincts, keeping them always in subjection to

the ends and purposes for which I gave them to

you!

“These lower yearnings of your animal na-

tures may mystify you a little at first. That

seeming incompleteness of your nature, the

strength and insistence of that urge within you

toward constant association with another help-

mate, companion, partner of the opposite sex,

who will share with you and sweeten for you

the tiresome journey of life, — these strange
things you will gradually understand are all

planted by Me in your nature in order to allure
you on into that very serious and difficult work

which I wish you to perform, the task of human

parentage, so that My goodness may be known
and enjoyed by new and numberless other crea-

tures like yourselves and whom you will coop-
erate with Me in bringing into existence.

“Carry out this plan of life which I establish

for My human creatures. Use and enjoy these
powers which you find in your natures, but do

not abuse or degrade them in ways which frus-

trate the glorious purposes to which I have or-

dained and consecrated them!”

“And this is the Natural Law for you!”

In the case of man, too, I repeat, it was not

necessary for God to say these things in so many

9



words. He said it sufficiently in planting these

powers in our natures and in giving us intellects

with which to interpret them,

AND IN WILL

Nor is that all that He said to us in this quiet,

forceful, wordless way. He wrote further into

this marvellously complicated nature of ours:

“You will find within yourself another strange

power, and a very dangerous one, one which I

dare entrust to no other of My creatures except
the angels: viz., a Free Will. To you 1 do not

say: ‘Do My will without argument, without
complaint and without possibility of disobe-

dience/ To you I say: ‘Do My will, yes, but do it
of your own free choice, even although you will

find within you the power to contradict My
word and to disobey My law/ ”

God knew perfectly well that there would be

many who would argue about this and other

laws, who would complain against it, whose

free wills swayed by passion would try to under-

mine that law, to obscure it, to confuse it, to

ridicule it and deny it, in order to make disobe-

dience to it more easy. And yet He made us as

He did. But for this volatile, undependable, con-

tradictory creature called Man, God added

something else which was unnecessary and su-

perfluous for His other creatures.

BUT LATER EXPLICIT IN THREE OTHER
FORMS OF LAW

Besides writing His wishes upon the fleshy

tablets of the human heart, besides stamping

upon every human mind that inborn sense of

right and wrong which we call Natural Con-

science or the Natural Law, so that there would

10



be no mistake about it, He engraved that same

law:

1) Upon tablets of stone, delivered it to Moses

on Mt. Sinai and called it the “Positive

Divine Law.” Nor did He even consider

that enough. Then

2) He sent His divine Son in person to de-

clare and perfect that law: and His utter-

ances are called the “Positive Christian

Law.” And finally because men’s perverse

minds and wills, even after all that,

would still argue, complain and disobey,

3) He left His Church to interpret it further

and infallibly for all time. And her pro-

mulgations are called the “Positive Eccle-

siastical, Canon or Church Law.”

In other words, although the Natural Law
alone was sufficient for ail God’s other crea-

tures, for man, God piled law upon law, so that

man’s sin, if he still persisted in argument,

complaint and disobedience, would be inexcus-

able!

GOVERNS WORLD DESPITE DENIAL AND
DISOBEDIENCE

This four-fold divine Law, God’s will ex-

pressed in one way after another, is the funda-

mental law governing this world, no matter

how persistently and perversely men may con-
tradict and disobey it. God still has one more

means to bring them back to a remembrance

of it when they do attempt to rule the world

forgetting or ignoring it:—His sword of divine
chastisement. All men at this very moment are
in greater need of recalling it and re-building a

shattered world upon it, than ever before in

li



human history. It is this basic law to which Our

Holy Father, Pope Pius XII is constantly appeal-

ing, begging all rulers of nations, all makers of

laws (American legislators therefore included),

to restore it to the place of dignity and honor

from which it has fallen. Woe indeed to the
world, if His voice is unheeded or unheard at

the Peace Table.

II. POSITIVE LAW:

2) DIVINE

3) CHRISTIAN

4) ECCLESIASTICAL

For man, in view of his ability and tendency

to argue and complain and disobey even the

Natural Law, Almighty God piled law upon law

so that man’s sin is inexcusable. Note please in

passing that the adjective is not mine, but St.

Paul’s, inspired by God. This piling law upon

law is neither a figure of speech on my part, nor
an exaggeration. To be exact, God piled four

types or kinds of law on top of the basic Natural

Law, the original law written by the Creator in

the very nature of things, the law which we

have already discussed.

THE SECOND, THIRD AND FOURTH KINDS
OF LAW

We speak herein of the second, third and
fourth forms of law: the second, called the

Positive Divine Law; the third, the Positive

Christian Law; and the fourth, the Positive

Ecclesiastical Law. The word “Positive” in this

connection means: “actually expressed in so

many explicit words,” as opposed to “implied

in the nature of things.”

12



2) POSITIVE DIVINE LAW

The Ten Commandments, delivered to the

Jewish people, through Moses on Mt. Sinai, are

the backbone of the second kind of law, piled

by God upon the first. The first three of the Ten

deal with man’s direct relations with God. “I

am the Lord, thy God, mighty, jealous. I visit

the iniquities of the father upon the children

unto the third and fourth generation of them

that hate Me. Thou shalt adore Me and no one

else, nor any other thing. Thy awe of Me shall

extend even to the use of My name. Thou shalt
not take it irreverently, in vain. And remember

keep holy the Sabbath Day. One day in seven

thou shalt put aside to Me, which shall be called

the Lord’s Day.”

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

The other seven commandments of the Ten

regulate in some detail our thoughts and actions

with regard to our neighbor. First of all, our

parents, whom the fourth commandment bids
us honor, love and obey. Then all other neigh-

bors: by the Fifth Commandment, we are told

to harm them neither by deed, word or even

thought, physically nor spiritually. By the sixth

commandment, we are ordered to control our
sexual impulses within the limitations which

God has set upon their use. By the seventh, we
are warned to respect our neighbor’s rights of

ownership. By the eighth, to speak always the
Truth. The ninth and tenth, repeat the sixth and

seventh, but with a special insistence that sin

may be even in our thoughts and desires merely,
as well as in our external and completed deeds.

Do all these positive divine laws fare any bet-

13



ter at the hands of men, than does the first form

of law, the Natural Law!

3) POSITIVE CHRISTIAN LAW
Our divine Lord, during His lifetime on earth

amplified, extended and perfected all these laws.

