Six social documents of His Holiness Pope Pius XII : and a letter of His Excellency Monsignor Montin


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Six Social Documents

OF HIS HOLINESS

POPE PIUS XII

and a Letter of His Excellency Monsignor Montini



Digitized by th^nternet Archive

in 2016

https://archive.org/detaiis/sixsociaidocumencath





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SIX SOCIAL

DOCUMENTS OF

His Holiness Pope Pius XII

A Letter of His Excellency Msgr. Montini

Published In the U. S. A.

By

OUR SUNDAY VISITOR PRESS

Huntington, Indiana



i



Nihil Obstat:

VERY REV. MSGR. T. E. DILLON

Censor Librorum

Imprimatur

•J-JOHN F. O'HARA, C.S.C.

Archbishop of Philadelphia

Ash Wednesday, 1 953





I

Discourse of His Holiness, Pope Pius XII, to the

Representatives of the International Union of Catholic

Employers Associations

May 7, 1949

|T is with equal solicitude and equal interest that We see coming
to Us, each in turn, the workers and the representatives of in-

dustrial organizations, and both, one and the other, expressing to

Us—with a confidence that deeply touches Us—their respective wor-
ries and problems.

Thus, while welcoming you with Our whole heart. We most
willingly take, dear sons, the opportunity that you afford Us of

expressing Our paternal pleasure and praising your zeal in spread-
ing the Christian social doctrine in the economic world.

We allude to the worries and problems of those engaged in
industrial production. Both false and evil in its consequences and,

unhappily, only too widespread, is the prejudice which sees in those

problems irreconcilable opposition between the various interests.
That opposition, however, is merely apparent. In the economic
sphere there is a community of activities and interests shared by
leaders of industry and the workers. To disregard this mutual bond,
or to endeavor to break it, can only be the pretension of a blind and
unreasonable despotism.

Employers and workers are not unreconcilable enemies. They
are collaborators in a common effort, they eat, so to speak, at the
same table since they live, eventually, from the gross or net profits
of the national economy. Each has his income, and in this respect
their mutual relations are not subordinated, one to the service of the
other.



6 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

To receive a return for one's work is a prerogative deriving from
the personal dignity of anyone who, in one way or another, be it as
owner or worker, contributes effectively to the output of the na-

tional economy. On the balance sheet of private industry, the sum
expended on wages can be counted as expense incurred by the

employer. But, in the national economy, there is only one kind of

expense, and this consists of the natural goods utilized for national

production; these must be constantly replenished.

It follows that both parties have an interest in seeing that the

cost of national production be in proportion to the retmm. Since,

however, the interest is mutual, why can it not find mutual expres-
sion in a common formula? Why should it not be lawful to give
workers a fair share of responsibility in the establishment and de-

velopment of the national economy—and that nowadays more than
ever when the scarcity of capital and difficulties of international
exchange paralyze the free flow of expenditure on national produc-

tion? Recent attempts at socialization have only made this sad
reality even more clear. It is a fact; and neither has bad will on one

side created it, nor can good will on the other side eliminate it.

While, then, there is still time, why not deal with the subject,
in full appreciation of common responsibility, in such a way as to
safeguard one side from unjust diffidence, and the other from

illusions that would not be long in becoming a social danger?

For this community of interest and responsibilities, in the

sphere of national economy. Our ever-memorable predecessor. Pope
Pius XI, had already suggested a suitable and concrete formula,

when in his Encyclical “Quadragesimo Anno" he recommended
professional organization in the various branches of production.

In fact, nothing seemed to him to be more fitted to overcome
economic liberalism than the establishment of a statute of public

law for social economy, based precisely on the mutual responsibility

of all those sharing the work of production. This passage of the
Encyclical aroused a series of objections. Some saw in it a conces-
sion to modem political opinions, while others regarded it as a
return to the middle ages.



SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 7

It would have been incomparably wiser to put aside old and

inconsistent prejudices and come together, wholeheartedly and

with good will, for the realization of such a project with its many
practical applications.

Unfortunately, this part of the Encyclical seems now to present
us with yet another example of the ripe opportunity being missed,

because it was not grasped at the right time. Subsequently, there

have been attempts to elaborate other forms of juridical and public

organization of the social economy, and at the present time prefer-

ence is given to state and national ownership of industry.

There is no doubt that the Church, too, within certain just

limits, approves nationalization and holds that one may legitimately
reserve to public authority certain kinds of assets, namely those

which are of such power and importance that they cannot be left

in the hands of private individuals without endangering the com-

mon good (Quadragesimo Anno).

To make nationalization, however, the normal rule for public
organization of economy would be to reverse the order of things.
The object of public law is, in fact, to serve private rights, and not
to absorb them. Social Economy is not, by its nature, a state institu-
tion, any more than any other branch of human activity. On the
contrary, it is the living product of the free enterprise of individu-

als and of groups of individuals freely constituted.

Neither would it be correct to say that all private enterprise is,
by nature, a society in which the relations between the collaborators
must be determined by the rules of distributive justice in such a
way that all, without distinction—be they owners or not of the
means of production—would have a right to share in the property,
or at least in the profits of the enterprise.

Such a concept starts with the assumption that all enterprise, by
its nature, comes within the sphere of public law. This assumption
is false, whether the enterprise be constituted in the form of a
foundation or an association of all the workers as co-proprietors, or
it be the private property of an individual who signs a work-contract



8 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

with his workers: it is amenable to the private juridical order of
economic life.

All that We have just said refers to the juridical nature of
enterprise as such, but the term "enterprise” can admit another

entire category of other personal relations between collaborators,

which must not be forgotten, and also relations of mutual responsi-

bility.

The proprietor of the means of production—whether he be an

individual, or an association of workers, or a foundation (corpora-

tion)—must always remain the master of his economic decisions,

within the limits of public economic law. It is obvious that the share

of the proprietor will be larger than that of his collaborators; but it

follows that the material well-being of all the members of the

nation—which is the aim of social economy—obliges him more than
the others to contribute to the increase of national assets by savings.

Just as one must not forget that it is of supreme benefit to a

sound social economy that this increase in assets should come from
as many sources as possible, it is also greatly to be desired that the
workers, too, should be able, out of their savings, to share in the

building up of national assets.

Many men of industry such as you, non-Catholics and Catholics,
have at various times expressly declared that the social doctrine of

the Church—and it alone—is capable of providing the essential
elements for a solution of the social question. Undoubtedly, the

putting into practice of this doctrine cannot be accomplished in a

day. Its realization requires of all wisdom, perspicacity and fore-
sight, together with a generous measure of common sense and good
will. It requires of them, above all, a radical resistance to the temp-

tation of each working for his own advantage at the expense of the
others—regardless of the nature and form of their participation—or
at the expense of the common good. It requires that altruism which
only true Christian virtue, strengthened by the help and grace of
God, can inspire.

To bring this help and grace on your association and on its
internal growth and external diffusion—particularly in those coun-



SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 9

tries which even though Catholic need however to give wider con-

sideration to the social teaching of the Church—We give, with all
the effusion of Our heart, to yourselves and your association, and
under the powerful patronage of the Mother of Divine love. Our
Apostolic Blessing.



II

Discourse of His Holiness, Pope Pius XII, to the

International Congress of Social Studies

June 3, 1950

welcome you, members of the International Congress of Social

Studies and of the International Christian Social Union, and

We experience an altogether exceptional pleasure in extending
this welcome to you, here, during this Holy Year.

This meeting is more than a happy coincidence. It is, on your

part, the manifestation of your personal sentiments. It is, on Our

part, the basis for Our fond hope that your deliberations and reso-

lutions will contribute, in large measure, towards bringing to full

flower the beautiful fruits which We promise Ourselves from this
year of the Great Return and of universal reconciliation, namely,

the renewal and the expansion, in the great community of mankind,

of the spirit of justice, of brotherhood, and of peace.

It is, indeed, the absence or the decline of that spirit which

must be regarded as one of the principal causes of the evils afflict-

ing millions of men in modern society—that entire, immense multi-
tude of unfortunates, starving or threatened with starvation be-

cause of unemployment.

Upon their misery and their discouragement feeds the spirit of
evil with the aim of turning them away from Christ, the true and

only Saviour, and of hurling them into the flood of atheism and of

materialism, and of enlisting them into the structure of social or-

ganizations which are in contradiction to the order established by

God.

Dazzled by the blinding light of beautiful promises, by the

brazen assertion of inevitable success, they are sorely tempted to



SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 11

give themselves over to facile illusions, which cannot but lead them

to new and frightful social upheavals. And yet what an awakening
stark reality reserves for them when once these golden dreams
shall have been dispelled!

Only by combining all the people of good will in the entire

world into a vast plan, a plan undertaken with loyalty and in per-

fect accord, can a remedy be forthcoming. Let us have no more of

those blinders which limit our field of vision, and which would re-

duce the enormous problem of unemployment simply to an attempt

to bring about a better distribution of the sum-total of the individ-

ual physical forces of labor throughout the world.

One must confront, in all its fulness, the obligation of giving
to innumerable families, in their natural, moral, juridical and econ-

omic unity, an equitable livelihood, corresponding, however modest-

ly so long as it be sufficiently, to the exigencies of human nature.
Let us put behind us the selfish preoccupations of nations and of

classes which can, no matter in how small a degree, hinder a loyally-
undertaken and a vigorously-pursued program involving the com-

bined effort of all forces and of aU possibilities on the face of the

earth, involving the concurrence of aU initiatives and of all efforts

whether of particular individuals or of particular groups, and in-

volving the imiversal collaboration of peoples and of States, where-

in each will make his respective contribution of wealth: in raw
materials, in capital, and in labor. Finally, all those participating in

this common effort must appreciate the help afforded them by the
Church.

There you have the great social problem which, at the present

time, stands at the crossroads. May it be set on its way towards a
favorable solution, even at the expense of material interests, even

at the price of sacrifices on the part of all members of the great hu-
man family. In this way one of the most disturbing factors of the
international situation will be eliminated, that factor, which, more

than any other, supplies today the fuel for the ruinous cold war,

and which threatens to set off an incomparably more devastating

hot war, a burning war.



