Christian Social Doctrine

CHRISTIAN SOCIAL DOCTRINE. - In recent centuries, faced with ever more serious violations of Christian ethics in the economic and social field, the principles of Christian sociology were reaffirmed with clarity by the pontiffs and by Catholic scholars, and their realization was pointed to as the only path of salvation for the contemporary world. The renewal of society will come about - this is Catholic thought - only through the renewal of spirits and the subordination of the economy to Christian morality: the emancipation of the economy from morality has in fact led to the errors and injustices of liberalism. On its ruins a new social order will arise: it must not, however, be based on the principles of Marxism which, founded on materialism, leads to the overweening power of the State and to contempt for the human personality.

The Christian social order is founded instead on the recognition of the dignity of the human person; this must be safeguarded against the excessive power of money or of the State. Property, which has its principal foundation in labor, must serve the preservation and perfection of the human person and be an instrument and guarantee of freedom. It becomes instead an instrument of oppression and servitude when it is abused, when its social function is disregarded and only an individual function is recognized in it. Christian thought therefore does not admit an "ius utendi et abutendi" and condemns individualistic abuses as well as the unbridled freedom of competition that allows only the strongest to survive, who are often the most dishonest. The State must therefore intervene so that these abuses do not occur, proceeding to the nationalization of enterprises that carry with them an economic preponderance and that cannot be left to private citizens without danger to the common good, and placing limits on super-property, that is, on the concentration of wealth.

The social question must be resolved in the sense of protecting the proletarian from the abuses of owners and capitalists, and thus of enabling the proletarian himself to attain property, both through the spread of small agricultural property and through forms of worker participation in the ownership and profits of enterprises. The most urgent problem is therefore the protection of the proletarian. In correspondence with the duty to work, work must be assured to him: he has a right to work. This cannot be considered as merchandise because it is bound to the person of the worker: unjust therefore are starvation wages fixed with regard only to the law of supply and demand. The wage is moreover always unjust when it does not assure the worker his preservation; indeed he has a right to a family wage that allows him to support his dependents.

Within the limits just indicated the wage system is lawful; it is not, however, the best system: there is therefore a tendency toward evolution from the wage form to the associative form. Only the overcoming of the wage system will in fact be able to destroy completely the predominance of capital, which in recent centuries has disregarded the prevailing rights of labor. One must therefore tend to make workers participate in the profits of the enterprise and to ensure that these profits are invested in shares of the enterprise itself so that the workers become co-owners of it. Profit-sharing and shareholding are, like cooperativism and the spread of small rural property, means tending to bring proletarians closer to property and to unite capital and labor in the same hands. The Christian social school aims in fact at the abolition of the condition of proletarians and looks forward to a society of owners. It is held in fact that property should be extended as far as possible to all, since all have the duty to promote the development of their own person and therefore have a right to dispose of those means that are necessary for its affirmation.

Proletarians must be permitted, not only for their own protection but also for their own elevation, to unite both in simple associations of workers alone and in mixed associations comprising all those who are interested in a particular production. These associations, which will tend to the defense and the religious, moral, social and economic perfection of the worker, must live within the State and will be recognized by it, but must not belong to the State. The Catholic social school in fact combats every excessive power of the State and therefore also opposes the totalitarian, integral and violent statization of the means of production and exchange, and advocates instead a gradual nationalization limited to large enterprises.

These, in summary, are the principles advocated by the Christian social movement that spread throughout Europe in the second half of the 19th century. It had in fact already achieved a notable diffusion when Leo XIII, with Rerum Novarum in 1891, approved it, inviting all Catholics to follow it. The Catholic social movement was born as a reaction, on the one hand to the injustices and disastrous consequences of the capitalist regime, on the other to the anti-Christian doctrines of socialism which tended toward the elimination of those injustices. It arose first, therefore, in countries such as Germany, France, and England, where capitalism, already around 1848, revealed itself in its power and its iniquity, while Marxism was arising and spreading among the proletariat, which saw in it the only voice that condemned the economic system of which it was a victim. The Catholic reaction was therefore imposed by the new economic situation and made itself heard through the attacks of a Ketteler, a Manning and a Vogelsang against the spreading industrialism, deleterious to the souls and bodies of workers.

In Germany, where already from 1845 A. Kolping had begun to create workers' associations, the Catholic social movement spread above all through the work of Msgr. Ketteler, bishop of Mainz from 1850. In 1869 he called for workers the reduction of the working day, the increase of wages, the prohibition of work for children and mothers, and he admitted the weapon of the strike.