He also laid down new laws upon His own au-

thority as the Son of God, with His celebrated

formula: “You have heard it said of old: Thou

shalt or thou shalt not do this or that/ . . . but I

say unto you” . . . and then He would promul-

gate His new law whatever it might be. “You

have heard it said of old Thou shalt not kill, but

I say unto you, Whosoever is angry with his

brother is in danger of hell fire. You have heard

it said of old: Thou shalt not commit adultery,

but I say unto you that whosoever looketh upon

a woman to lust after her, hath already com-

mitted adultery with her in his heart.”

THESE THREE KINDS EXPRESS SAME
WISHES BY SAME VOICE

He likewise summarized the whole law and

the prophets in the simple brief phrase: “Love

God above all things and thy neighbor as thy-

self.” So much for the Positive Christian Law,

third form of law, and surely a brief mention of

it, it is, but enough to indicate to you a whole

form of law, a second type of law which God

piles upon the original Natural Law. I should

however, point out to you that these three forms

of law are only three different expressions of

the same divine wishes, in different ways and

times, and note well, all by the same divine

voice. Therefore there cannot possibly be any

disagreement between these first three forms or

types of law. No possible confusion, no possible

14



contradiction, because all proclaimed directly

by the same divine voice, with no human inter-

mediary to inject confusion or contradiction into

these utterances.

4) POSITIVE ECCLESIASTICAL OR
CHURCH OR CANON LAW

Neither is there any possibility of disagree-

ment or confusion in the next or fourth expres-

sion of these same divine wishes, called the

Positive Ecclesiastical, Church or Canon Law.

But this is expressed by a different voice, now a

human voice. And so in considering this fourth

form of law, we meet for the first time: Human
Law, law framed and promulgated by men. The

material is still the divine will, but the voice

which proclaims it, is human. Here we meet I

say a new, usually fallible element. And men

are apt to hesitate about accepting and obeying

a law springing from an equal. They ask: by

what right does he command us? By what duty

must we obey his word? We ask no such ques-
tions when we are dealing with God. But such
investigations of a lawmaker’s authority are

reasonable, when he is a man like ourselves.

A DIVINE-HUMAN LAW
Before we place the Church’s human voice

however, on a par with other human law-mak-
ers’ commands, we must remember that Christ

constituted the head of His Church, His Vicar,

or representative on earth. He practically trans-
ferred to Peter and the Apostles in unmistak-

able language, His own powers and authority —
“All power is given to Me in heaven and on
earth. As the Father hath sent me, so I also

send you. Go, teach all nations . . . Whosoever

15



heareth you heareth Me. Whosoever despiseth

you, despiseth Me and Him who sent Me. What-
soever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound

also in heaven. Indeed to thee, Peter, I give the

keys of the kingdom of heaven. . .

CLOSELY SHARING DIVINE AUTHORITY
Other human legislators do possess some

share of divine authority and just how much

and within what limitations, we shall see when

we discuss in our next instruction: Human Civil

Law. But no other human legislators ever re-

ceived such an absolute charter of legislative

power as Christ conferred upon the Head of His

Church. So complete is this guarantee that it

amounts to an assurance to all men, for all time,

that the voice of Peter is the Voice of Christ, the

voice of Christ’s Church is the voice of God.

And so to tell the full story, this human voice

we have to hyphenate. Just as we must hyphe-

nate the name of Jesus Christ Himself in order

to tell the full story about Him, calling Him

the God-Man, so we must hyphenate the voice of

the Church of Christ and call it the divine-

human voice. No other human voice can be so

described without exaggeration. Thus does

Positive Ecclesiastical Law occupy a position
half-way between purely divine and purely

human law.

GUARANTEED TRUE ECHO
And that was distinctly Christ’s intention.

Without such an assurance from God, it would

be too much to expect all men, gifted as we all

are with an intellect, naturally and rightly sus-

picious of human frailty, error, ignorance, as

we all are, it would be too much for even God

to expect that the entire human race would

16



submit itself to the rulings of any one of its

members. Only such a divine guarantee would

make such a submission reasonable. And so
God gave it. Once given, all men must accept
it, and listen to Peter’s voice and his successor’s,

as they would to Christ.

The voice of the Catholic Church then, in oth-
er words: Positive Ecclesiastical law is the clos-

est echo of God’s own voice that exists in the
world. If it could depart from the Truth, if it

could deceive or lead the world into error, then

God Himself would be responsible for the de-
ception and the wholesale error. Why? Be-
cause God has announced solemnly to the world
that that is the way He has chosen to have His
law repeated, re-echoed throughout all time to
the ears and to the hearts of men.

GOD’S WAY—MEN’S OBJECTIONS FUTILE
Whether some men like it or not, whether

some men think that He should have figured out
some other way, whether some men think that
He should have managed somehow to stand
ceaselessly upon some cloud or mountain-top
and broadcast constant repetitions of His divine
will in thunderous tones that none could fail to
hear and understand, — all such preferences
and arguments are as futile as those of a child
in a classroom who would object to the manner
in which the teacher chose to repeat the lesson.
The all-important fact is that such is the way
God chose to teach His will to men.

SOME, REPETITIONS. OTHERS MORE DEFI-
NITE EXPRESSIONS

And such therefore is the right, such the au-
thority of the Church of Christ to announce
what is known as the fourth form of Law, Posi-

17



tive Ecclesiastical, Church or Canon law. Some

of these laws, in fact most of them, are simply

and purely repetitions in so many words of

God’s wishes as expressed in the words of Christ

or other sentences of Scripture. Others are laws

of her own making, and here again on this point

arises more chance for argument, complaint and

contradiction. But even these laws of her own,

such for instance as her regulations about hear-

ing Mass, about annual Confession and Com-

munion, Fasting, Marriage and a hundred other

matters, are simply more definite expressions of

general wishes of God, made more definite just

to help her children understand more clearly

what God really wants of them, but made on her

own authority, as a perfect society, necessarily
equipped with all powers required to carry out

effectively the work assigned her to do.

EXPLANATION OF OBEDIENCE

God’s assurance of correctness, legitimacy, un-

likelihood that she will overstep her bounds, ex-

tends to these legislative functions also. He has

promised to remain with her always, guiding

her in the way of holiness and truth unto the

consummation of the world. Such is the basis of

the Catholic Church’s legislative powers, such

the authority of her voice in the world, the only

sure and infallible trumpet of Truth in the

world, not only for her own children but to all

men, whether they will listen to her or not.

Such too is the explanation of her own children’s

utter confidence in her, a reverence and a love

that is the marvel, admiration and envy of every

other religious teaching body which either at-

tempts, pretends or seems to speak in the name

of God.