12 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

In the old industrial countries, a man would indeed show him-
self to be out of touch with the times were he to think that today—

as was the case a century or even but a half century ago—there is
question merely of guaranteeing to the wage earner, freed as he is
from his feudal or ancient bonds, freedom in fact as well as freedom

under law. Such a conception would manifest a complete misunder-

standing of the heart of the situation as it exists today.

During the past several decades in most of these countries—and

often under the decisive influence of the Catholic social movement
—there has already arisen a social policy marked by a progressive

evolution of labor laws and, reciprocally, by the subjection of the

private owner, in control of the means of production, to juridical

obligations which favor the worker.

Whoever wishes to extend social policy even further in this

same direction encounters a limit—that is to say, that point at which

the danger arises of the working class, in its turn, possibly follow-

ing the mistakes of capital. These mistakes consisted in withdraw-

ing, particularly in very large companies, the management of the

means of production from the personal responsibility of the private

owner, whether individual or company, in order to transfer this

management to the responsibility of anonymous, corporate groups.

A Socialist mentality would accommodate itself very well to
such a situation. But it would disturb the person who realizes the
fundamental importance of the right to private property as a

means of stimulating initiative and of fixing responsibility in

economic matters.

An equal danger arises when one insists that the wage-earners
in a company should have the right of economic co-management,

especially when the exercise of this right is in fact, subject, directly

or indirectly, to organizations outside the company itself.

Now, neither the nature of the work contract, nor the nature of

the business necessarily imply, in themselves, such a right. It is

beyond all doubt that the wage earners and the employer are

both subjects, not objects, of the economy of a nation. There can



SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 13

be no question of denying this parity; it is a principle which social

policy has already proved valid and which a policy organized on

the professional level would validate even more effectively. But,

at the same time, there is nothing in private law relationships, as

these are governed by the simple wage contract, which contradicts

this fundamental parity. The wisdom of Our Predecessor, Pius XI,

showed this clearly in the encyclical, “Quadragesimo Anno” and,

accordingly, he denies therein the intrinsic need of modifying the

wage contract by a contract of partnership.

This is not to deny the usefulness of what has been achieved

up to the present in this matter, in various ways, to the common ad-
vantage of employers and employees (Acta Ap. Sedis, Vol. 23, page

199). But in the light of the principles and the facts, the right to

economic co-management, which is being claimed, is outside the

sphere of these possible achievements.

The trouble with these problems is that they cause one to lose

sight of the most important, the most urgent problem of all—a prob-

lem which definitely oppresses, like a nightmare, these old indus-

trial countries. We mean the imminent and the permanent threat of
unemployment, the problem of reintegration and of the assurance of

normal productivity, which productivity, by its origin as well as by
its aim, is intimately bound up with the dignity and the well-being

of the family considered as a moral, legal and economic unit.

As for those countries whose industrialization is today being

planned. We can only praise the efforts of those ecclesiastical au-
thorities who are endeavoring to spare the peoples living up until
the present time in a patriarchal or even a feudal regime, and es-

pecially in communities of mixed economy, the repetition of the

unfortunate omissions of Nineteenth Century economic liberalism.

A social policy in conformity with the teaching of the Church,
supported by organizations which guarantee both the material and
the spiritual interests of the people, and which are adapted to

present-day living conditions—such a policy ought to be supported

by the vote of every true Catholic without exception.



14 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

Even supposing as an admitted fact these new industrializa-
tions, the problem remains unsolved and the question still arises in

their regard: are they, or are they not, contributing to the reintegra-

tion and to the assurance of healthy productivity in the national

economy? Or are they merely increasing still further the number of
industries which are always at the mercy of new crises?

And then, too, what precaution will be taken to consolidate and •

to develop the home market, which is made productive by reason
of the size of the population and of the multiplicity of its needs, in

those places where the allocation of the capital investment is guided

solely by the enticement towards short-lived gains, and where vain

illusions of national prestige determine economic decisions?

Mass production, exploitation to the exhaustion point, of all the

resources upon and beneath the earth’s smface have already been

attempted to excess. Only too cruelly have the rural populations and

rural economies been sacrificed in these attempts. Equally blind is

the almost superstitious confidence in the mechanism of a world

market to balance the economy, as well as that trust in a Welfare

State charged with providing for each of its subjects, and in every

circumstance of life, the right to advance unreasonable claims

which, when all is said and done, cannot possibly be realized.

In the face of the pressing duty in the field of social economy

of balancing production with consumption, production wisely

measured to fit the needs and the dignity of men, the problem of

the regulation and of the establishment of this economy, insofar as

production is concerned, is today of prime importance. We must
look for the solution of this problem neither in the purely positivis-

tic theory founded on the neo-Kantian critique of the ‘laws of the

market” nor in the equally artificial formalism of “full employ-

ment.”

This is the problem upon which We should like to see theorists
and practitioners of the Catholic social movement concentrate their

attention, making it the focal point of their study.

Wherefore, as a pledge of the paternal interest We take in



SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 15

your studies and your work, initiated under the protection of the

Holy Ghost Whom We pray will shower you with His gifts, to you
and to all Catholic sociologists, We, from the fullness of Our Heart,
impart Our Apostolic Blessing.



Ill

Address of His Holiness, Pope Pius XII, to the

Italian Catholic Association of Owner-Managers (Consiglic

Nazionale Della Unione Cristianaa Imprenditori

Dirigenti) UCID

January 31, 1952

thank you, beloved sons, wholeheartedly, and We congratu-
late you. With no less modesty than zeal, you dedicate your-

selves to a task which We consider of great importance. A lofty
ideal, and one truly worthy of you, has been its inspiration. This

undertaking is still in its early stages. And yet, during the first
five years of its life, it has already produced good results, and gives

promise of even better and more abundant fruits. And its ultimate
hope of success is assured rather by the goal at which it aims, and

by the Divine assistance which it invokes, than by any human
support, however powerful it may be.

Zeal has inspired you to begin your task without waiting until

you should be many in number, or until you should be equipped
with all the means that might be desired. Modesty has allowed you

to advance with caution, sure of foot, without a grandiose and

minutely detailed program, but rather only with the clarity and

X^recision of the thought which animates you.

What, then, is this thought—this ideal of yours which daily

becomes increasingly clearer and more defined? To Us it seems to
be the clear, lofty and Christian concept which you have of industry.

F or you, industry is more than a mere means of earning a livelihood

and of maintaining the lawful dignity of one’s social position, one’s

individual independence and that of one’s family. It is more than

the technical and practical collaboration of ideas, of capital, and

of the many types of labor—all of which favor production and pro-



SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 17

gress. It is more than an important factor of economic life, more

than a simple contribution to the development of social justice,

however praiseworthy that contribution might be. For, if the con-

cept of business were but this, it would still be insufficient to

establish and to promote complete order, since order is not truly

such unless it dominates the whole of life and all of its activities:

material, economic, social and, above all, Christian activities with-

out which Man remains ever incomplete.

Without doubt, you have not attempted—for such would have

been a fanciful, even though noble, dream—to bring about this

order immediately, or even to have crystallized its final program.

But your purpose is clearly determined; and on this score you

have no hesitation. That purpose is dear to your hearts. Indeed

one might say that it has taken possession of your minds. You are
determined to do your best to achieve that purpose, although

fully aware that you can realize it only step by step in the light of

experience.

There is no doubt that you have already obtained results,

albeit they are nothing more than your meeting, your project, your

common action and your progress in understanding, appreciating
and carrying out your duties. Your numbers are still few, but sig-

nificant-each of you working in his own field, without, however, on
that account working in isolation.

On the contrary, moved by a most ardent spirit of solidarity
and of conquest, you are aspiring to increase your ranks by gradual-
ly winning over other leaders, animated by the same desire. Your
program is that while each one labors in his own field of endeavor,
each of you also cooperates with all the others, striving not so much
to increase your numbers as to promote among yourselves the
purity and grandeur of your aims as well as the effective convic-
tion of your duty and of your ideal.

This duty, this ideal is, as We have said, the full management,
lofty and Christian, of your business, management penetrated with
human sentiments in the widest and highest sense of the word.
Like the drop of oil in the gears^ this human sentiment must pene-



18 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

trate all the members, and all the branches of industry: the execu-

tives, their assistants, the clerical employees and the workers of all

ranks, from the artisan and the highly skilled workman down to the
humblest manual laborer.

If business firms, effectively penetrated with the truly human
spirit, multiply and unite with you one after another, if they be-

come like so many large families, and if, not content with their own
separate existence, as in a closed vessel, they will unite among them-
selves, then, all together, they will tend to form a strong and a

liappy society.

It would be certainly Utopian to suppose that this society could

be formed all at once. And that is precisely why We have just
lauded that confident zeal of yours which, without undue delay,

has the courage to blaze the trail, and that prudence of yours

which regulates its progress. Persevere in this spiritl Thus, you will

certainly labor effectively in bringing about in an ever better

fashion the consolidation and the expansion of a vigorous and a

healthy Christian society.

The great misery of the social order is that it is neither deeply
Christian nor truly human, but only technical and economic. It is

not at all built on what should be its basis and the solid foimdation

of its unity—viz., the character common to men of being men by
reason of their nature, and also sons of God by reason of the grace
of divine adoption.

As for you who are resolved to introduce everywhere this
human factor into industry, into its various component grades and
offices, and into economic and public life by means of legislation
and popular education—you are attempting to transform the masses,

who would remain amorphous, inert, lifeless, and at the mercy of
agitators with an ulterior purpose, into a society whose members,

while differing one from the other, constitute, nonetheless, each ac-

cording to his own function, one united body.

This is a comparison with which you are very familiar. (Cf. I

Cor. 12, 12 ff.) May this always be your policy and, as it were, the



SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 19

charter of your organization. By remaining faithful to it, you will

be sure that you are building on the solid Rock Which is Christ, on

the rock which Christ has placed as the foundation for His Church.

Beloved sons, there is much talk nowadays about a reform

in the structure of industry. Those who are promoting it are think-

ing primarily of juridical modifications among its members, be they

businessmen or employees included in the business by virtue of

their labor contract.