The movement then spread through the work of men such as Dasbach, Brandts, Winterer, Moufang, founder of the "Association for the Welfare of Workers," Hitze, head of the social works of München-Gladbach, Hertling, Schings, and of newspapers such as the Germania, the Christlich-soziale Blätter, directed by Abbot Schings, and the Arbeiterwohl, founded in 1880 and organ of the association of Catholic employers, which had Franz Brandts as president and Hitze as secretary. Thus came about the constitution of the "Volksverein" (1890) and the bold social legislation proposed in Parliament by the deputies of the Catholic Center, led by Windthorst.

In this party two currents were distinguished: one of them, led by Franz Hitze, called, like the Austrian group of the Vaterland, and like the French Christian Socialists, for the corporative regime and the omnipotence of the State, which was opposed instead by the other group headed by Hertling. Hitze later abandoned his medievalist ideas, which the Center had never made its own.

They triumphed instead in Austria, where all trust was placed in the social monarchy and the landed nobility. Christian social ideas in fact won wide favor among the federalist Catholic conservatives who fought the centralist, industrialist and secularist liberals; the struggle against the latter then became confused with that against the Jews, who held so large a part of Austria's movable wealth. The corporatist ideal was therefore championed by the foremost organ of the federalists, the Vaterland, and by the men who gathered around it: Baron Karl Vogelsang, the Count of Falkenhayn, Count Blöme, Count Kuefstein, Count Belcredi, Prince Liechtenstein and Karl Lueger, burgomaster of Vienna; their teacher was the Protestant economist Meyer. The social legislation promoted by these men (who obtained the 11-hour working day) alienated from them a part of the feudalists but won them broad petty-bourgeois strata that gave life to the Vereinigte Christen and, in 1894, to the Christian Social party.

In Switzerland the movement was promoted by Card. Mermillod, bishop of Geneva. He had delivered lectures on the social question in Paris in 1868; at the Vatican Council he upheld the cause of infallibility and that of the workers. His work was continued by Gaspard Decurtins, himself also an intransigent and an infallibilist. A Catholic deputy for the Grisons, he attempted on several occasions to induce the Federal Council to take the initiative of an international labor legislation (1880 ff.), a design cherished by Emperor William II.

The Belgians were perhaps the Catholics furthest removed from the statism of the Austrian corporatists. Not only the economist Charles Périn, very close to liberalism, but also Christian socialists such as Woeste and Pottier did not intend to give excessive powers to the State. Through the merit of Msgr. Doutreloux, bishop of Liège, the great international Catholic congresses were held in that city, where men such as Hitze, Winterer, Kuefstein, Blöme, De Mun, La Tour du Pin, Medolago Albani spoke, and where the two opposing tendencies of the interventionists and the anti-interventionists clashed over the function of the State in the social question. Passing to practical action, while the University of Louvain established chairs of social sciences, guilds arose in the cities and unions in the countryside, the former confederated in the Belgian Democratic League and the latter in the Boerenbond (v.) or federation of peasants. Someone went too far: the Abbé Daens, deputy for Alost, a fiery Christian democrat, judged the Rerum novarum insufficient: and he went so far as to be invited to lay aside the ecclesiastical habit (1897).

The Dutch Catholics vied with those of Belgium and Germany in social action and in numerous institutions for the protection of the working classes. The finest figure is that of the Abbé Schaepman (1841-1903).

In England the figure of Card. Edward Manning stands out, who intervened to settle the "docks" strike (Aug. 1889) and upheld, especially in the Leeds speech (1874) on "the dignity and rights of labour," the principles of Christian socialism: elimination of the abuses of capital, of the concentration of wealth, of the latifundium; the right to work; reduction and determination of working hours; fixing of a minimum wage; diffusion of cooperativism. Such was the man who inspired the encyclical Rerum novarum. Msgr. Bagshawe set forth, in 1885, in "Mercy and justice to the poor. The true political economy," ideas even bolder than those of Manning.

The Catholic social movement spread also in Ireland, where emphasis was placed on the problem of the countryside; in Spain, where however it had very scant development; and in North America, where Card. Gibbons prevented the condemnation of the "Knights of Labor," a non-confessional trade-union organization. Condemned in fact by the bishops of Canada and by the Holy Office, because they believed it a secret society, Gibbons defended it and restored it to good standing in Rome (1888).

In France social tendencies had already manifested themselves among the liberal Catholics (Ozanam, Lacordaire...), but the problem was posed with greater clarity by the "Association catholique" of Albert De Mun and La Tour du Pin. Among French Catholics two currents therefore came to be distinguished: that of the conservatives and that of the social Catholics.

The former followed the liberal economists or those liberal-leaning Catholics who had F. Le Play as their teacher and who looked to Claude Jannet's journal Réforme sociale. These Catholic conservatives exalted the patronage system and condemned all state intervention; they had the support of the high clergy, of great landowners and of many industrialists of northern France. From this current came the "School of Angers," which began under the auspices of Msgr. Freppel (1827-1891), bishop of Angers, and which adhered to a certain conservatism.