18



III. THE FIFTH FORM OF LAW
HUMAN CIVIL LAW

We have seen so far four forms of law:

1) Natural

2) Positive Divine

3) Positive Christian

4) Ecclesiastical, Church or Canon Law,

which is a mixture of Divine and Human Law.

This was all suggested by the discussion of that

law which God expressed in the very act of

creating all the various orders of creatures with

various powers and functions, viz., the Natural

Law. And since there is only one more form

of law the discussion of which would complete

a broad survey of the whole field of law, we
take a quick bird’s-eye view of the last and fifth

form of Law, Human Civil Law.

BASIS OF MORALITY—CONSCIENCE
OBEYING LAW

The basis of all morality, public and private

is individual conscience recognizing law. Our

whole idea of right and wrong flows from the

individual’s recognition that his own will is in

agreement or disagreement with a superior will,

which has a right to command his obedience.

That is in fact the Catholic Church’s definition

of sanctity or sin. It is also the citizen’s idea

of patriotism or crime. In other words, some

superior, either God, the Church or the State

decides what it wants done, publishes that will

so that all subjects may know it, and then the

inferior obeys, with sanctity or patriotism re-

sulting, or disobeys with sin or crime as the

consequence.

19



SANCTIONS ARE LAW GIVERS’
ENFORCEMENTS

The main difference between divine and hu-

man law is in the sanctions of each. By sanc-

tions we mean the rewards and punishments

which the lawmaker attaches to obedience or

disobedience to his laws, in other words, the

follow-through by which authority enforces its

law.

GOD S SANCTIONS VARIED AND
MYSTERIOUS

In discussing divine law in its four-fold form

we never mentiond sanctions at all. But now

we do, for the sake of a contrast. In divine law,

God does threaten some punishments in this

world. But at the same time, He tempers them,

oftentimes unexpectedly, by mercy and love

here below. He frequently postpones them

through His desire to win the willing service

of His creature, man. Furthermore foreseeing

a sinner’s eventual damnation for all eternity,

the Almighty often rewards in this world with

apparent success and temporary happiness,

whatever good deeds such a sinner may per-

form.

Thus God’s sanctions of His law, His plan of

punishments for disobedience to it, becomes in

some men’s minds a rather confused and vague

thing. In fact, no man can really follow it all,

or understand all its workings completely. And

indeed God’s great and final sanctions are prin-

cipally a matter of the next world, the future

life. This, our earthly life, is only the first act

of the drama anyway. It is on the Day of Judg-

ment only, that He has promised to reveal to

all men His vindication of His own infinite Jus-

20



tice, to reward and punish all men publicly

according to their works.

But such sanctions as these seem to be insuf-

ficient to deter men from disobedience to His

law. “Men of little faith” consider them too

distant, too uncertain, to be influenced over

much by them. In other words, in spite of the

clear, four-fold manner in which the Creator

has published His will to men, and sanctioned

it with eternal rewards and punishments, such

is man’s blindness and perversity that he

brushes it all aside, insisting upon his own

will at any cost and at any punishment.

MEN’S SANCTIONS DEFINITE, VISIBLE,

HERE AND NOW
So widespread is this attitude that finally in

self-protection, men themselves began to say

among themselves: “God’s law and His sanc-

tions are not enough. We ourselves must make
still more laws, over and above God’s laws. We
must create Human Civil Law, with immedi-
ate and visible punishments, right here and now

in this world,—jails, fines, tortures and even
death, for those who disobey, who endanger

public peace, security and morality, who honor

not their parents, who kill and rape and steal

and lie and betray their country.” And thus
almost through desperation was born Human
Civil Law.

HUMAN LAW EMPHASIZES MAN-MADE
PUNISHMENTS

Basically it is only another repetition of the

divine law, but with a greater insistence upon

visible, immediate, man-made punishments, de-

signed by well-meaning .men to impress those

21



who disregard or view lightly spiritual and

other-world penalties. Thus viewed, it is still

an echo of the divine voice, but with added pun-

ishments invented by men. Only, however, as

long as it repeats the divine will, and thus re-

mains in harmony with the divine law, only

insofar does it deserve to be called an echo of

God’s voice and thus share His authority.

WEAKEST ECHO—YET TO SOME,
STRONGEST

The strange thing about this fifth form of law

is that although Human Civil Law is in reality

the weakest echo of God’s voice, the farthest

removed from the original source and thus the

least authoritative of all the forms of law which

we have considered so far, yet to many men

in the world, it is the only expression of God’s

will which they know, and thus for them, it is

the strongest echo of it. Deprived of the other

forms of knowledge through ignorance, preju-

dice or lack of religious instruction, whether

or not through their own fault, this law is for

them the only law they know. If for no other

reason then, it is therefore of great importance.

We said in speaking of the Catholic Church’s
Canon Law that there is practically no possi-

bility that the Church would ever depart from

God’s own law even when promulgating laws

made on her own authority, and that therefore

there is scant likelihood of any discrepancy

between Ecclesiastical Law and the Divine Law,

no contradictions between them. The one is

built upon and merely explains the other. Not

so, unfortunately, with Human Civil Law, and

why?

22



DANGER OF DISAGREEMENT OF ECHO
FROM ORIGINAL VOICE

Well, first of all Civil law does not possess

such a powerful guarantee of complete fidelity

to or constant agreement with the will of God,

as Christ promised as a special gift to His

Church. There is a much greater danger that

Human Civil Law, made at times by men whose

knowledge of things divine leaves much to be

desired, will not always be a true, undistorted

echo. Usual human legislators have no such

accurate grasping of the things of God as

churchmen possess. Thus the fidelity of human

legislator’s enactments, is apt to become a

rather undependable thing, as far as being an

echo of the divine will is concerned. Neverthe-

less, in spite of that danger, just as the Church

is a perfect society, i. e., one equipped with all

powers necessary to carry out efficiently the

work which she is destined by God to do, viz.,

the spiritual government of all men, so, too, the

State is likewise a perfect society, theoretically

at least, and by perfect I mean only,—one like-
wise equipped with all necessary powers to

carry out effectively the work which it, too, is

destined by God to do, viz., the temporal gov-

ernment of its subjects.