We could not, however, but note the changes infiltrating into
such movements. These tendencies do not, as they should, apply

the incontestable norms of natural law to the changed conditions of

our time, but simply exclude them. For this reason, in Our addresses

of May 7, 1949, to the International Union of Catholic Employers*
Associations and in that of June 3, 1950, to the International Con-

gress of Social Studies, We opposed these tendencies, certainly not
to favor the material interests of one group over another, but rather

to assure sincerity and tranquility of conscience for all those to

whom these problems apply.

Nor could We disregard the changes which distorted the words
of high wisdom of Our glorious predecessor, Pius XL These distor-
tions have come about by overemphasizing an observation of

wholly secondary importance (regarding the eventual juridical

modifications in the relations between the employees subject to the

labor contract, and the other contracting party), and by giving to

this observation the value and the importance of a modem social
program of the Church. Meanwhile, they pass over, more or less

in silence, the principal part of the Encyclical, “Quadragesimo

Anno,” which contains the Church’s real program: viz., the idea of a

corporate, occupational order of the entire economy. Whoever sets
about to treat problems relative to the reform of the structure of in-

dustry, without taking into account that every single business is, by
its very purpose, closely bound up with the whole of the national
economy, runs the risk of positing erroneous and false premises, en-

dangering the entire economic and social order. Therefore, in that

same address of June 3, 1950, We tried to place in its proper light
the thought and the doctrine of Our Predecessor, to whom nothing



20 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

was more alien than to give any encouragement whatsoever to

follow the road which leads toward the forms of an anonymous,

collective responsibility.

But you, on the contrary, are traveling the one, safe road, that

road which tends to inspire personal relations with sentiments of

Christian brotherhood, a road that can be traveled everywhere and

one which is of ample circulation on that industrial level. Your aim

will give you the inventiveness and the ability to ensure that the

personal dignity of the workers, far from being lost in the overall

management of the industry itself, will increase the efficiency of
that industry not only in a material way, but also, and above all,

by gaining for it the advantages of a true community.

Go forward, therefore, and work with confident perseverance
under the protection of Almighty God, in pledge of which We
wholeheartedly impart Our Paternal Apostolic Blessing to you, to
those who are united or who will be united with you, and to every-
one and everything dear to your hearts.



IV

Text of A Letter of His Holiness, Pope Pius XII,
Addressed to the Thirty-Ninth ‘Social Week’

at Dijon, France

July 7, 1952

our beloved son, Charles Flory, President of *'The Social

Weeks^ of France:

In accord with the tradition of the lofty economic and social

themes which have been studied in your annual sessions, the

“Thirty-ninth Social Week,” which will soon convene at Dijon, has

the intention of coming to grips with one of the problems on which,

without any doubt, social and international peace depend today.

That contrast between wealth and poverty, which is intolerable to

the Christian conscience, has been brought home to you most
forcibly by the picture of present conditions in the world. And, in

the coming sessions, you will be searching for a remedy for the

problem through the increase and the better distribution of national

income.

The question is not new. As early as 1931 Our immediate
Predecessor, reiterating the doctrine of Leo XIII, wrote as follows:

“Each one must be given his due share, and the distribution of

created goods must be brought back into conformity with the

norms of the common good or of social justice. For the flagrant con-
trast between the handful of those who hold excessive wealth and
the multitude of those who live in utter destitution gives witness,
in the mind of every sincere observer, to the serious disorders which

exist today in this matter” (Acta Apostolicae Sedis XXIII, 1931,

page 197).

This consideration led Pius XI to urge all responsible parties

“to leave no stone unturned” in attempting to see to it that the rich-



22 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

es created in such great abundance in our period of industrialism

might be more equitably divided. To be sure. We gladly recognize
the fact that, for the past several decades, thanks to persevering ef-

forts and to progress in social legislation, this disparity in economic

well-being has been rather considerably reduced—indeed, at times,

to a very notable degree. And yet, since the last war this problem
has become even more acute. It now presents itself on a worldwide
scale with contrasts which are still startling; and the problem is fur-

ther aggravated by the new yearnings which are being awakened in
the minds of the masses by a more vivid realization of the economic

inequalities existing between nations, between classes, and even

between members of the same social class.

We Ourselves have also, on several recent occasions, de-
plored the intolerable increase in luxury spending and in super-

fluous and unreasonable expenditures which contrast sharply with

the misery of a great many people, whether in the ranks of the ur-
ban or rural working-class, or among the throng of those little peo-
ple who are usually categorized as the “economically weak.” “The
goal toward which you can and must aim,” today just as much as
yesterday, “is a more equitable distribution of wealth. This is and

remains a basic point of the program of Catholic social doctrine”

(Discourse of September 7, 1947, to the men of Italian Catholic
Action).

For this reason, one can only encourage the “Social Week of
Dijon” to come to grips realistically with a problem of such gravity,

and to study, both on the economic and social as well as on the

national and international levels, its possible and prudent solutions

in the light of the doctrine of the Church. This it will do in that

university city of ancient renown, thanks to the convening there of

experienced authorities; nor will this assembly lack prudent counsel

from the Shepherd of that diocese which has welcomed this meet-

ing.

In approaching this question of wealth and poverty, could one

possibly fail to recall to mind the unforgettable lessons of Sacred

(1) Cf. Discourse of November 2, 1949; Discourse of March 8, 1962.



SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 23

Scripture regarding those who possess earthly riches and who are

so easily tempted to take delight in them and to abuse them? The

entire Gospel urges men to detachment from earthly possessions as

a condition for eternal salvation. And the true follower of Jesus
learns from the Gospel to consider worldly goods as being adapted

for the life of the spirit and for a higher perfection. There can be

no worse misery for man than to place his hopes in the possession
of such perishable treasures: “With what difficulty will they that

have riches enter the kingdom of God . . . Blessed are you poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God . . . But woe to you that are rich!
for you are now having your consolation” (Luke XVIII, 24 and Luke
VI, 20, 24).

What should we say, then, of those rich oppressors against
whom Saint James thunders forth his solemn maledictions: “Behold,
the wages of the laborers who have reaped your fields, which by
fraud have been kept back by you, cry out; and their cry has en-

tered into the ears of the Lord of Hosts” (Saint James V, 4).

Such teachings of the Gospel raise the discussion to a distinctly

higher level. Whatever be the subject under consideration, the

Gatholic thinker is confirmed in a supreme spiritual independence

with regard to the prestige given by riches—both those actually

possessed, and those which are longed for. The Catholic thinker
openly admits his esteem for Christian poverty; he professes that

respect for and that service to the poor which honors Jesus Christ.

He guards himself against the seduction of a false pretension that
all men are economically equal; but at the same time, heeding the
counsel of Saint James, he is careful never to show partiality toward
persons simply because of their financial status (Saint James II, 1).

Nor does he forget that, in the Christian view of a society
wherein wealth would be better distributed, there would still al-
ways be a place for renunciation and for suffering, (man s inevi-
table but fruitful heritage in this life), which a materialistic con-
ception of life, or the illusion of perfect justice during this earthly

pilgrimage, tries in vain to erase from man s sight.

Finally, at the sight of the vast number of poverty-stricken



24 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

whose distress cries to Heaven, the urgent appeal of Saint John
delineates for the Catholic thinker his duty: “He who has the goods
of this world and sees his brother in need, and closes his heart to

him, how does the love of God abide in him? . . . Let us not love in
word, neither with the tongue, but in deed and in truth” (I St. John
III, 17-18).

How, then, in this modern world of ours, can we sculpture this
effective and efficacious charity into the economic and the social

order? How, in the first place, can we translate it into terms of
justice, since, in order to be genuinely true, charity must always

take into account the justice which must be established, and must

never satisfy itself with disguising the disorders and the deficiencies

of an unjust situation.

The purpose of economic and social organization, to which we
must here refer, is to obtain for its members and their families all
the goods which the resources of nature and of industry, as well as

a social organization of economic life, are capable of obtaining for

them. As the Encyclical “Quadragesimo Anno” states in this matter:

“These goods ought to be abundant enough both to satisfy the de-

mands of a decent subsistence and to raise people to that degree of

the comforts of life which, provided it be wisely employed, is no

hindrance to virtue, but, on the contrary, greatly facilitates its ex-

ercise” (Acta Apostolicae Sedis, Vol. XXII, 1931, page 202).

Now then, if it is true that the best and the most natural means
of satisfying this obligation is to increase the available goods by

means of a healthy development of production, still it is also neces-

sary, in pursuing this effort, to have care to distribute justly the

fruits of the labor of all. “If such a just distribution of goods should

not be realized or were only imperfectly assured, the true aim of the

national economy would not be realized, since, however affluent the

abundance of available goods might be, if the people were not al-

lowed to share in them, they would still be not rich but poor”

(Radio Message, June 1, 1941).

This basic distribution is originally and normally brought about

by virtue of the continuous dynamism of the social economic pro-



SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 25

cess which We have just recalled; and this process is, for a great
many men, the source of their wages as recompense for their work.
But we must not lose sight of the fact that, from the point of view
of the national economy, these wages represent the income realized

by the worker. Executives of industry and workers are here co-

operators in a common task; both of them are called upon to derive
their livelihood from the net and gross profits of the economy. And
from this point of view, their mutual relations do not in any way
render the one subservient to the other. In Our discourse of May 7,
1949, We said: “To receive a return for one’s work is a prerogative
deriving from the personal dignity of anyone who, in one way or
another . . . contributes effectively to the output of the national

economy.”

But since all are “eating at the same table,” so to speak, it

would seem fair that—while respecting differences in functions and

responsibilities—the shares given to each should conform to the

common dignity which they have as men, and that, in particular,
these shares should permit a greater number of persons both to

attain that independence and security which comes from possession

of private property, and to participate with their families in the

spiritual and cultural goods to which earthly goods are ordained.

Furthermore, if both the owners and the workers have a com-

mon interest in the healthy prosperity of the national economy, why
would it not be legitimate to give to the workers a just share of re-

sponsibility in the organization and development of that economy.

That observation which We made not long ago in Our address of
May 7, 1949,^^^ is it not now all the more opportune when, under
the difficulties, the insecurities and joint and separate liabilities

which are part of the present time, decisions of an economic order

are at times being imposed upon a country which involve the whole

future of that national community, and often even the future of the

whole family of nations?

These few reflections suffice to show the difficulty involved in

(1) Discourse of May 7, 1949 to “The International Union of the Catholic Employers
Associations.”



