Parergon: Concerning Christian Democracy

Toniolo, Il concetto cristiano della democrazia [The Christian Concept of Democracy];¹ Chiaudano, Democrazia cristiana e movimento cattolico [Christian Democracy and the Catholic Movement];² Gayraud, Les Démocrates chrétiens, leur Doctrine et leur Programme [Christian Democrats: Their Doctrine and Their Program];³ Antoine, Démocratie politique et démocratie chrétienne [Political Democracy and Christian Democracy]; La Démocratie chrétienne [Christian Democracy]; a booklet published anonymously at Liège in 1899 by Le Bien du Peuple; Vermeersch, La nouvelle Encyclique sociale [The New Social Encyclical].

¹ This study, which obtained the greatest celebrity, first appeared in the periodical Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Sociali e Discipline Ausiliarie, Rome, 1896. It was rendered into French under this title: La notion chrétienne de la démocratie [The Christian Notion of Democracy]. Paris, Maison de la Bonne Presse.

² Against the expediency of this appellation.

³ This work stirred no slight controversy concerning the Catholic character of democracy. In this controversy the author had as adversaries both the writer of certain letters sent in the month of March to the newspaper L’Univers, and the newspaper Osservatore Romano, and the aforementioned Toniolo. You have these documents in the periodical Questions Actuelles, vols. 48, 49.

77. In what manner we shall speak of Democracy. It would be equally foreign both to the argument of this work, which concerns principles absolutely true, and to our intention to take up those questions which can require one solution for some circumstances and times and another for others. Nevertheless, we are not thereby prohibited from presenting distinct accounts either of the words or of the controversies, especially since a just account of things is ordinarily the beginning of concord among minds.

Therefore, since in most regions Christian Democracy is most frequently discussed, and in three of them—in Belgium, France, and Italy—there is no slight dispute concerning the thing and the name, it seemed good to us to set forth, with the greatest clarity we can, what this appellation looks toward and what points, controversies being omitted, ought to be agreed among Catholics concerning this matter. There is also this special reason: that this name seems first to have been invented in Belgium, in the year 1891.⁴

⁴ Cf. the historical inquiry placed before our booklet La nouvelle Encyclique sociale [The New Social Encyclical].

78. In what various senses the name is used. It cannot be denied that many meanings are attached to this expression. Of these we shall give the principal ones, to which, unless we are mistaken, the remaining definitions can be reduced.

1) In its original and most proper signification, democracy designates a political regime by which the multitude or common people become in some manner participants in the commonwealth; that is, they obtain sovereignty in whole or in part. This democracy is called direct when laws are enacted and affairs determined by a plebiscite; indirect if magistrates who administer the commonwealth are appointed by popular suffrage; it is called mixed if the monarchical or aristocratic form is tempered by a certain rule of the people; pure if the other forms are entirely excluded.⁵ Hence it is evident that today the regime is democratic almost everywhere, though generally mixed; while scarcely anywhere—for example, in Switzerland—do traces remain of direct democracy, which many ancient states employed.

⁵ Cf. de Parieu, Principes de la politique [Principles of Politics], ch. 4.

If you use the name of democracy in this way, then those among Catholics who strive by zeal and work that a democratic form of government be introduced or preserved must be said to espouse the cause of Christian democracy,⁶ as must those who, regarding the growing authority of the people as an unavoidable fact, labor to bring it about that this regime be informed by Christian principles and morals.⁷ For the latter, the end is religious, and democracy is not a matter of great concern; the former, on the contrary, embrace democracy itself with their affection and desire that the Church join democracy to herself by association and alliance.

⁶ Thus, at the Congress of Blois (4 April 1899), those who in France are called Christian Democrats professed themselves to be “a distinctly republican, distinctly democratic, distinctly Christian party.”

⁷ In this manner democratic studies were proposed in the letter which appeared in L’Univers, 10 March 1899. Cf. Questions Actuelles, vol. 49. E. Schérer, La Démocratie et la France [Democracy and France], emphasizes the unconquerable necessity of the fact in these words: “It is unworthy of a serious man, whatever sentiment democracy may inspire in him, to flatter himself that it can be overcome.”

2) Then, leaving aside consideration of the political form, by the name of Christian democracy may be signified the popular party of those who, adhering to Catholic truth, under any regime favor the common people and apply themselves to their good and advantages. They favor the interests of the common people (in French you would say, the interests of the people, of the workers), just as others favor the interests of industry and of the middle class (the interests of industry, of the bourgeoisie).