NEVERTHELESS STATE POSSESSES
COMPETENCY IN LAW-MAKING

Thus despite its frailties and dangers and

weaknesses, the State nevertheless still pos-

sesses the right to create laws on its own au-

thority, laws which may not be exactly repeti-

tions of any divine law, but reasonable regula-

tions, born of experience, statesmanship, com-

23



mon sense, solutions of political and practical
problems. These things all constitute a wide

field which ranges from war-making to imposi-

tion of taxes, from property disputes to traffic

rules, from police and fire protection to road

and ship building,—in general, whatever activ-
ity the State for the public good can better

perform than the individual for and by himself

alone. And in these fields, some of which are
certainly quite far removed from any expres-

sion of the divine will, the State has a compe-

tency which nevertheless flows from the divine

will, insofar as right, order, peace and tran-

quility call for some authority to direct and

govern for the common good. And all are bound
in conscience to respect that competency and

to obey those laws which flow from it.

ONLY PROTECTION OF PEOPLE IS IN
LEGISLATOR S RELIGIOUS SENSE

But let us examine a little further the nature

of the danger of departure from the divine will,

which is ever present in Human Civil Law. Un-

fortunately Human Civil Law possesses very

few guarantees against misuse of even its legiti-

mate power. What guarantee is there against

arbitrary and perhaps mistaken rulings? Against

personal or nationalistic ambitions? Against

greed, jealousies, hatred, enmities, vengeance,

injustice? Indeed, its greatest guarantee, if not

its only safeguard against such things is the

legislator’s own religious sense of God’s own

laws. When that is absent, God help the peo-

ples whose Human Civil Laws are dictated only

by godless men’s passions and ambitions! Then

it is that Human Civil Law can become, not an

echo, but a contradiction of divine law.

24



HISTORY
.
AND PRESENT-DAY FACTS

ATTEST DISCREPANCIES

All history, but especially current events,

reveal only too clearly and too sadly to what

an extent these contradictions have actually

taken place, to the ruinous confusion of all law,

order and justice. This condition, as it exists

even in partial ways, and even in our own be-

loved country, we shall consider in our next

broadcast, which we entitle:

“Discrepancies between the Divine Law and

American Civil Law.”

IV. DISCREPANCIES BETWEEN DIVINE
AND AMERICAN CIVIL LAW

ONLY DISAGREEMENT IN WHOLE REALM
OF LAW

Human civil laws do not always remain in

harmony with the divine law. Throughout the

ages and even today more than ever, they defi-

nitely contradict God’s will in many instances.

Here then appears the first evidence of dis-

agreement and confusion in the whole realm

of law. Civil law has been snatched by dictators

as a means of imposing their will upon other

men. That dictator may be an individual or a
majority of a legislative body, but whenever

any human lawmakers turn against any dictate

of God’s law and set up the opposite in their

own name, then does the echo contradict the

original voice, then does the ambassador belie

the power that sent him, then does confusion

reign supreme, as in the world today.

ENORMOUS CONFUSION
What is the actual state of affairs in the world

with regard -to these simple fundamental ideas

25



of law and conscience to which we have been

lately devoting a few instructions? Outside the

Catholic Church, enormous confusion! Such a

multiplicity of human laws, ground out with

such speed and volume by legislators and poli-

ticians, so frequently contradicted, repealed,

declared unconstitutional, wiped ‘out or per-

mitted to lapse, that people’s attitude toward

all law becomes cynical and indifferent. The

majesty of the law fails to impress. Men simply

brush it all aside with a sort of impatient con-

tempt and place individual opinion above all

law.

INVADING EVEN CHURCH LAW

More sad still is this confusion when it is felt

about Church law, I mean of course outside the

Catholic Church, because within it there is no

confusion. But with one sect of Protestantism

approving birth control and divorces, another

condemning them and a third quibbling about

the reasons which justify both, is it any wonder

that the ordinary man draws the conclusion

that even the supposed leaders of Christian

thought do not seem to know what God wants,

and that therefore all religion must be pure

guess-work, all religious regulations and laws

must be nothing more than the opinions of these

leaders,—right or wrong, who knows?—imposed
upon the laity.

CONTRAST OF CATHOLIC COUNTRIES

In Catholic countries, legislators see to it that

the laws of the State do not conflict with the

laws of God and Church. That is usually one

of the benefits of concordats or legally drawn

up agreements between Church and State. But

26



in other countries, lawmakers often neither

know nor care about the laws of God or Church.

In some, a definite hatred of both seems to be

the only explanation of some of the laws. It

would be unnecessary amplification to digress

here with instances in Russia, Germany, Spain,

Mexico, Japan, France, and England. Of closer

interest to us is our own country, and mani-

festations of the same spirit of godlessness right

here in our midst.

IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Fortunately the founding fathers of our na-

tion were a God-fearing, religious group of men,

who injected into our basic governmental struc-

ture, a correct recognition of God and a sense

of true dependence upon Him, which has con-

tinued throughout the century and a half of our

national existence. Nevertheless it becomes

more and more questionable with the passing

years whether we are now still a nation which

can be called a Christian nation, in the sense

that a majority of our citizens are informed

about, and attached, either numerically or even

in sympathies and docility, to any Christian

Church. Certainly many evidences of a spirit
far from Christian are discernible in some of

the laws which find their way through our
elected legislatures on to our statute books, both

state and national.

TEMPTATION STRONG TO ORIGINATE
LAW FROM WRONG SOURCE

In a country such as this, where theoretically

the laws spring from the will of the governed,

the temptation is strong to express in the form

of law, ideas appealing to the legislator’s con-

27



stituents, quite regardless of other more im-

portant considerations which should guide the

science of government: such considerations as

these: that the rights of minorities should suffer

no injustice, and that in matters upon which

God has spoken, even the will of the majority

is not the ultimate source of right, any more

than is the balance of might in guns and bombs.

EXAMPLES: PROHIBITION

To point out a half dozen examples:

1) The “noble experiment of Prohibition” suc-

ceeded in incorporating into the law of the land

an attitude with regard to the use of liquor,

more stringent than the law of God, which con-

demns only its abuse. It is seldom that an inter-

pretation of morality stricter and more rigid

than necessary gains such a following as to

become a law, except locally. The usual tend-

ency is the opposite, viz., to let down all bar-

riers, and to open the way to ever looser and

looser moral restrictions. It is rather ever

greater and greater laxity that usually appeals

to majorities, and thus indirectly to legislators

who consider no higher law than their con-

stituents’ wishes.

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE LEGISLATION

Witness the attempted and accomplished

legislation upon such issues as 2) birth control,

3) sterilization, 4) euthanasia and 5) some of

our marriage laws.