26 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

a sound distribution of earthly goods. To meet the demands of the
social life, such a distribution cannot be left to the free play of

blind economic forces, but must be viewed on the level of the na-

tional economy, since it is on that level that one gets a clear pic-

ture of the aim which should be pursued in the service of the com-

mon temporal good. Whoever considers the problem in this fashion
is led to question himself concerning the normal, even though re-

stricted, functions which are vested in the State in these matters.

First of all, the duty of increasing production and of adjusting

it wisely to the needs and the dignity of the man places in the fore-
ground the question as to how the economy should be regulated in-
sofar as production is concerned. Now, although the public authori-
ties should not substitute their tyrannical omnipotence for the

legitimate self-government of private initiatives, these authorities

have, nonetheless, in this matter, an undeniable role of coordination,

which is made even more necessary in the confusion of present con-
ditions, especially present social conditions. Specifically, without

the cooperation of the public authorities it is not possible to formu-

late a concerted economic policy which would promote active co-

operation on the part of all, and the increase of industrial produc-

tion, the direct source of the national income.

Now if we think of the many riches which are lying dormant or
being squandered in useless spending, but which if put back into

circulation could contribute, through judicious and profitable use,

to the welfare of so many families, could not these riches still serve
the common good by opportunely helping to restore men's confi-
dence, by stimulating credit, by checking egoism, and by promoting

in this way a better balance in the economic life?

But it also devolves upon the state to see to it that the very

poor people are not unjustly wronged. On this point, the doctrine
of Our predecessors is explicit wherein they teach that in the pro-

tection of private rights, the authorities should have particular con-

cern for the weak and the needy: "The wealthy class,” as Leo XIII

observed, “constructs for itself, as it were, a bulwark out of its

wealth, and has less need of governmental protection. But the needy



SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 27

masses, on the contrary, without the means to protect themselves,

rely especially upon the protection of the State” (Encyclical, Quad-

ragesimo Anno,” citing “Rermn Novarum,” Acta Apostolicae Sedis,

XXXIII, 1931, page 185.

It is for this reason that, in the face of the increased insecurity

of many families whose precarious condition threatens to jeopar-
dize their material, cultural and spiritual interests, some institutions

have been endeavoring now for several years to correct the most
flagrant evils which result from an over-mechanical distribution of

the national income. While leaving due liberty to private factors of

responsibihty operating in the economic life, these institutions, re-

maining themselves adequately independent of the political power,

can become for the low-income masses and for the poor of every

category an indispensable remedy for the evils caused by the pres-

ent economic or monetary disorder. However, the various forms

and methods of such institutions should be studied with great care,

and one could not possibly commit oneself unreservedly to a course

wherein excessive taxes might threaten the rights of private prop-

erty and wherein abuses of collective security might infringe upon

personal or family rights.

So the Church, taking a position midway between the errors of
hberalism and statism, invites you to pursue your investigations

along the course that she has many times set forth for you. “The
great misery of the social order,” as We said recently, “is that it is
neither deeply Christian nor truly human, but only technical and

economic. It is not at all built on what should be its basis and the

solid foundation of its unity—viz., the character common to men of
being men by reason of their nature, and also sons of God by rea-
son of the grace of divine adoption” (Discourse of January 31, 1952,

to the Italian Catholic Association of Owner-Managers).

May the studies of this Social Week cast a peaceful light on
this group of grave problems. May God avert from the wealthy the
spiritual perils which accompany riches, and from the laboring
class the inhuman trials of want. May He draw both to the evan-
gelical spirit of poverty and of service, and allow all to carry out.



28 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

under better balanced conditions of the economic and social life,

their one necessary work, namely, their salvation. It is with this

prayer that, from a fatherly heart. We call down upon the forth-
coming sessions of your social University a generous outpouring of

Divine graces, and that We impart to you and to all the teachers
and the auditors of this ‘‘Social Week” Our Apostolic Blessing.

From the Vatican, July 7, 1952 PIUS PP. XII



V

Radio Address of His Holiness, Pope Pius XII, to the

Austrian Katholikentag in Vienna

September 14, 1952

J^eloved sons and daughters of Catholic Austria:

Gladly We fulfill the wish of your Pastors, Our venerable bro-
thers, to address your Katholikentag being held this year, the first

since 1933, and to bestow upon it Our blessing.

The years elapsed since that date have continued in unimagin-

able upheavals and catastrophies, the course of the fateful events

which began with the First World War, shook your existence as a

nation and a state to its very foundations, and left your land a prey

to the most dangerous political, economic and cultural tensions. A
happy outcome of these events can as yet not be foreseen and must

in all humility be committed to the merciful disposition of Divine

Providence.

Placed in this condition, you have assigned to your rally of

Catholic forces one unmistakable goal: it was to be a signal for the

reawakening and revival of religious life in the Austrian people.

In doing this you have well planned. For though your freedom

of action, in disregard of the dignity and rights of your nation, is

still largely restrained and shackled in other fields, in the sphere

of religious revival you can always exert your power and bring
about a religious regeneration, thus creating for your country

values which it will need under all circumstances however the

future may be shaped.

Your beautiful Austrian homeland, beloved sons and daughters,
abounds in precious creations of art and folk customs, expressive of
Catholic religion and culture, which are the fruit of many centuries
of faith and occupy a place of honor in the temple of history and



so SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

art. But what matters now above all and practically alone is this:
See to it that these external forms retain their inner meaning, that

they do not some day turn into a deathmask but always remain the

ou^ard manifestation of a living organism warm with an inner
glow and overflowing vitality.

Therefore We appeal to you and especially to the young gen-
eration; Seek to grasp your Catholic faith with new clarity and
with deeper and fuller conviction. Endeavor in every way to make
it more and more a reality in prayer and intimate union with Christ,
the source of all grace, in your innermost thinking and willing, in

your personal actions, in yom: family life, in your public relations

and activities.

Bear in mind that what we are saying at this occasion applies
not only to the crowded industrial centers with their toiling masses

but is likewise applicable to the rural population up to the most

remote mountain hamlet.

The solicitous concern for your Faith must inspire you to insist
that your children be permanently assmed of Catholic schools.

What profits Catholic education in the parental home if the school
undoes all the home has carefully built up. Taught by sad experi-
ences in the past and present, the Church in this matter insists to

the very last on the rights of the faithful, and exhorts you, on your

part, stoutly to claim your rights.

As you love your faith uphold the sanctity of marriagel

Let the nuptial ceremony be sacred to you. A Catholic can
enter a true marriage only under religious auspices, and never by a

purely civil ceremony. If the will of the people has any meaning in

civic life, demand that the wishes of the overwhelming majority
of your nation in this regard be duly respected.

Preserve the sanctity of married lifel May you be guided by
what Our predecessor of blessed memory, Pius XI, wrote in his

encyclical on marriage, and by what We Ourselves, giving proper
consideration to present day conditions, set forth last fall in a dis-

course on the moral requirements of the married state. You are not



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SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 31

unaware, beloved sons and daughters, that in this matter what the

most elementary concern for the existence and future of your na-

tion suggests coincides with the demands of the law of nature and

of the Church.

Uphold the sanctity of family and home! Let parents look on

the Christian upbringing of their children as a sacred duty; let

children honor the Fourth Commandment and accord their parents
respectful obedience. Family prayer must be a devout practice and

Simday must be observed in a worthy manner. Sunday must in a

true sense remain the Lord's day, a day of spiritual and physical

recreation, the day of the family. With its heartwarming atmosphere

of peace and joy, the Christian Sunday can still, given good will,

counteract the tendencies of modem economic life menacing the
imity of the family. Make a common front against the secularization
and profanation of the Sunday and the consequent family dismp-

tion, which follow in the wake of the rampant paganlike glorifica-

tion of physical culture and the pursuit of pleasure.

As in other countries, so in your country, far-reaching housing

projects are under way. Make sure, as much as is in your power,
that the planning as well as the construction meet the needs of

marriage and the family as God intends them to be.

Speaking to the Catholics of Vienna and Austria We could not
but touch on the Social Question since Vienna has always been one

of the focal points of the Catholic social movement. Gladly, there-

fore, We offer in this solemn hour the tribute of grateful rememb-
rance to all those among you who ever since the time when this
question became urgent contributed to the development of Cath-
ohc Social Teaching through study and practical action.

Today the Church looks back on the first phase of the modem
social dispute. It revolved around the labor question: the distress

of the proletariat and the problem of lifting this class of society,

defenselessly exposed to the vicissitudes of the economic situation,

to a status equal to that of other classes and endowed with clearly
defined rights. At least in its essentials this problem has been solved,
and the Catholic World has honestly and effectively contributed to



32 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

the solution. Though in some countries understanding and corres-
ponding action came late, as it were at the eleventh hour, the social
principles and directives laid down by the successors of St. Peter
during the past sixty years, by this time have, on the whole, become
the common inspiration of Catholic thought and action.

If the signs of the times are not misleading, the second phase
of the social dispute, on which it appears we already have entered,
confronts us with problems and tasks of a different nature. Two of
these We shall now mention:

The overcoming of the class struggle by an organic coordina-
tion of employer and employee, for class struggle can never be a
goal of Catholic social ethics since the Church feels itself equally
beholden to all classes and strata of the people.

In the second place stands the protection of the individual and

the family against their absorption by the state, a process of ex-

cessive socialization at the end of which looms the threatening

nightmare of “Leviathan.” Against this menace the Church will fight

uncompromisingly because the highest goods, human dignity and
the salvation of the soul, are jeopardized.

Pursuant to this aim Catholic social teaching in particular de-

liberately and vigorously champions the right of the individual to

private ownership. Herein lie the deeper motives why the Popes of
the social encyclicals, and We Ourselves have declined to infer
either directly or indirectly from the nature of the labor contract

the right of the worker to co-ownership in the operating capital, and

its corollary, co-determination in the conduct of the business. Such

a right must be denied because of more basic issues involved. The
right of the individual and the family to private property stems im-

mediately from the nature of human personality and is connected
with the dignity of the human person; it is not merely a social func-
tion, but a personal right, though, to be sure, burdened with social

responsibilities.

