PESCH, HEINRICH. — Jesuit, writer on social policy and national economics, b. in Cologne on 17 September 1854, d. at Valkenburg on 1 April 1926.
He entered the Society of Jesus on 10 January 1876; after studying law and the social sciences at the Theological Faculty of Bonn, he was ordained a priest in 1888 and devoted himself entirely to writing on questions of national economics. His preparation consisted of the private instruction he received at the castle of Türmitz, in Bohemia (1889), from the publicist R. Meyer, who unsuccessfully attempted to win him over to his theories of State socialism; the personal observations he gathered during journeys in England and Belgium; his activity as spiritual director at the Seminary of Mainz, where social studies were flourishing (1892-1901); and the further studies he undertook, at almost forty years of age, under A. Wagner at the University of Berlin (1901-1903), mingling with the young students. From Berlin he went to Luxembourg, where he collaborated on Stimmen aus Maria Laach, and in 1910 he returned to Berlin, to the Sisters of the Good Shepherd at Marienfeld, where he was able to complete his principal work. During the Mainz years he had published: Liberalismus, Sozialismus und christliche Gesellschaftsordnung (2 vols., Freiburg im Breisgau 1893-1900; 2nd ed., ibid. 1901), a systematic study of the relationship between Catholic social thought and the other two currents, then dominant; from Berlin came his masterpiece: Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie (5 vols., ibid. 1905-1923), which aroused the greatest interest, since it was the first modern work on economics inspired by Catholicism, independent of the theories current in the schools, yet founded on all the scientific and practical experience exploited by others. In it he sets forth and defends his social system, which he himself called “Christian solidarism”; collective social welfare must necessarily be founded upon an organic conception of society, that is, upon the interdependence and solidarity of the various social groups; neither the individual taken alone nor society taken alone can procure this welfare, but only the two elements harmoniously coordinated. The individual also exists for society, and society also exists for the individual; hence a social order will be necessary in which the free activity of individuals is harmonized with the common good, and the interests of workers with those of employers; in other words, it is necessary to socialize not the instruments of labor, but human beings. After the First World War, further opportunities arose for P. to guide minds amid the new social tendencies that were emerging; he therefore published, generally making use of the material of the Lehrbuch: Solidarisierung (ibid. 1919); Christlicher Solidarismus und soziales Arbeitsystem (ibid. 1924); Des wissenschaftlichen Sozialismus Irrgung und Ende (ibid. 1924), etc.