The Christian socialists of the "Association catholique" and of the "Work of Catholic Workers' Circles" tended instead to give ample powers to the State and to the corporations. The rigidly corporative ideal of La Tour du Pin, which rested on the presupposition of monarchical restoration, however met with the opposition of the Réforme sociale, of the Revue catholique des institutions et droit, of Etudes, and of Léon Harmel himself, one of the greatest implementers of Christian social ideas, owner of the workshops of Val des Bois.

The Christian democrats, who appeared at the end of the last century, were close to the Christian socialists in the social field, but far from them in the political one. Their ideas were spread by Justice sociale (Naudet), Vie catholique (Dabry), the Revue du clergé français, Annales de philosophie chrétienne, Quinzaine, Démocratie chrétienne, Demain and the Sillon, directed by Marc Sangnier. Between 1908 and 1910 this movement was shaken by the repression of modernism, for which many Christian democrats had manifested sympathies. The Christian democrats did not suspend their political-social action and, grouped first in the Popular Democratic party and in the movement of the "Young Republic," later merged with other Catholic currents, such as that of the Jeunesse française, to give life in 1944 to the Popular Republican Movement, which almost uninterruptedly since 1945 has participated in the government of France with its men (Bidault, Schumann).

Some Italian Catholics (Tommaseo, Rosmini, Ricasoli...) had glimpsed in the early nineteenth century the importance of the social question; political events drew them away from it. The spread abroad of a Catholic social movement and of a threatening Marxist movement aroused also in Italy, backward as it was from the economic point of view, a new interest on the part of Catholics in the social problem, which was often confused with the political-religious one, just as free trade was confused with the liberalism of politicians and philosophers. The boldest social positions were therefore generally taken by the intransigent Catholics, declared enemies of the liberalism in power; more prudent were instead, save for some exception (Curci), the conciliatory or liberal-leaning Catholics (Cantù, Zanella, Fogazzaro, Bonomelli...). The Catholic social movement thus unfolded in Italy within the "Work of Congresses." In 1877, while Card. Pecci, bishop of Perugia, condemned the Manchester system in a pastoral letter, free associations of workers were advocated at the Congress of Bergamo. In 1889 the "Catholic Union for Social Studies in Italy" and the Rivista internazionale di scienze sociali e discipline ausiliarie, its organ, were born: both were promoted and directed by Giuseppe Toniolo.

The encyclical Rerum novarum and, to a lesser extent, the establishment in Italy of a Socialist party gave a vigorous impulse to the social activities of Catholics. The intransigent newspapers (Osservatore cattolico, Unità cattolica, Italia reale...) set about ardently supporting the Christian social cause; meanwhile Catholic professional associations were developing, above all through the work of young students and professionals, who began to use the term "Christian Democracy" (v.). The struggle among the various Catholic tendencies and even the dissolution of the Opera, which took place in 1904, did not succeed in halting the Catholic social movement. The Catholic organizations dependent on the Unione popolare and on the Unione economico-sociale, favored in their development by the clerico-liberal agreements, which overturned the advantageous situation often enjoyed until then by the red leagues, had at the end of the First World War a notable numerical strength and worried socialists and conservatives. In 1919, after the dissolution of the Unione economico-sociale, the autonomous Confederazione italiana del lavoro was born, which then suffered the violence of the reds and the blacks; the program of the Partito Popolare italiano was also inspired by the ideas of the Christian social school. After the fall of fascism those ideas lived again in the programmatic formulations of the Democrazia cristiana, of the Associazioni cattoliche dei lavoratori italiani (ACLI) and of the Libera confederazione generale italiana del lavoro (LCGIL).

The Catholic social movement, whose development in the various nations has been followed here, was approved and encouraged by the pontiffs.

The Rerum novarum (15 May 1891) and the other declarations of Leo XIII provoked a marvelous expansion of the movement, which suffered a grave crisis between 1907 (encyclical Pascendi of Pius X) and 1910 (condemnation of the Sillon), when many of its valiant supporters were caught up in the condemnation of modernism. It developed luxuriantly after the First World War according to the teaching imparted by Pius XI in the Quadragesimo Anno (15 May 1931) and in the Divini Redemptoris (19 March 1937) and by Pius XII in the Sertum laetitiae (1 Nov. 1939) and in many of his Christmas and Pentecost messages. The doctrines set forth by the Pontiffs today inspire the action of trade-union movements and political parties in many nations.