We feel it incumbent upon Us to exhort you and all Catholics
anew, from the very outset of the new developments in the social



SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 33

dispute to hew close to the clearly defined line of Catholic social

teaching without deviating either to the right or the left. A slight
deviation may at first seem inconsequential. However, in the long

run, it would lead dangerously away from the right path, and entail

disastrous consequences. Sober thinking, self-control, steadfastness

in the face of temptations from extreme positions, accordingly shall

be the watchword of the hour.

That is what We wished to say to you at the occasion of your
Katholikentag.

We are aware, beloved sons and daughters, of the harassing
cares and apprehensions, which afflict you as citizens of your coun-

try and as children of the Catholic Church. We are aware of your
tenacious perseverance throughout the dark years of uncertainty

and the veiled future as well as of your firm determination to hope

and work constructively. Your cares and hopes are also Our cares
and hopes and We shall not tire of presenting them to the Divine
Omnipotence and Love in the Holy Sacrifice and in prayer.

We believe that in this hour We cannot do anything better
than to recommend you, on Our part also, with the whole fervor of
Our paternal heart, to the Alma Mater Austriae, who, at the shrine
of Maria Zell, has so often proved herself in danger and distress a

source of protection and help, a Mother of good counsel and a Med-
iatrix at the throne of her Divine Son. Entrust to her your fate, and

put into her hands your dedication to a new and holy life. Then you
have nothing to fear; then you may confidently hope.

May Mary extend over you her maternal hand, and may the
love and grace of her Son, Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, God
praised in all eternity, come to you in abundant measure. In pledge
of which We impart to Our Legate, to your Bishops and Priests, to
you all, beloved sons and daughters, as well as to your entire people

and country, from the fulness of Our aflFection Our Apostolic
Blessing.



VI

Letter of His Excellency Monsignor Giovanni Battista

Montini, Substitute Secretary of State to His Holiness,

Addressed to the Archbishop of Genoa, His Excellency

the Most Rev. Giuseppi Siri, President of the ‘Tw^enty-

Fifth Italian Catholic Social Week’ Meeting in Turin

Y^UR Excellency:

I have the honor to fulfill my esteemed charge of informing you
that His Holiness has read with paternal satisfaction the program

of the subjects which will be developed in the “Twenty-fifth Italian

Catholic Social Week” to be held in Turin from September 21st to
September 27th.

Its theme: “The Enterprise in Modern Economy,” constitutes
an important subject for study and consideration. It reflects the de-

sire—indeed, more than the desire, the necessity—for that contri-

bution which Italian Catholics must make towards the solution of
those problems which are increasingly disturbing minds and con-

sciences in a determined field of the political, social, economic and

moral life of the nation, and at a definite historical moment in
that life.

Therefore, the Church, always solicitous for the temporal as

well as the spiritual good of humanity, cannot but praise and en-

courage the generous efforts of all those who are, with sincerity of
purpose and with a true knowledge of Christian social principles,

dedicating themselves towards hastening the realization of that ne-

cessary harmony which must reign among the different social class-

es, and which must be based on the demands of justice and of

Christian brotherhood.



SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 35

It might, therefore, be profitable at this point to recall to mind

some of the teachings of the Sovereign Pontiffs with respect to this

specific theme of the “Social Week.”

The control of production and of the distribution of wealth is

known to be a fundamental problem of economic life, a problem

which must be resolved both in conformity with justice and the

common good, and in such a way as to safeguard the integrity and
the development of the human personality.

Now then, whoever browses through the papal teachings on
this matter can notice therein three outstanding aspects of business:

(1) the relationship existing between the machine and the laborer;

(2) the juridico-social position of the laborers; (3) the relationship

between the enterprise and the State.

« « «

While in recent decades substantial improvements have been

reahzed in the spheres of labor, nevertheless the aspect of the re-

lationship existing between the machine and the laborer still re-

mains serious. The discovery, the adoption and the application of

the machine certainly bespeak a conquest of human progress. But
this imposing phenomenon contains within itself a negative side,

inasmuch as the productive processes, by their connection into a

series of almost identical phases, threaten to cause labor to lose

every trace of humanity by reducing themselves to a simple me-

chanical motion.

From this fact there arises various necessities: (1) the necessity
of examining attentively particular provisions for cases wherein the

machine might possibly increase unemployment; (2) the necessity of

offering to the laborer adequate professional instruction to make
him aware of his own specific contribution to the goods produced
(and on this particular point, recognition is due the action under-

taken on the part of public authorities by the establishment and

the increase of professional retraining courses); (3) the necessity

of striving to improve the laborer s moral consciousness and his

social sense by means of which he may convince himself that his



36 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

labor also accomplishes a service towards his neighbor; (4) the

especial necessity, finally, of strengthening religious sentiment

through which the laborer may come to consider his work as
collaboration in the creative and the redemptive action of God,

and, consequently, as a means for his own spiritual perfection.

« « «

Our Holy Father, Pope Pius XII, has many times referred to
the juridico-social position of the workers in industry, acciurately

distinguishing what belongs within the sphere of natural law, from

that which forms part of the aspirations of the working classes and

which can consequently be pursued by legitimate means as an ideal.

He warned, in fact, that "a danger arises when one insists that
the salaried workers in a company should have the right of econo-

mic co-management, especially when the exercise of this right is,
in fact, subject, directly or indirectly, to organizations foreign to

the company itself. Now, neither the nature of the work-contract
nor the nature of the business necessarily imply, in themselves, such

a right . . . The wisdom of Our Predecessor, Pius XI, showed this

clearly in the Encyclical ‘‘Quadragesimo Anno” and, accordingly,

there is denied therein the mtrinsic need of patterning the work-

contract on the contract of partnership,” (Discourse to the Interna-

tional Congress of Social Studies, June 3, 1950).

A true right of the workers to co-management cannot, there-
fore, be conceded as axiomatic. But this fact does not prohibit

employers from having the laborer participate in some fashion and

to some degree in management, just as it does not prevent the State

from conferring upon labor the right to make its voice heard in the
administrative management of certain definite affairs and in cer-

tain definite cases wherein the extraordinary power of anonymous

capital, when left to itself, manifestly harms the community. And
in his radio message of September 1, 1944, the Supreme Pontiff

taught that “the small and medium-sized holdings in agriculture,

in the arts and in the crafts, in commerce and in industry, must

be guaranteed and encouraged; co-operative unions should ensure

them the advantages of big business; and in those cases wherein



SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 37

big business even today shows itself to be increasingly productive,

the possibility should be oflFered of adjusting the work-contract

with a partnership contract.”

But with paternal insistence His Holiness has recalled our at-

tention to the profound spiritual changes which must first be real-

ized in order to humanize and to vitalize the relations in the inner-

workings of the business between laborers and employers. In this

vein, in fact, did His Holiness express himself when speaking to
the Christian Employers: "This duty, this ideal, is, as We have
said, the full management, lofty and Christian, of your business,

management penetrated with human sentiments in the widest and
the highest sense of the word. Like the drop of oil in the gears,

this human sentiment must penetrate all the members, and all the
branches of industry: the executives, their assistants, the clerical

employees and the workers of all ranks, from the artisan and the

most highly-skilled workman down to the humblest manual
laborer.

"If business firms, effectively penetrated with the truly human
spirit, multiply and unite with you one after another, if they become
like so many large famihes, and if, not content with their own separ-
ate existence, as in a closed vessel, they will unite among them-
selves, then, all together, they will tend to form a strong and a

happy society.

"You are traveling . . . the one, safe road, that road which tends

to inspire personal relations with sentiments of Christian brother-

hood, a road that can be traveled everywhere, and is of ample cir-

culation on the industrial level. Your aim will give you the inven-

tiveness and the ability to ensure that the personal dignity of the

workers, far from being lost in the overall management of the in-
dustry itself, will increase the efficiency of that industry not only

in a material way, but also, and above all, by gaining for it the
advantages of a true community.” (Discourse of His Holiness, Pope
Pius XII, Supra, No. III.)

Once the atmosphere in the inner-workings of business shall
have been transformed, there will subsequently be made possible



38 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

and less difficult those changes which the professional qualifica-

tions and the sense of responsibility on the part of the laborers, the

keen and effective sensibility on the part of the employers, and the

demands of the common good might at a given moment permit or
require.

« « o

Finally, the doctrine of the Church regarding the relationship

between business enterprise and the State is clear. If the so-called

liberal conception is based on various erroneous principles, no less

erroneous and dangerous is the doctrine which attributes to the

State the right of chartering a totally planned economy, because

from such a conception there would likewise follow the restriction

and the extinction of fundamental human rights. “Whether,” as His
Holiness so wisely observes, “this economic slavery should arise

from the selfish domination of private capital or from the power

of the State, the result is the same. Indeed, under the pressure of

a State which controls everything and which rules over the whole

sphere of public and private life, even going so far as to penetrate

into the realm of ideas, of beliefs and of conscience, this absence

of economic liberty, as experience shows and proves, can have

even more serious consequences,” (Christmas Message, 1942).

The economic world is primarily a creation of the free will of

men; it pertains to the State, therefore, to create those conditions

which may allow private initiative to expand within the limits of
the moral order and of the common good.

The Church, therefore, has always benevolently regarded and

encouraged those forms of business undertakings in which she finds

it possible for the personal initiative of all participants to assert it-

self and to expand, as, for example, in the case of craftsmen s pro-

jects, the family-sized farm, and cooperative undertakings. (Radio

Message, September 1, 1944). But the Church also maintains that,

in complete conformity with the proper order, big business can

remain within the realm of private initiative, provided that evident

considerations of the common good do not militate against such
a situation. (Discourse of His Holiness to “The International Union



SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 39

of the Catholic Owners’ Associations” [UN.I.A.P.A.C.], (May 7,

1949, Supra No. I.)

This latter state of affairs will be the better realized in direct

proportion to, m the first place, the recognition on the part of the
responsible parties in the above-mentioned businesses of their rights

and their duties towards both the community of citizens and their

own employees; and,‘ in the second place, in direct proportion to

the extent to which the working classes, having been made cogniz-

ant of the negative aspects of State super-capitalism, will be allowed

to assume adequate responsibilities in the cycle of the national

economy, in professional life, and in the organs of production

themselves.