3) But for some years the word democracy has begun to be employed in another, social sense, in which it designates a society in which, privileges having been suppressed, citizens enjoy equal rights, freely practice trades, and can aspire to every office.⁸

⁸ Cf., for example, M. Block, Petit dictionnaire politique et social [Little Political and Social Dictionary]. Paris, Perrin, 1896, s.v. “Démocratie.”

Sufficiently akin, though not entirely the same, is the acceptation of democracy among those who take the part of Christian democracy. For them a democratic regime is a regime which takes peculiar care for the lot of the common people; and democracy itself is nothing other than the complex of social relations, or a social order in which there is a general cooperation of all for the good of the lower classes. Yet a moderate care for the other classes is not repugnant to this cooperation.

And they call this democracy Christian, because this manner of ordering society would correspond especially well to the principles of the Gospel.⁹

⁹ They appeal, for example, to this passage of the Encyclical Rerum Novarum: “The sum of these things is this: whoever has received a greater abundance of goods by the gift of God, whether these be goods of the body and external things or goods of the mind, has received them for this reason, that he may employ them for his own perfection and, at the same time, as a minister of divine providence, for the advantage of others.”

79. Accordingly, to set forth more fully the things which are commonly¹⁰ pleasing to those who defend true¹¹ Christian Democracy:

¹⁰ For in concrete circumstances, according as the variety of circumstances bears, some declare that they desire one thing and others another (their program).

¹¹ For it cannot be doubted, after the things which we have seen done in Belgium and elsewhere, that there is a counterfeit species of patrons of Christian Democracy.

1) They are especially hostile to economic liberalism and socialism. Against liberalism they object chiefly to individualism and to the defective political theory according to which only a certain negative protection of rights would belong to the State. They reject socialism because of the hatred by which it separates the classes of citizens and because of the war which it declares upon the family and the private possession of goods.

2) No form of government is repugnant to them, nor do they seek the suppression of royal dignity; nevertheless, they sufficiently favor the enlargement of the political rights of the people. For through these they hope that they will better promote the cause of the people. From another quarter, the more the people increase in resources and the civil culture of all is perfected, the more, as though by a downward-flowing channel, a democratic form of political government is reached.¹²

¹² Cf. Gayraud, op. cit., pp. 14–144.

3) They enlist citizens of all classes into their party, and they do not wish to be regarded as a private party. But if they seem to make greater use of the common people, they say that this must be attributed to the indolence or prejudices by which many citizens of better fortune are hindered from complying with their counsels.

4) They assign a twofold reason why they aim so greatly at promoting the advantage of workers: both because they judge that, under the present constitution of society, the common people are treated unjustly and labor under many evils; and because, as they contend, the genuine administration of the commonwealth ought chiefly to redound to the good of the class which surpasses the others in number.

5) They perpetually rely upon the Encyclical Rerum Novarum; they especially favor associations of incorporated workers (corporations); in many matters in which workers cannot hope from liberty alone for an efficacious protection of their rights, they appeal to the protection of the State or of the law. Examples are: compensation for accidents, care for women and minors, and even for those who are strong in body, whom they wish to be free from labor either excessively prolonged or imposed without necessity on feast days or at night.

They affirm, moreover, that the present order of things needs correction in very many respects; and they consider that associations of citizens of the same condition (corporations) will be the principal instrument of reform and, as it were, the hinge of a better order.¹³

¹³ “The Christian democratic party is above all a social party, which wills and pursues, first and directly, profound reforms in the economic organization of this society.” Gayraud, op. cit., p. 159.

80. What things ought to be agreed among Catholics concerning these matters.

1) “No one of the various forms of the commonwealth is condemned in itself, since they contain nothing repugnant to Catholic doctrine.... Indeed, neither is it condemned in itself that the people should participate more or less in the commonwealth; and this, at certain times and under certain laws, can pertain not only to the advantage but also to the duty of citizens.” Leo XIII wrote these things in the Encyclical Immortale Dei (1 November 1885). Earlier the same Pontiff had warned that “the license of seditions is repugnant to reason.”

It follows from this that Christians are free, each according to his own persuasion, to favor the democratic form of political government by legitimate means, or to oppose it. But that the regime existing in fact be imbued with Christian principles, every true Christian will procure by desire and work.

Thus far concerning the first acceptation of the expression.

2) As regards the second: just as nobles, the wealthy, and men of the middle class are legitimately associated so that they may provide for their own advantage, so indeed are parties honestly constituted for the peculiar benefit of workers. Nevertheless, a party of this kind will be distinguished from the more general cause of good men as a part from the whole.