6) What other basis have the divorce laws

of our country? Was there ever, in their enact-

ment, any serious study of their agreement with

the divine law? Is not their spirit simply this:

“Whether Almighty God has had anything to

28



say about His will, to the effect that for the

good of the race, He wishes Marriage to be in-

dissoluble, even although that may work some

hardship upon individuals at times, we Ameri-

cans neither know nor care. All we want is to

be able to throw off these obligations, if they

become distasteful to us or a hardship for us?

LEGISLATION ON EDUCATION

7) And the educational policy of this nation

as a whole: wherein the subject of God, His

place in our children’s lives, their responsibility

to Him for all their individual actions, a knowl-

edge of His rights and laws,—are definitely ex-
cluded from the secularized curricula of our

public schools, not to mention a definite teach-

ing of the opposite ideas in many private col-

leges,—how can such an educational policy for
the youth of a country be said to be in agree-

ment with the First Commandment of the Ten?

DANGEROUS TENDENCY

All these tendencies are a dangerous leaven

in our political life to start with. But when they

become a part of our public legislation and thus

a directive for vast numbers who know no other

law, then they are doubly dangerous. And in

a democracy there is only one antidote that

can be applied. And it is: the doctrine that the

personal will of any human lawmaker is not

the true source of law, least of all when his

lawmaking starts with sweeping away the true

foundations of whatever authority he may right-

fully exercise, viz., that duty to express and

corroborate the laws of God in terms of human,

temporal sanctions. That, remember, to re-echo

the divine will, is the limited, but only true

29



scope of Human Civil Law. “Thus far shalt
thou go, and no farther.”

ANTIDOTE: SOURCE OF LAW IS NOT
LEGISLATOR S WILL

Do our American legislators take this high

view of their momentary, borrowed power? Is

it not to be feared that they think more often

merely in terms of their constituents’ wishes

and their own re-elections? But whether or not

the majority of them are infected with that

weak viewpoint of their duty, there certainly

are abroad in the world, human lawmakers of

the godless type. They start from scratch so to

speak, by simply saying: “This is to be the law

of the land only because I say so!” They may
or may not add other reasons, but they frankly

start by excluding God.

This is unreasonable enough, but bearable,

provided their subjects agree with the wisdom

of their other political ideas and consent to be

governed on that basis. But when after starting

on such a sandy foundation, they proceed to

build a false super-structure as well,—when the
bricks and mortar of their edifice are Atheism,

with its natural consequences of hatred of all

religion,—when the girders are the exaltation
of racial pride, with its unjust and unfounded

discrimination against other races,—when the
field of morality is invaded with principles in

direct contradiction to God’s will, when divorce,

unnatural birth control and a hundred other

evils are encouraged by legal enactment, then

the Church feels it her duty to step into the

arena with a clear statement as to the right

and the wrong in all this lawmaking, and with

a very simple rule:

30



PRACTICAL SOLUTION

“Unless Human Civil Law, American or any

other kind, agrees with divine law or right rea-

son, it does not bind in conscience!”

FUNDAMENTAL AMERICAN PRINCIPLE

Let us take a quick backward glance into

recent history, our own particularly. About a

century and a half ago, the American colonists

felt the injustice of a government which lacked

sufficient respect for some of these rights in-

herent in the very nature of man. And so,

encouraged by distance and favorable chances

of success, they embodied their protest in an

immortal document since become the magna

charta of democracy. They declared that all

just governments spring from the consent of

the governed, that all men are created free and

equal, are endowed by their Creator with cer-

tain inalienable rights: to property, to freedom

of speech, conscience, worship, and thought;

that these rights come directly to man from

God and nature, are recognized, sanctioned and

defended by Religion, and must not be tam-

pered with by kings, dictators or civil govern-

ments.

HISTORIC CATHOLIC PRINCIPLE

In the fifth century, when in its decadence,

the Roman Empire ceased to hold them back,

hordes of Germanic tribes inundated Italy like

an irresistible, deadening lava from a volcano.

It took civilization from three to five hundred

years to lift its head again and stagger to its

feet, which it eventually did through the spir-

itual ministrations of the Catholic Church. His-

tory is repeating itself before our very eyes.

31



Civilization is being similarly suffocated and

destroyed today, strangely enough upon the

very same battlefield, but not there alone, by

any means. Some attacks upon it are far more

subtle than the assaults of gunfire.

REPEATING ITSELF IN OUR DAY

The stand for morality and Christian Truth

which the Holy Father takes, is no less firm or

brave in general, than when his home was upon

the very line of military advance. But even

with the limelight of the world’s attention

focussed upon him as seldom before, his words

are still unheeded by many, and the slaughter

goes on. They may drench the soil of Europe

or half the world with the blood of half or all

of its population, before there will be silence

or exhaustion enough to permit that voice to

be heard. But never will the final Peace be

written unless his pen shall have composed its

conditions, conditions not couched in terms of

commerce, colonies, cash indemnities, crushing

servitude or exulting conquest, but in terms of

human rights and duties, not the false, vicious

concept of these sacred things concocted to

bolster up some dictator’s dream-state, but true,

human rights and duties that conform to the

eternal principles of Divine Law.

V. THE POPE S PEACE PLAN (PART I)
ONLY SOLUTION

Law is the principal language by which God
has told us what His wishes are with regard

to His government of His world.

The five-fold law which we have explained

is the basis upon which rests Our Holy Father’s

Post-War Peace Plan, undoubtedly the sanest,

32



wisest, most disinterested, in fact really the

only true, correct and effective solution of the

whole confusion which faces mankind. To make

this clear to you is the purpose of today’s

broadcast.

NATIONALISMS BALK WORLD STATE

The fact is that men in power in the world

today are attempting first to imagine and then

to create some sort of international court or

tribunal or power to control the ambitions,

greeds, animosities and aggressions of nations.

We have learned how to do that pretty well
for individuals within a single state or nation,

but beyond that, historically, we have never

progressed successfully, due to the numerous

national sovereignties, loathe to submit them-

selves to any other power, even such as A
United States of Nations.

VALUE OF FIRST FOUR FORMS OF
LAW OVERLOOKED

Really most of the success of our efforts to

control and govern individuals within a city,

or state or single nation is due more to the indi-

vidual’s recognition and respect for the first

four forms of law, than it is to the fifth form

merely, i. e., Human Civil Law. But our mod-
ern lawmakers are not very much given to
admitting that fact. They are apt to give far

too much credit to the laws they make them-
selves. And so when the few powerful men in

whose hands the world’s fate happens to rest

at the moment, confer about Peace, they pro-

ceed upon the very false assumption that the

laws or regulations which they frame are the

really important things, forgetting that usually

33



they have about the same strength and perma-

nence as a shifting breeze, unless backed up

by military forces, which they will no doubt

be in the future.