In his discourse of March 11, 1945, His Holiness emphasized

the fact that the proper concept of justice and an efficacious sense

of Christian brotherhood would contribute towards such a solution:

“The time has now come to abandon empty phrases, and, in accord
with the ‘Quadragesimo Anno’, to envision a new disposition of
the productive powers of the people. Over and beyond the ad-

mitted distmction between employers and laborers, let men learn
to see and to recognize that higher sense of unity which recipro-

cally binds together all those who collaborate in production,
namely, their union and their solidarity in the duty which is jointly

theirs of providing permanently for the common good and the
needs of the entire community.

“May this solidarity extend itself into every branch of pro-
duction; may it become the basis of both a better economic order,
and a healthy and equitable autonomy; may it open the way for
the working classes to win by honest measures their share of re-
sponsibility in the direction of the national economy! In this way,

thanks to this harmonious coordination and cooperation, and to this
more intimate union of his labor with the other factors of economic
life, the laborer will come to find in his work a secure and a
sufficient income for his own support and that of his family, a
true satisfaction of mind, and a powerful stimulus towards self-
perfection.”

While expressing his very best wishes that the “Social Week”



40 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

may be most successful, Our Holy Father, with paternal feeling,
and as a token of graces and heavenly blessings yet to come, heeds

the request of Your Excellency, and sends to all the promoters of

and the participants in this “Social Week,” His consoling Apostolic

Blessing.

As for myself, I willingly take this opportunity to show my
reverence for you, and, with sentiments of the highest esteem, to

assure you that I am

Your Excellency's devoted servant,

Giovanni Battista Montini,

Substitute Secretary of State of His Holiness.

Monday, September 22, 1952



VII

Text of the Christmas Message of His Holiness,

Pope Pius XII, Calling on Mankind to

Aid the Poor and Showing the

Road to True Salvation

December 24, 1952

up your heads, for your salvation is at hand” (Luke 21, 28).

This happy prophecy of the Divine Master with reference to

the Last Day, when, as Sovereign Judge, He will return again to
earth “with great power and majesty” (Luke 21, 27) to converse

once more with humanity, is recalled to mind and addressed to the

faithful by the Christmas liturgy as an invitation to cast off every

shadow of anguish from their countenances, and to welcome into

their souls the great hope of salvation, which, renewed every

Christmas, radiates from the humble cradle of Bethlehem, the

revealer of the kindness and of the mercy of the Most High God.

(Cf. Epistle to Titus, 3.4).

We intend to make Our own today this same invitation to lift
up your gaze to the sun of hope, as a Father’s greeting and wish

to you all, beloved sons and daughters. May the sweet mystery of
the Christian Christmas entice you to fulfill that which the Heaven-

ly Child initiated at His birth. May the mystic splendor of the Holy
Night be reflected in your souls, as a precursor of positive hope and

of reliable comfort, for both of which your souls are more than ever

thirsting, yet which, since they are precious stones of heaven, you

would look for in vain on this arid earth.

THE MOURNFUL CHORUS OF THE
POOR AND THE OPPRESED

But Om: wish and greeting is addressed before all others to the
poor, to the oppressed, and to those who for whatever reason are



42 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

groaning under aflFlictions, and whose life depends, as it were, upon

the breath of hope which can be infused into them, and upon the

measure of help which can be procured for them.

They are so very, very numerous, these beloved children! The
mournful chorus of prayers and of pleas for help—far from marking

that decrease which the lapse of quite a few years since the world

conflict gave good reason to hope for—continues and at times be-

comes more intense on account of the many and pressing needs.
It rises toward Us, it may be said, from every part of the world,
and torments Our mind because of the amount of distress and
tears it reveals.

Sad experience has by now taught Us that even when news
arrives of an improvement in the general conditions of one particu-

lar country. We must, nevertheless, be prepared for the announce-
ment of perhaps new calamities in another country, with new mis-
eries and new wants. And yet, however much the ceaseless pains
of so many children may weigh heavily upon Our heart, still the
words of Our Divine Master: “Do not let your heart be troubled

or be afraid ... I go away and I am coming to you” (John 14, 27-

28) are a powerful spur to Us to put to use whatever means are in

Our power to bring comfort and relief.

It is true that We are not alone in this desire to provide and to
help. Innumerable proposals and projects which aim at prevent-

ing and remedying misery are being formulated daily by public

and private agencies. Many of them, which are presented to Us by
individuals and by groups, undoubtedly signify the good will of

their authors; but their unusual abundance and the contradictory

results into which they fall, manifest a state of general perplexity.

SALVATION CANNOT COME FROM PRODUCTION
AND ORGANIZATION ALONE

One would say that humanity of today which has had the in-
genuity to construct the marvelous and complex machinery of the

modern world, subjugating to its service the tremendous forces of



SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 43

nature, now appears incapable of controlling their course, as if the
rudder had slipped from its hands, and thus finds itself in danger

of being mastered and overpowered by these same forces.

This lack of control of itself ought to suggest to men, who are
its victims, not to expect salvation solely from the techniques of

production and organization. This technique, provided it be

bormd up with, and directed toward, an improvement and asser-

tion of true human values, can, indeed, contribute to a notable de-
gree to the solution of the grave and widespread problems besetting

the modem world; but in no case—oh! how We wish that all men
both on this continent as well as those beyond the sea would come

to realize this fact—will technical progress by itself avail in fash-

ioning a world free of misery!

Meanwhile, in so urgent a problem of bringing help to souls in

distress, humanity must raise its eyes to the operation of God, in

order to learn continually from His infinitely wise and eflFicacious

manner of acting the way to help and to redeem men from their
ills. Now then, it is precisely the mystery of the Nativity which
casts a wonderful light upon this problem. For, as a matter of

fact, in what does the substance of this ineffable mystery consist

but in the work undertaken by God and by Him gradually brought
to its conclusion on behalf of His creature, in order to lift him up
again from the depths of the most grievous and general misery

into which he had fallen: namely, the misery of sin and his separa-

tion from the Supreme Good?

TWO FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS
OF GOD^S REDEMPTIVE WORK

Observe with humble and illuminating contemplation how God
conducts His redemptive work. Two fundamental concepts, one
might say two laws, dictated by His infinite wisdom, rule and guide
the execution of His plan of redemption, stamping that execution

with an unmistakable character of harmony and of efficacy, which

is characteristic of the Divine mode of operation.



44 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

In the first place, far from disturbing the pre-existing order

established by Him in creation, God maintains steadfast the full
force of those general laws which govern the world and man s
nature, weakened though the latter is by the infirmities it has con-

tracted. In that order, which was established also for the salvation

of the creature. He deranges nothing. He withdraws nothing; but
He inserts therein a new element, destined to perfect and to sur-
pass it. This element is Grace, by whose supernatural light the

creature will be enabled to know that order better, and by whose
superhuman force he will be better able to observe it.

In the second place, to render the general order efficacious in

each particular concrete case, each of which is never the same as

other cases, God establishes an immediate, personal contact with
men, and actuates that contact in the mystery of Incarnation. By
this mystery, the second Person of the Most Holy Trinity becomes

man among men, thus bridging, as it were, the infinite distance
which separates the helping Majesty from the needy creature, and

mutually harmonizing the immutable efficacy of the general law

with the personal exigencies of each creature.

Whoever contemplates this ineffable harmony of the Divine

operation, which involves the Divine wisdom, omnipotence and

love, cannot but exclaim with absolute confidence: "O Rex gentium,

qui fads utraque unum: veni et salva hominem—O king of nations,
bond of union: come and save man.” (Roman Breviary, Antiphon in

preparation for the Nativity, December 22). He cannot refrain
from pointing out this harmony as a model to be followed when-

ever there is question of initiating, on a human basis, a project

to succour human miseries.

TWO FALSE WAYS

Unfortunately, it might be said, especially in the present case

of very widespread miseries, that mankind today is no longer ca-

pable of reducing this duality into unity, namely, this necessary

adaptation of the general order to the concrete and ever-diversi-



45SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

fied conditions not only of the individuals but also of the peoples
whom one wishes to help.

Salvation is either committed by men to some order which is
rigorously uniform and inflexible, and on a world-scale-to a sys-
tem that must necessarily produce results with the certainty of a
tried and proved medicine-to a new social formula reduced to cold,
theoretical terms—or, on the other hand, rejecting such general pre-
scriptions, they entrust salvation to the spontaneous forces of the
natural instinct in man to preserve life and, in the best hypothesis,
to the sentimental impulses of individuals and of peoples, without
concerning themselves as to whether the overthrow of the existing
order might follow as a consequence of such a course of action,
and however evident it might be that salvation cannot be bom of
chaos.

Both these ways are false, and are far from reflecting the wis-
dom of God, Who is the first and the exemplary alleviator of human
misery. It is superstition to expect salvation from rigid formulas,
materialistically applied to the social order, for this way of thinking
attributes to such formulas an almost prodigious power which they
cannot have; while, on the other hand, to base one’s hopes exclusive-
ly on the creative forces of the instinct to preserve life which is in
each individual is contrary to the designs of God, Who is the Lord
of the existing order.

We wish to draw the attention of those who oflFer themselves as
benefactors of these peoples to both these errors, but particularly to
the superstition which would hold for certain that salvation ought
to spring from the organization of men and of material things into
an intimate unity capable of the highest productive capacity.

If men succeed—so they think—in coordinating the forces of
man and the resources of nature into a single organic mass, spread
out to assure the highest possible and an ever-increasing productive
capacity, by means of an organization designed and made opera-
tive with the most minute attention given to its important features
as well as its smallest details, then every kind of desirable benefits



46 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

will spring forth from such an organization: prosperity, security

for the individual and peace.

SOCIAL LIFE CANNOT BE CONSTRUCTED AFTER THE
MANNER OF A GIGANTIC INDUSTRIAL MACHINE

One knows where to look for the technologist’s point of view in
social thought: namely to the gigantic enterprises of modem in-
dustry. We dP not intend here to pronounce judgment on the nec-
essity, utility and disadvantages of forms of production such as

these. Indubitably, they are marvelous realizations of the inventive

and constmctive genius of the human spirit. Deservedly are these
enterprises held up for world-wide admiration which, following

norms which have been maturely considered, succeed both in pro-

duction and in management in coordinating and in uniting the

forces of men and of matter. And the present age may take legiti-
mate pride in the stable way in which these enterprises are organ-
ized and not infrequently in the wholly novel and characteristic

beauty of their external set-up. But what must be denied is that

these forms either can or should avail as a general model accord-

ing to which modern social life should be arranged or with which

it should be made to conform.