Austria: R. Kralik, Karl Lueger und der christliche Sozialismus, Vienna 1923; A. Lesowsky, Karl von Vogelsang. Zeitschrift des Gedenkens aus seinen Schriften, ibid. 1927; R. Kuppe, Dr. Karl Lueger. Persönlichkeit und Wirken, ibid. 1947. – Belgium: H. J. Elias, Printer Daens en de christene vollstparité, 1893-1907, Aioss 1940; G. Guyot de Mishagen, Le parti catholique belge de 1830 à 1834, Brussels 1946. – England: E. S. Purcell, Life of cardinal Manning, London 1896; C. P. Mc Entee, The social Catholic movement in Great Britain, New York 1927; H. Sommerville, The Catholic social movement, London 1932. – America: A. Sinclair-Will, Vie du card. Gibbons, archevêque de Baltimore, Paris 1925; T. Maynard, The story of american catholicism, New York 1941; R. Pattee, El catolicismo en Estados Unidos, Mexico City 1945; C. J. Nuesse, The social thought of american catholicism, 1831-1839, Westminster 1945; A. J. Abell, The reception of Leo XIII's labor encyclical in America, 1891-1919, in The Review of politics, 7 (1945), pp. 464-95; id., Origins of Catholic Social Reform in the United States. Ideological Aspects, ibid., 11 (1949) pp. 294-309; H. J. Browne, The Catholic Church and the knights of labor, Washington 1949. – France: G. Weill, Histoire du catholicisme libéral en France, 1828-1908, Paris 1909; C. Calippe, Les tendances sociales des catholiques libéraux, ibid. 1911; id., L'attitude sociale des catholiques français au XIXᵉ siècle, ibid. 1912; A. Rastoul, Histoire de la démocratie catholique en France, ibid. 1913; W. Gurian, Die politischen und sozialen Ideen des französischen Katholizismus: 1789-1914, Gladbach 1919; G. Weill, Histoire du mouvement social en France (1851-1911), Paris 1924, pp. 409-20; E. Barbier, Histoire du catholicisme libéral et du catholicisme social, 5 vols., Bordeaux 1925; C. Jaspar (A. De Gasperi), Un maestro del corporativismo cristiano: René de la Tour du Pin, Milan 1928; E. Lecanuet, L'Église de France sous la troisième république, 4 vols., Paris 1931; J. Zirmelid, Cinquante années de syndacalisme chrétien, ibid. 1937; G. Jarlot, Le régime corporatif et les catholiques sociaux. Histoire d'une doctrine, ibid. 1938; G. Hoog, Histoire du catholicisme social en France: 1871-1931, ibid. 1946; H. Guillemin, Histoire des catholiques français au XIXᵉ siècle (1813-1905), Geneva 1947; A. Cuvillier, Ph. J. – B. Bucher et les origines du socialisme chrétien, Paris 1948; J. B. Duroselle, Les catholiques de France et la question sociale en 1848, in Atti e memorie del XXVII Congresso nazionale dell'Istituto per la storia del Risorgimento italiano, Milan 1948, pp. 191-95; R. Havard de la Montagne, Histoire de la démocratie chrétienne de Lamennais à Georges Bidault, Paris 1948; H. Rollet, L'action sociale des catholiques en France (1871-1901), Lille 1948. – Italy: Conservatives: G. Bonomelli, Proprietà e socialismo. Che devesi fare?, Cremona 1886; G. Scalabrini, Il socialismo e l'azione del clero, Piacenza 1899; A. Capecelatro, La questione sociale e il cristianesimo, Capua 1901; F. Fonzi, I cattolici transigenti italiani dell'ultimo Ottocento, in Convivium, nuova raccolta, 3 (1949), pp. 995-972. – Social movement: v. DEMOCRAZIA CRISTIANA, and furthermore: A. Sassoli Tomba, La questione sociale nella nostra campagne, Bologna 1879; C. M. Curci, Di un socialismo cristiano nella questione operaia e nel concerto selvaggio di moderni stati civili, Florence 1885; G. Avolio, I cattolici di fronte ai mali sociali, Naples 1895; A. Pavissich, La questione sociale, Treviso 1902; B. Alati, Dall'inerzia socialista all'attività clericale, Milan 1910; L. De Gobbi, Il pensiero sociale di Giuseppe Toniolo, Alba 1922; F. Marconcini, Profilo di Giuseppe Toniolo economista, Milan 1930; F. Arcà, Il movimento operaio cattolico, in V. E. Orlando, Primo trattato completo di diritto amministrativo italiano, VI, 1, ibid. 1930, pp. 248-64; V. Mangano, L'opera scientifica di Giuseppe Toniolo. Una concezione cristiana della sociologia e della economia sociale, Rome 1940; G. Anichini, Amico del popolo e servo di Dio. Vita del professor Giuseppe Toniolo, Florence 1945; G. Internimone, Vincenzo Mangano, L'uomo e il pensatore, Rome 1945; G. Toniolo, Opera Omnia, Vatican City 1947.

Fausto Fonzi