ONLY SANCTION, FORCE

They may or may not try to make them ap-

peal, on grounds of reason, to all nations, but

after all, the other nations can see in them only

the political theories of a handful of men, whom

they may or may not like,—nothing more. And
therefore whatever the proposals, they are

always open to the same old suspicions of self-

interest, “non-liquidation of power already at-

tained, whether justly or not is left unsettled.

And so these originators of new schemes for

peace look around for some sanctions, some

means to enforce their theories, or charters, or

agreements, or treaties, or pacts, and usually

they can find none, except military might.

INTERNATIONAL POLICE FORCE

IMPRACTICAL

Having excluded God and His Law, or taken

for granted that God's word has no influence

with the nations with whom they are dealing,

they are driven to rely upon an international

police force, hitherto non-existent. But when

the international police force has to be invoked

to discipline one or two of the four or five na-

tions who comprise it: what then? Where are

we? Just about where we were with the League

of Nations, or in other words: nowhere! And

that is the actual, sad situation which faces us!

34



HOLY FATHER S SOLUTION

What then is the answer to this problem?

Simple enough, as the Pope gives it, merely re-

echoing God’s own words:

“Go back to the beginning and teach all men

what I their Almighty Creator have said and

done. Substitute for the confused vaporing of

diplomats, the far more simple, more funda-

mental and truer divine code: all so clearly uni-

versal, so easily remembered, the only laws that

have ever meant peace, order and prosperity

for individuals and nations, the laws which I

gave to Moses, the Hebrew formula which built

up a great race, that formula which Christ my
divine Son then strengthened by observance

and extended to all peoples. That law I have

written upon every human heart when I created

it. It is still there and need only be appealed

to, and insisted upon by other lawmakers and

listened to by all subjects, who in so doing will

be listening, not to a Stalin or a Hitler, but to

their own Father who is in heaven.”

NOT ACCEPTABLE TO PRESENT POWERS
And not until all men do recognize it and

obey it, will we ever have peace or security

in the world. It is only because it is denied

and disobeyed that we have any wars at all!

Wasn’t Versailles proof enough for us of the

futility of man’s plans, when by secret pact

the only voice in the world which insisted upon

these basic laws, was excluded from taking any

part in the Peace Conference? Must we now

repeat the same mistake because a Stalin asks:

as he did at Teheran: “Who is the Holy Father?

How many divisions of soldiers did he con-
tribute to the Victory?” How much thought is

35



given to the voice of the Almighty, in all the

conferences which have taken place to date?

SIGNIFICANT GIFT

An interesting story is told of the visit of

President Woodrow Wilson to the Vatican on

Jan. 4th, 1919. He had just crossed Europe in

triumphal procession and was finally received

by Pope Benedict XV midst scenes of medieval
splendor. Court etiquette required that he then

pay a formal call upon the Papal Secretary of

State, Pietro Cardinal Gasparri, that eminent

Canon Lawyer who for thirteen years had

labored, at the bidding of the Pope, to create

the new Code of Canon Law that was to mod-

ernize, simplify and supplant all previous law

and extend to the whole world.

The President at the time was on his way

back to Paris and to Versailles for the Peace

Conference. The Cardinal Secretary of State

had lived and taught law in Paris for eighteen

years. He knew its every crossroad, its every

cross-current of international opinion and in-

trigue. He also knew that the Vicar of the

Prince of Peace, the only unselfish exponent of

that true peace which the world cannot give,

had been excluded from the Peace Table by

a pact hatched in ignoble secrecy. He no doubt

felt that the idealistic President of the United

States of America, acclaimed as the Saviour of

the world, no less!—was like an Innocent
Abroad, a mere child in diplomacy in compari-

son with the Europeans with whom he was
about to deal. The aged, experienced Cardinal

must have looked into the steel blue eyes of

the American Dreamer and wondered sadly

how he would fare at Versailles.

36



CANON LAW CONTAINS SECRET OF
SUCCESS

As his guest rose to depart, Cardinal Gasparri

placed in his hand a gift, a token, an ominous

token one might say, of his visit to the house

of Peter the Fisherman. It was a book, beauti-

fully bound in white parchment. On its cover

gleamed in letters of gold, the title: Codex Juris

Canonici, (the Code of Canon Law). It was the

law by which the Catholic Church rules and

governs her three hundred million children of

all races and nations. Its distinctive feature, in

contrast to all other codes of law, is that it is

a clear, simple, logical, impersonal series of

practical rules of life, deduced by scholars from

the Natural Law planted by God in every
human heart, reinforced by further expressions

of the divine will found in Scripture and the

traditional teaching of the Church, His voice

to men on earth. Truly a contrast indeed to
many types of civic Law which govern nations,
laws ranging from the popular voice of unthink-

ing majorities to the overnight whims and ulti-

matums of dictators.

A MASTERPIECE OF LAW

It was as if Michelangelo had presented him

with his masterpiece of painting or sculpture.

It was indeed the masterpiece of this great

Canon Lawyer, the child of his brain, in the

sense that it was the fruit of years of study,

research, experience and judgment. In fact it

was the distillation of the Catholic Church’s

practical wisdom gathered from two thousand

years of dealing with men, and all compressed

within a single book of Law. What a significant

37



gift to bring to the glittering Hall of Mirrors

at Versailles, where the fate of nations was to

be decided. Significant gift, yes; it really con-

tained the secret of true, just, lasting peace,

although little did Wilson realize it and still less

did he or any one else use it. It contained the

world-sanctifying programme of Christ’s earth-

ly kingdom. But it remained unread and un-

opened by the bargainers who patched together

that so-called Peace!

LAW IS A CREATION OF GOD—NOT
OF MAN

And the pity of it all is that History bids

fair to repeat itself! Law is an impersonal

thing, by which persons are guided, ruled, gov-

erned according to a plan of wisdom and justice,

of rights, duties and responsibilities, established

by God, not invented by man. Law has many

forms and names:—natural, divine, ecclesiasti-
cal, human, civil, national, international,—of
which we have spoken in detail now at some

length, but if it is true law, it must be logically

deduced, it must flow clearly from the will of

God, ordaining and promulgating a certain

order of right living for His human creatures

on earth. Otherwise, it is not true law, worthy

to bind the noble spirit and free conscience of

man.