It is, above all, a clear principle of wisdom that all progress

is truly such only if it knows how to add new conquests to old, to
join new benefits to those already acquired in the past—in a word,
if it knows how to profit by experience. Now, history teaches that
other forms of national economy have always had a positive influ-

ence upon the entire social life, an influence which benefited both

the essential institutions—such as the family, the state and private

property—and those institutions formed by voluntary association.

We point out by way of example the undeniable advantages which
have been realized wherever agricultural enterprise or that involv-

ing the crafts has predominated.

Unquestionably, modern industrial enterprise, too, has had

its beneficial results; but the problem which presents itself today



SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 47

is this; “Will a world in which the only economic form to find

recognition is a vast productive system, be equally capable of exert-

ing a happy influence upon social life in general and upon the

three above-mentioned fundamental institutions in particular?**

We must answer that the impersonal character of such a world
is in contrast with the wholly personal inclination of those institu-

tions which the Creator has given to human society. In fact, mar-

riage and the family, the State and private property tend of their

very nature to form and to develop man as a person, to protect him
and to render him capable of contributing, through his own volun-
tary collaboration and personal responsibility, to the likewise per-

sonal maintenance and the development of social life. The creative

wisdom of God remains, therefore, alien to that system of imper-
sonal unity which outrages the human person, the origin and very
purpose of social life, and in its innermost essence the very image

of God.

THE ^^DEPERSONALIZATION” OF MODERN MAN

At the present time, imfortunately, it is not a question of mere

hypotheses and predictions, for this sad condition is already with

us; wherever the demon of organization invades and t)u-annizes
man*s mind, there are at once revealed the signs of the false and

abnormal orientation of social development. In many countries
the modem State is becoming a gigantic administrative machine.
It extends its influence over almost every phase of life. It would

like to subject to its administration the entire range of the political,

economic, social and intellectual fields, including even the birth

and the death of its subjects.

No wonder, then, if in this atmosphere of impersonality, which
tends to penetrate and to encompass life in its entirety, the mean-

ing of the common good is diminished in the conscience of individu-
als, and if the state loses more and more its original character of a

community of morally responsible citizens.

In this fact is to be discovered the origin and the source of that



48 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

current which is submerging modern man under its tide of anguish:
his “depersonalization.” In large measure his identity and his name
have been taken from him; in many of the most important activities
of life he has been reduced to a mere object of society, since society

itself is being transformed into an impersonal system, into a life-

less organization of forces.

EFFECTS OF THE WIDESPREAD NEGLECT
OF THE HUMAN PERSON

If anyone should still harbor doubts about this state of affairs,

let him turn his gaze upon the teeming world of misery, and let

him ask the ever so diversified classes of needy people what answers

society is wont to give them, directed as society now is towards the
neglect of the human personality.

Let him ask the ordinary poor man, destitute of every resource,

whom one encounters so frequently in cities, in towns and in rural
areas alike. Let him ask the impoverished head of a family, a con-

stant visitor to a Relief Agency, whose children cannot wait for

the distant and vague compensations of a golden age which is al-

ways on its way. Let him put the question, too, to a whole nation

whose standard of living is inferior or very low, and which, while

being associated in the family of nations side by side with its

fellow men who enjoy a sufficient or even an abundant way of life,
is waiting in vain from one international congress to another for a

stable improvement of its lot in life.

What is the answer which modern society often gives to the
unemployed person, who presents himself at an employment office,
disposed, perhaps, through habit to receive a new disappointment,
but not resigned to the immerited fate of being considered useless?

And what is the response that is given to a people who, despite all
its efforts and exertions, has not succeeded in freeing itself from

the atrophying clutches of mass unemployment?

For a long time now the constant answer which society has
given to all these poor people is that their case cannot be handled



SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 49

on a personal and individual basis, but that the solution must be

found in an order yet to be established—in a system which will em-

brace all, and which, without any essential prejudice to liberty, will

bring men and matter to a more unified and growing strength of
action, by availing itself of an ever more extensive utilization of

technological progress. When such a system will have been real-
ized, they say, the prosperity of all men will automatically ensue;
a constantly rising standard of life and full employment will be

realized everywhere.

Though We are far from believing that the constant references
to the future mighty organization of men and matter is a mean di-
version invented by those who do not want to help, and even rec-
ognizing that it may be a firm and sincere promise, calculated to
instill confidence, yet We do not see upon what serious foundations
this promise can rest, since lessons gleaned from experience up to

the present moment lead one rather to a sceptical attitude toward
the chosen system. This scepticism is, moreover, justified by a

kind of vicious circle in which the preordained and the method

adopted revolve one about the other without ever meeting and be-

ing reconciled.

In fact, in those places where one wishes to guarantee full em-

ployment with a constant rise in the standard of living, one may
well pose the anxious question as to the degree to which expansion

is possible without provoking a catastrophe and, above all, without

bringing in its wake mass unemployment. It seems, therefore, that
eflForts should be made to attain the highest possible level of em-
ployment, but at the same time means must be sought to insure its

stability.

No sense of confidence can, therefore, brighten a panorama
such as this, over which hovers the spectre of that insoluble contra-

diction. Nor will there be any escape from its spiral, if men con-
tinue to depend solely upon the factor of the highest possible pro-
duction. One must no longer consider the ideas of the standard of
living and of employment of labor as purely quantitative factors,
but rather as human values in the full sense of the word.



50 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

Whoever, therefore, would furnish assistance to the needs of

individuals and peoples cannot expect salvation to come from an
impersonal system of men and matter, no matter how vigorously
developed in its technological aspects. Every plan or program

must be inspired by the principle that man as the subject, guardian
and promoter of human values, is more important than mere things,
that he is more important even than the applications of technologi-

cal progress, and that, above all, it is imperative to preserve from

an imwholesome “depersonalization” the fundamental forms of the

social order, which We have just mentioned, and to use them to cre-
ate and to develop human relationships.

If the social forces are directed towards this end, they will not

only realize one of their natural fimctions, but they will contribute

in great measure towards the relief of the needs of the movement.

For these forces of society have the task of promoting full and

reciprocal solidarity among individuals and among peoples.

MUTUAL SOLIDARITY AMONG MEN AND PEOPLES

It is upon the basis of this solidarity, and not upon worthless

and unstable systems, that We call upon men to erect the social
structure. Solidarity demands that the excessive and provocative

inequalities in living standards among different groups in a nation

be eliminated. To achieve this urgent end, the efficacious voice of

conscience should be preferred to external compulsion, for con-

science will know how to set limits to the sums expended upon
luxuries, and will likewise induce those of more modest means to

provide, before all else, for what is necessary and useful, and then

to put the balance into savings, if there remains a balance.

Mutual solidarity demands, not only in the name of brotherly

love but even in the name of reciprocal advantage, that all possible

means be utilized to maintain existing jobs and to create new ones.

Wherefore, let those who are in a position to invest their capital

productively consider in the light of the common good and with

due regard for the opportunities of the moment and the limits of



SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 51

their financial ability, whether they can feel justified in conscience

either to withhold such investments or to withdraw them because

of exaggerated caution. On the other hand, they act against con-
science who, exploiting their own jobs for selfish ends, prevent
others from finding employment, or cause them to lose their jobs.

Then too, where private initiative is inactive or possibly inadequate,

the public authorities are obliged both to provide employment, in-

sofar as possible, by undertaking projects of general utility, and

to facilitate, by counselling and by other means, the finding of

employment by those who seek it.

But also to nations as such We extend our invitation to render
operative this sense and this obligation of solidarity. Let every na-

tion develop its own potentialities with regard to living standards
and employment, and let it contribute to the corresponding progress

of less fortunate nations. Although even the most perfect realiza-

tion of international solidarity would hardly bring about absolute

equality among nations, still, there is an urgent need that this

solidarity be put into practice at least enough to change perceptibly

the present world situation, which is far indeed from representing

a reasonable balance. In other words, solidarity among nations
demands the cessation of the glaring inequalities in living standards,

and likewise in financial investments and in the degree of produc-

tivity of human labor.

Such results, however, will not be produced by a mechanical

arrangement. Human society is not a machine, and must not be
made such, not even in the economic field. Rather, one must al-
ways employ the human personality and the individuating charac-
teristics of nations as the natural and the basic fulchrum around

which all eflForts must revolve in striving to attain the end of the

public economy, which end is to insure a stable sufficiency of goods

and of material services, directed in turn towards improving moral,

cultural and religious conditions. Hence, solidarity and the desired

improvements in the proportionment of the living conditions and

employment ought to be brought about in the various regions,

relatively extensive though they be, where the nature and the



52 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

historical development of the peoples concerned can more easily
ofiFer a common basis for attaining this goal.

ANGUISH OF CONSCIENCE IN MODERN SOCIETY

However, economic difficulties are not the only ones under

which man suffers in present-day society. Often connected with
these arise difficulties of conscience, especially for the Christian,

anxious to live according to the dictates of the natural and the

divine law. Those who maintain the impersonal idea of society
are condemning to interior anguish that very conscience upon

which, in great part, depends the cure for our ills and our salvation

itself. And this perhaps is the widest possible deviation from the
Divine plan that man is realizing in his efforts to help his fellow
man.

Indeed, modern society, which wishes to foresee and to organ-

ize everything, because of its mechanical concept of society, comes

into conflict with that which is living, and which, therefore, cannot

be subjected to quantitative calculations. More precisely, it comes

into conflict with those rights which, by nature, man exercises on
his own and sole personal responsibility, that is to say, insofar as he
is the author of new life, of which he is ever the principal custodian.
Such intimate conflicts between the economic system and consci-

ence are, therefore, disguised under the terms: the question of the

birth rate and the problem of emigration.

BIRTH CONTROL AND THE PROBLEM OF EMIGRATION

When married couples mean to remain faithful to the sacro-
sanct laws of life established by the Creator, or when, to safeguard

this fidelity, they seek to extricate themselves from the straitened

circumstances which shackle them in their own country, and they
find no other remedy for their situation but emigration—a remedy

in former times counseled by the desire for gain, today often im-

posed by misery—behold how they run up against the provisions of
organized society as against an inexorable law, against cold math-



SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 53

ematical calculations, which have already determined how many

persons, in a given set of circumstances, a country can or ought to

support at the present time or at some future date.