3) What, however, must be observed concerning the third signification?

a) Concerning the end of society, first, we must reject the error of many rationalists, who hold as the ultimate end of civil society some public good conceived in an abstract manner, or the good of some collective Being, and attribute to it a despotic authority over the citizens. That error must be rejected no less than the other, which has prevailed more in practice than in theory, and from which kings would reign for themselves. But “philosophy and Christian faith agree alike that the administration of the commonwealth belongs by nature, not to the advantage of those to whom it has been entrusted, but to the advantage of those who have been entrusted to them.”¹⁴ But that through this administration the good of the lowest class ought to be pursued more than that of the others can be freely disputed among Catholics.

¹⁴ Encyclical Rerum Novarum.

b) That in present-day society men who are devoted to servile arts are afflicted by many evils and must be assisted is inculcated far too openly in the Encyclical Rerum Novarum for it to be denied by a Catholic man.¹⁵

¹⁵ While we speak thus, we attribute to these letters the authority which in itself is common to Encyclicals. For through them the Supreme Pontiffs ordinarily propose authoritatively a doctrine infallibly and exclusively safe, to which, as coming from the legitimate Pastor and universal Legislator, external and internal assent is owed. Nevertheless, they do not exercise intensively the supreme authority which they possess unless they employ words which clearly signify the will to define, that is, to bind the universal Church by a definitive judgment to assent to a doctrine as infallibly true. Pius IX, for example, employed words of this kind at the end of the celebrated Encyclical Quanta Cura.

It is sufficient to adduce these passages: “We plainly see—and all agree—that provision must be made quickly and fittingly for men of the lowest lot, since the greatest part of them are undeservedly placed in a miserable and calamitous condition.”¹⁶

¹⁶ This very word, and the reasons which are immediately added, do not permit you to distort the expression into the signification of moral misery.

“As regards the protection of bodily and external goods, first of all the wretched workers must be delivered from the cruelty of greedy men who intemperately use persons as things for gain.” In the same place various things which must be protected are indicated. “On one side, a party powerful because exceedingly wealthy.... On the other, a needy and powerless multitude.”

To what extent, however, in this or that region the common people are oppressed by evils of this kind is left undecided by the pontifical letter.

c) That workers, through institutions and laws, “have been handed over isolated and defenseless”; that their associations have the greatest power to remedy present evils; and that there is a place for the opportune intervention of public power: these things are expressly taught in the aforementioned Encyclical. Yet to what extent the evils cohere with the present manner of practicing the trades (with mechanization and capitalism, as they say); in what manner workers are to be assisted by the protection of the commonwealth, and their associations organized; and to what extent, finally, the present social ordering is to be changed for the better: concerning these things, so far as concerns the Encyclical, a free option is permitted.

81. Concerning what matters Catholics chiefly disagree.

1) Whether or not it is expedient to call the universal cause of good men by a new name (Christian Democracy).

2) What must be held theoretically concerning certain points; for example, by what title a family wage must be paid.

3) What must be thought concerning the present state of affairs, since some incline to a harsher interpretation and others to a milder one.

82. Consequences of the things said.

1) Leaving aside both those who rather manifestly support the tenets of the liberals, and those who all but openly sow hatreds and discords after the manner of the socialists, those who are called Catholics in the true sense, as regards the matter, at least if you consider doctrines or principles,¹⁷ do not seem to disagree greatly among themselves; and so many endeavors are common that the few things which are disputed cannot greatly obstruct concord among minds.¹⁸ Add also that several things which are less clearly evident are to be left by each side to the expediency of times and circumstances. For all who are wise, whether they adhere to democracy or oppose it, will neither imprudently thrust new things upon society, nor, if it is later established that something in the present order must be corrected, will they refuse their labor.

¹⁷ We add this because, concerning execution (putting into practice), perhaps there is greater disagreement in certain regions and among Catholics. For those who abound in resources easily fear that burdensome duties must be sustained by them and that the loss of many things must be borne. But to move the minds of those who are pious and religious, it will always be better to insist firmly but prudently than, by a violent or precipitate manner of acting, to give them cause openly to resist your undertakings and to harden themselves in their former way contrary to your desires.

¹⁸ The same is affirmed by the distinguished Toniolo at the beginning of his study.

2) Bitter dissensions have flowed less from arguments than from the manner of speaking and acting by which persons were offended; and above all it is to be deplored how, in certain newspapers, the things which are said and done by Catholic men who favor the other opinion are subjected to greater ridicule, reproaches, or suspicions than if they were the sayings or deeds of an open enemy.