ONLY DIVINE LAW CAN WIN UNIVERSAL
ACCEPTANCE AND SUBMISSION

But if it is derived legitimately from the

authentic source of God’s will, then all men are

automatically subject to it, no matter to what

nation they may belong. None are above it, no

matter what their position, for to place one’s

38



self above it, would be to make one's self the

equal or superior of God.

That is the concept of Law which the Catholic

Church teaches to the world.

CONTRARY CONCEPTS ENGENDER WARS
AND RUIN

On the contrary what is law in the minds

of the statesmen who rule the world today? It

is no more than the will of some individual

man, or group or combination of men, tempo-

rarily in the saddle, shaping other men's des-

tinies to their own will, enslaving their freedom

to some ambitious programme of their own con-

coction. If any higher law should stand in their

way, it is ruthlessly brushed aside. All who

would proclaim it, are silenced by threat of

hangman, firing squad or concentration camp.

Thus do personal schemes of power become the

law of some lands. And such a concept of law

leads automatically and has led actually to the

woes in which the world finds itself engulfed

today.

POPE RECALLS TRUE LAW
Therefore the First Step in the Holy Father's

Peace Plan is to recall all men, with special

emphasis upon those in places of power (and

American legislators, take notice!), to the

acceptance of that supreme Law of right and
wrong that is above and independent of any

man or combine of men, however powerful, that
Law which flows directly, logically and imper-
sonally from God's will and commandments:

that Law which continues to thunder: “Thou
shalt not steal," no matter what nation may be
the thief, no matter whether the thief be the

39



victor or the conquered,—that Law which con-
tinues to announce: “Thou shalt not commit

adultery” no matter if eighty percent of a nation

laugh light-heartedly at such an old-fashioned

idea, no matter even if the state itself has actu-

ally thrown the mantle of legal protection over

such immorality.

UNDER DIREST PENALTIES

And unless men do return to the acceptance

of that Divine Law in its entirety, that law pro-

claiming right and wrong as calmly, boldly,

openly, fearlessly and impartially to a ruthless

totalitarian state as to a democracy, or mon-

archy or single individual, then men must be

ready to bow as slaves to whatever madman

may grasp the reins of any government and

impose his crazy will upon a hopeless and help-

less and hapless world!

LIKELY LAW OF THE FUTURE
Pray that those who attempt to formulate

the post-war peace may accept God’s idea of

law. Pray, I say, because the chances are about

even that they will not. The temptation is great

indeed, perhaps too great to resist, that they

will make their own wills and schemes, backed

by their own militaristic power and quite re-

gardless of any higher will, the Law of the

future under which we will all have to live.

VI. POPE’S PEACE PLAN (PART II)

REAL PEACE UNKNOWN IN WORLD

All minds are yearning for peace, and the air

is filled with plans for post-war peace. And yet

for the last 300 years or more, this world has

40



not known any real peace. It has known only

periods of armistice, like the years between the

treaty of Versailles and the German invasion

of Poland. Why? Because after the treaty of

Westphalia in 1648, Europe entered upon a long

period, not yet ended, of intense nationalisms,

so anti-christian in character that the Church’s

influence over rulers was scarcely any more

than a warning finger pointed in the direction

opposite to the course upon which they were

traveling.

FOR LAST THREE HUNDRED YEARS

It was Protestantism which shortly before

had lessened Europe’s respect for Peter’s voice.

And that unbelieving attitude gradually settled

into an habitual ignoring, if not a proud, obsti-

nate, superior contempt for such pious teach-

ings, as not sufficiently worldly-wise. As a re-

sult, there has not been in the world for 300

years now, any central agency, any universally

recognized power house of Truth and authority,

sufficiently strong to curb these warring nation-

alisms, with their worldly-wise ambitions and

greeds, no voice to which they would listen

when any questions of justice and morality

would stand in the path of their plans. The

result of that mad, unchecked race for power

is only too evident now.

SINCE A SUPREME CHRISTIAN ARBITER
WAS RECOGNIZED

There was a time, and would to God it could

return to this distracted world, when the whole

Christian world at least did recognize a supreme

arbiter and judge of right and wrong, someone

to whose disinterested decisions all men could

41



safely look with confidence, with a trust based,

if not on an infallible divine guidance, then at

least based upon an impartial, fatherly love of

all men as his own spiritual children in Christ,

whatever their nationality. That time, I repeat,

has been gone now for 300 years. And as a

result, men have strayed further and further

away from any practical idea of unity and har-

mony among themselves.

And now we face the enormous, if not in-

superable problem of creating a peace that will

be permanent at last. And it will be perma-

nent only if it is just. For it is instinctive in

the human heart, and gloriously so, to resist

injustice just as soon as physically able to do

so. What are the chances of success? I said

previously that they were only about an even

50 percent. Why? Because we placed as the
first condition of success, the acceptance by all

men of an eternal, unchanging fearless law of

which God, not men, is the author.

SELFISHNESS THWARTS LAW

And some of those who will make the peace

will bow to no law, even God’s, higher than

their own will. The men who will be in the

saddle will likely be men and nations whose

worldly interests might be somewhat thwarted

by the dictates of Christian principles. God’s

law might call for too much generosity, kind-

ness, charity, forgiveness. These men will pre-

fer to think about vengeance, about ever

greedier plans of conquest, holding of past and

present gains, “non-liquidation of empires,” to

quote a classic expression. They will be thinking

in terms which will make the victors more

powerful and the conquered still weaker, but

42



not less resentful. The danger is that the pat-

tern of the peace will be the same old futile

formula: treaties and secret agreements rein-

forcing special privilege for the most powerful

of the victors, more and more intense national-

isms that will simply start the trouble all over

again.

NO PROPHETS NEEDED

We need not be prophets to see these jealous
nationalisms already seated around a table

carving up helpless countries, some made

stronger by victory, some ground to ashes by

defeat, the only guiding law in the whole heart-

less process being the plans and ambitious

schemes of those whom Might has made the
Dictators. We can almost hear their exultant
language: “We are now supreme at last, with

no one strong enough to stop us further. Why
should we now bow before any man. or even

God?”

TO PREDICT EFFORTS TO UNDERMINE
POPE S PLANS

Thus do they speak even now, before they

are victorious. They will certainly not be any

more humble or considerate later on. And if

we were to penetrate beneath the surface of

such language, it seems quite evident that it is

a part of their scheme to undermine ahead of

time, any force in the world that might snatch

from them the fruits of their might, the spoils

of war. Therefore is the Pope’s prestige out-

lawed in the councils of the Nations. Therefore

is the law of God equally a stranger to their

deliberations!

43



EXCLUSION OF POPE

There is only one mind and one voice in the

world which is assured of divine guidance. And

he is not recognized by the majority of men.

There is only one heart far removed from

nationalistic ambitions, one great impartial

Father to whom all nations are merely children
who should be seeking the Word of God from

his lips, although they are far from doing so.

To him, no nation’s aspirations can outweigh

a single act of injustice to a single individual.

He alone knows more about what is really right

and what is really wrong in God’s eyes and by

God’s laws, than all the other representatives

of the nations who will sit at the peace table,

all put together! But will he be allowed to sit

there? He wasn’t in 1918.

And if excluded, would it be because he

would have no plan to offer? Not at all. It

would be more likely because his plan is too

clear, too simple, too just to suit the angry bar-

gainers who want no divine law to cross the

future laws they have in mind to enact. It

would be because in his Christmas broadcast

of 1941 he said: “The destruction brought out

by this present war is on so vast a scale that

there must not be added to it the further ruin

of a frustrated and illusory peace.”

HEART OF THE PROBLEM—UNPOPULAR
MEDICINE

And then he points out the real heart of the

whole problem, the essence of its solution, but

a medicine which will not be popular at the

peace table and which therefore excludes the

doctor who would prescribe it:

44



“Peace is an atmosphere, a state of mind

among all peoples in which the very seeds of

conflict are dispersed and killed and in which

in their place grows a mutual spirit of active

cooperation for the common good.

“This longed-for atmosphere of lasting peace,

(the Holy Father says) will not be created by

peace treaties, nor by solemn pacts, nor interr

national conventions, conferences, nor charters,

nor even by the noble and sincere efforts of

statesmen unless beforehand the sacred rights

of the Natural and Divine Laws are recognized

and obeyed.

“This is the true strength upon which the life

of all nations depends. This is the most assured

of all values. As long as it stays steady, the

others cannot waver, for they would then be

guaranteed by the most unshakeable authority,

the unchanging and eternal Law of God.”

PAPAL LANGUAGE FOREIGN ONE TO
MODERN EARS

I ask you whether the delegates who will sit
at the peace table will be able to understand

such language. And if they could, would they
listen to it or heed it?

His Holiness knows the answer to that ques-

tion as well as you or I. He knows that numeri-
cally Catholics are in a minority in most of

the nations and governments of the world to-

day, and so as a separate unit, able to accom-

plish little. And what does he say about it?
He appeals therefore directly and openly for
cooperation with and from “all men who believe
in God (and again, American legislators, take

heed!) . . . collaboration, inter-association with

45



men of other creeds, provided they are ani-
mated, however vaguely, by Christian ideals

of justice.
5 ’

APPEALS FOR COOPERATION FROM
NON-CATHOLICS

And this is the Second Step of the Pope’s

Peace Plan: cooperation with others, not of the

Faith, to increase the influence of Christian

teaching upon those momentarily in power.

THREE MEANS

How is this accomplished? In many ways:

a) Perhaps the most effective of which is by

diplomatic relations of the Holy See itself

with various governments, in fact, with all

who seek this advantage, even with Ger-

many and Japan. Thus are these nations and

governments made conscious of the Pope’s

standards and principles, which otherwise

they might never have guessed.

b) By public statements, interviews, protests

made from time to time by Cardinals, Arch-

bishops, whole hierarchies of one country or

another. All these means help to formulate

the policies of these governments and these

countries.

c) And in a smaller way, but in democracies

like ours, a very effective way, through in-

structions by Pastors to their flocks at Sun-

day Masses, or in sodalities or in study clubs

or other channels of teaching, such as this

radio programme, for one instance.

LEST POPULAR WILL BE DEFEATED

After all, the theory of democratic govern-

ment is that the people’s will, as felt by their

46



legislative representatives, is the ultimate

source of law. If that theory is to work out

in harmony with the higher divine law, the

people will need and will appreciate clear en-

lightenment and authoritative guidance, in such

complicated matters as these, lest the popular

will be confused and divided by false or futile

emphases.

CHRISTIAN PEOPLES MUST RISE IN
THEIR MIGHT

The Providence of God itself is a thing which

sometimes does not wait for such slow means

of progress. It may easily provide other means
by which this leaven may spread more rapidly,
more completely, even startlingly. The very

miseries of war which God permits, may so
disgust the world with the games of greed and

schemes of shameless usurpation of sacred indi-

vidual rights by states, that through sheer ex-

haustion and weariness and degradation of

spirit, whole peoples may rise up in their might,
and in the light of Christian Truth, as ex-

pounded by the Holy Father, wend their way
back to God and His laws, in spite of their

dictators and oppressors.

AND WEND THEIR WAY BACK TO GOD
No matter how the world may seem to get

out of hand, it can never get out of God’s hands.

He still remains its Creator, its Governor and
its Judge. Great public catastrophes have led

whole peoples back to Him, just as proud pros-

perity leads them away from Him.

These are thoughts that should lead us never

to despair. Nor to be idle on the sidelines. We
can aid the situation by prayer, prayer that the

47



benign influence of the Holy Father’s teachings

may permeate the minds and hearts of men in
positions of power and not of our faith. We
Catholics can aid by explaining to others the

fundamental principles of the Church’s Plan for

Peace. We know them almost instinctively,
almost without study. We know the teachings
from childhood by which she would make us

holy. She simply wants all men to accept them

and live by them. Thus, and only thus, can true

Peace come and remain.

48



OTHER PAMPHLETS FROM THE ESSEX COUNTY

CATHOLIC RADIO PROGRAMME. Published by

the Radio Replies Press, St. Paul, 1, Minnesota.

THE MUSIC OF THE MASS. Radio commentaries

upon forty-four Texts of the Mass and their various

musical expressions. By Rev. Francis X. Sallaway,

S.T.D., P.P., Priest of Archdiocese of Boston 25c

THE MUSIC OF IRELAND. Radio commentaries

upon thirty-four representative Irish songs. By

Father Sallaway 20c

GUIDE POSTS OF THE ALMIGHTY TO INDUS-

TRIAL PEACE AND PROSPERITY. By Most Rev.

R. J. Cushing, Archbishop of Boston 10c

FATHER SALLAWAY'S FIRST EPISTLE TO THE

UNITARIANS. (The Theology of the Crucifixion, a

reply to Rev. Mr. John Haynes Holmes) 10c

FATHER SALLAWAY'S SECOND EPISTLE TO

THE UNITARIANS 10c

OUR LADY OF FATIMA. Four Radio Talks by Rev.

Joseph F. Gough, Station WESX, Salem, Mass.. . .15c