3) Nothing has harmed Democracy more than the evident excesses of certain persons;¹⁹ and it is especially to be desired for that cause that they employ the works of all classes to accomplish the things which they contemplate for the benefit of the common people. For in this way the advantage of the poor and workers will be served more efficaciously. In this matter we shall be greatly assisted if we employ methods which savor not only of Christian firmness but also of meekness and longanimity.

¹⁹ Hence there are some who, in order that occasions of error be cut off, judge that the expression Catholic democracy should be substituted for the name Christian democracy.

4) All must strive with a sincere will toward this: that they obey those wishes of the Holy See and of the sacred Prelates which more than once have been expressed,²⁰ and, internal contests being omitted except when an opportunity is given to deliberate peacefully concerning them, that “with minds and endeavors united,” all contend for that “which is the common purpose of all: to preserve religion and the commonwealth.” At the end of this commentary, it is worth the effort to recall other admonitions which the Supreme Pontiff gives at the end of the Encyclical Immortale Dei concerning the manner in which those things “about which honorable disagreement can exist” are to be disputed. “If there was any dissension beforehand,” the Supreme Pastor thus continues, “it is necessary to destroy it by a certain voluntary forgetfulness; if anything was done rashly, if anything unjustly, to whomsoever that fault may at last belong, it must be compensated for by mutual charity and redeemed by a certain special obedience of all toward the Apostolic See.”

²⁰ The documents which more properly concern Belgium you have in our Manuel social [Social Manual], pp. 219, 232–234 (1st ed.). There should be added the letter of the Most Reverend Bishop of Liège, sent from Rome to the Reverend Father D. Rutten on 18 April 1899, with the preface of the Bien Public of the same month.

82bis. What the Encyclical Graves de Communi taught.²¹ Of these things written earlier, no part seems to us to be retracted or corrected after Leo XIII determined to deliver authentic documents to Catholics concerning this argument. For in the Encyclical Letter Graves de Communi, socialism again having been repudiated, the Supreme Pontiff in the first part permits Catholics, while retaining the social use of the word Democracy, to call by the name Christian Democracy “the endeavor to console and elevate the common people,” which “according to the natural and divine law tends to this alone: that those who sustain life by hand and craft be brought into a more tolerable condition and gradually have the means by which they may provide for themselves; that at home and openly they may freely fulfill the duties of the virtues and of religion; that they may feel themselves to be, not animals, but men; not pagans, but Christians; and thus that they may strive more easily and zealously toward that one necessary thing, toward the ultimate good for which we were born.” At the same time, as from something Christian, he wishes various causes of offense removed from it:

²¹ Our humble commentaries on these letters, set forth in the booklet La nouvelle Encyclique sociale [The New Social Encyclical], were offered to the Supreme Pontiff together with this work De Iustitia and were kindly honored by a letter given by him.

“Lest, under any concealed endeavor, a popular state be fostered or preferred to the other political forms; lest the virtue of the Christian religion appear to be narrowed to the advantages of the common people, as though the other classes of the commonwealth were set aside; lest, finally, under a painted name there lie hidden some design of detracting from any legitimate authority, civil or sacred.”

In the other part of the letter, however, he exhorts Catholics in most grave words that, in so great a crisis of affairs, by the example of the virtues and by intense social action they promote the common good. Lest they err concerning the very notion of the social question, as though it were merely economic, let them study to do all things “with religion as guide, helper, and companion”; let them not fail to exercise every manifestation of charity, spiritual and temporal, with almsgiving by no means despised; let the work especially of those “to whom station, wealth, and the cultivation of mind and character procure somewhat more authority in the state” be summoned; and let all, turning away from every intemperance or imprudence of words, the causes of contentions having been removed, cooperate as one, and therefore let them—priests most of all—obey the command of the sacred Prelates. For it is most true that the question “is moral and religious above all, and for that same reason is to be resolved especially from the law of morals and the judgment of religion.”

There followed thereafter more definite declarations and rules by which Catholics, especially those of Italy, were to be informed toward prudent action. Cf. the Instructions contained in the letters sent to the Ordinaries of Italy by the Sacred Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, on 27 January 1902.

Sometimes, however, the excessive impulses of certain persons must be restrained and checked, who, carried away by false zeal, say or propose things which are very foreign to evangelical meekness and Christian docility. This is proved by the most recent rebuke with which the Italian Catholic periodical Il Comune was censured in the name of the present Pontiff, Our Most Holy Lord Pope Pius X.²²

²² Cf., for example, the letter in Civiltà Cattolica, ser. 18, vol. 11, p. 703, sent by the Pro-Secretary of State to the Bishop of Orvieto on 7 September 1903.