And on the basis of such anticipated calculations an attempt

is made to mechanize even consciences. And so we see public
directions for controlling the birth rates; pressure is brought to bear

by the administrative machinery which concerns itself with so-called

social protection; influence is exercised along the same lines upon

public opinion. Finally, see how the natural right of the individual
to be unimpeded in immigrating or emigrating is not recognized or,
in practice, is nullified under the pretext of a common good which
is either falsely understood or falsely applied, but, nevertheless, a

pretext which is sanctioned and made to apply by legislative or
administrative measures.

These examples suffice to show how organization animated by
a spirit of cold calculation, in trying to compress life within the

narrow framework of set charts, as though it were some kind of

static phenomenon, denies and offends the true concept of life itself

and the essential characteristic of life, which is its incessant dynam-

ism, communicated to it by nature, and manifested in the immense-

ly diversified scale of individual circumstances.

The consequences of this manner of acting are very serious.
Numerous letters which We receive reveal the affliction of good
and noble Christians, whose conscience is troubled by the relentless

lack of understanding on the part of a society inflexible in its rules,

which, like a machine, is set in motion according to mathematical

calculations, yet which mercilessly tramples and disregards prob-

lems, which personally and intimately affect the moral life of these

people.

Certainly, We will not deny that this or that particular region
may be at present over-burdened by a relatively excess population.
But the desire to solve the difficulty with the formula according

to which the number of inhabitants should be regulated according
to the public economy is equivalent to overthrowing the order of



54 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

nature and the entire psychological and moral world that is bound
up with it. What an error it would be to blame the natural law
for the present miseries of the world, when it is clear that these
miseries come from the lack of mutual solidarity between men and
nations.

OPPRESSION AND PERSECUTION

Consciences are today also afflicted by other oppressions. Thus,

for example, against the will and convictions of parents, teachers

are prescribed for their children. Again, access to employment or

to places of labor is made to depend upon registration in certain
parties or in certain organizations which trace their origin to the

labor market. Such discriminations are indicative of a wrong con-

cept of the proper function of labor unions and of their essential

purpose, which is the protection of the interests of the wage earner

within modern society, which has become more and more anony-

mous and collectivist.

In fact, is not the essential purpose of unions the affirmation in

practice that man is the subject, and not the object of social rela-
tions? Is it not their purpose to protect the individual against the

collective irresponsibility of anonymous owners? Is it not to rep-

resent the person of the worker against those who are inclined to
consider him merely as a productive agent with a determined price

value? How, therefore, can they consider it normal that the protec-

tion of the personal rights of the worker be more and more in the

hands of an anonymous group, working through the agency of im-

mense organizations which are of their very nature monopolies?

The worker, thus wronged in the exercise of his personal rights,

will surely find especially painful the oppression of his liberty and

of his conscience, caught as he is in the wheels of a gigantic social

machine.

Whoever would think that this solicitude of Ours for true lib-

erty is without foundation when We speak, as We do, to that part of
the world which is generally called the “free world” should consid-



SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 55

er that, even there, first of all real war and then the “cold war”

have forcibly driven social relations in a direction which ultimately

curtails the exercise of liberty itself, while, in another part of the

world, this tendency has reached the ultimate consequences of its

development.

In vast regions where souls and bodies are made to bend be-
neath the weight of absolute power, the Church is the first to

suffer active anguish as a direct result of this situation. Her child-

ren are victims of a continual persecution, whether direct or in-

direct, at times open, at times disguised. Ancient Christian groups

or communities, renowned for the ardor of their faith, for the glory

of their saints, for the splendor of their theological treatises and

works of Christian art, and, above all, for the diffusion of charity

and of civilization among their people, appear to be approaching
the imminent ruin of their external grandeur.

New Christian communities, the vineyard of the Lord, rich in
promise, watered by the sweat and the blood of new apostles, sus-
tained by the prayers and sacrifices of the entire Christian world,
have been suddenly struck by the same hurricane which pitilessly
uproots in its passage both the ancient oak and the tender seedling.

What wiU be left of these Christian communities, both old and
young, when the “end of tribulation,” which We so earnestly pray
for, will finally come? The answer to this question is an inscrutable
secret of a God Who is always good. Meanwhile, in that pitiable
world, the Book of Life is recording everywhere the deeds of pro-
found constancy of soul and the countless acts of heroism inspired
by the Holy Spirit for the defense of the Kingdom of God, of the
Name of Jesus, our only Salvation, and of the honor of His most
Holy Mother. The persecuted Christians know full well that these
priceless treasures can, and often actually do, demand difficult re-
nunciations, even the sacrifice of life itself.

We are not drawing an ideal picture. There will be today, as
there have always been in times of persecution, instances of weak-
ness and of surrender, understandable in many cases, even though



56 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

not justifiable; there will even be cases of treason. However, the

reports which are publicized, for the most part only relate half-

truths, even when they do not distort or completely falsify them.
Thus, by a conspiracy of silence and by distortion of the facts, the

bitter struggle which Bishops, priests and laity must endure for the

defense of the Catholic Faith is withheld from public knowledge.

SUFFERING OF THE POOR

And now Our thoughts turn with special and affectionate con-
cern to the suffering army of the poor, scattered throughout the
world—the poor, known or unknown, in civilized countries or in
regions not yet regenerated by Christian or even by merely human
culture.

Before the mind s eye pass those families over which there
hangs, like a menacing spectre, the danger of having the source of

their livelihood dry up because of sudden unemployment; for other
families to this precariousness of wages is added the insufficiency

of wages which is such as not to permit them to obtain decent
clothing nor even the food necessary to ward off sickness.

The situation becomes worse when these families are con-
strained to live in a few unfurnished rooms, completely devoid of

those simple comforts which render life less irksome. And if, what
is worse, there is only one room to serve for five, seven, or ten
persons, everyone can comprehend the consequent hardships they

must endure. And what is to be said of those families who have
some little work, but no home, and who live in temporary barracks,
in caves which would not be assigned even to brute animals?

Wretched, too, is the misery of those who, deprived of almost

all income by the continual and, one might say, chronic devaluation

of money, have fallen into the most wretched need, often after a

life of saving and of hard labor, but who are now forced to end
their days in the embarrassment of being reduced to the state of

beggars.



SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 57

But the most desolate picture is seen when it is a question of

families who have simply nothing. These are the families in "utter
wretchedness”: the father is without work, the mother watches her

children waste away, absolutely impotent to help them. They find

themselves each day without bread; they continually lack the means

whereby to clothe themselves, and woe to the whole family when

sickness settles upon that cave, now become a human habitation.

While Our thoughts weigh these scenes of poverty and utter

destitution. Our heart is filled with anxiety and is overwhelmed, We
can truly say, by a sadness unto death. We are thinking of the
consequences of poverty, and still more of the consequences of

utter destitution. For some families there is a dying daily, a dying

hourly; a dying multiplied, especially for parents, by the number

of their loved ones whom they behold suffering and wasting away.
Meanwhile, diseases become more serious, because they are not

properly treated; they strike children in particular, because pre-

ventive measures are lacking.

To these miseries one might add the weakening and the con-
sequent physical deterioration of whole generations, the failure to

educate broad masses of the population in their duties as citizens,

the prostitution of so many poor girls, pushed to the bottom of the
abyss, because they believed that in their indecency they could find

the only escape from their shameful poverty. Moreover, not rare is

the case wherein wretched misery leads to crime. Those who, out of

a sense of charity, visit our prisons, constantly affirm that not a few

men, fundamentally decent, have ended up in prison because ex-
treme poverty had led them to commit some unpremeditated act.

JESUS AND THE POOR

With all this in mind, the question proposes itself: "What has
Christ’s example taught men? How did Jesus act toward poverty
and misery during his earthly sojourn?” Certainly His mission as
Redeemer was to liberate men from the slavery of sin, the extreme
form of misery. Nevertheless, the magnanimity of His most sensi-



58 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

tive heart could not allow Him to close His eyes to the suffering
and to the sufferers among whom He had chosen to live.

Son of God, and Herald of His heavenly kingdom, He found _
His greatest delight in bending compassionately over the wounds

of human flesh and the tattered rags of poverty. He was not satis-
fied with merely proclaiming the law of justice and charity; nor was

He content with condemning with withering anathemas the hard-
hearted, the inhuman, and the selfish, or with admonishing men
that the final sentence of the Last Day will take as the norm and
the expression of its judgment the exercise of charity towards one’s

fellow man, as the proof of the love of God. Rather He spent Him-
self personally in order to help, to heal, to feed.

Gertainly, He did not ask whether, and to what extent, the mis-
fortune which confronted Him had come about because the political
and economic order of His time was defective or lacking. This is

not to say that He was indifferent to these orders. On the contrary.
He is the Lord of the world and of its order. But just as His work
as Saviour was personal, so too He wished to meet life’s other mis-
fortunes with a love that was wholly personal. The example of

Jesus is today, as it has always been, a strict duty for all.

THE ALLEVIATION OF MISERY

During the so arduous years of Our Pontificate, it has been

Our wish that whatsoever was showered upon Us from various parts

of the world, through the generosity of the wealthier faithful, should

be turned back in an unending stream in order to help Our poor

and abandoned children. We have wished to be at the side of the
refugees and to help them return to their homes. We have sought
out orphans to assure them of a roof over their heads, of bread and

of another mother. We have been anxious to reach the imprisoned,
the sick, the prisoners of war who are still kept far from their home-
land, and the victims of the terrifying floods.

Unfortunately, on every occasion, to Our great sorrow. We
have been faced with the realization that Our efforts were and still



SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS 59

are unequal to the gravity and to the multitude of the needs. For

this reason, it is Our wish that a more intense and multiplied love

for the poor should stir up, as it were, a flood of help, raging in its

holy impetuosity, which may penetrate into those places wherever
there is an old person abandoned, a sick person in need, a child

who suffers, or a mother desolate because she can do nothing to
help it.

Beloved children, you poor and wretched throughout the en-

tire world! We pray Jesus to make you realize how near We are to
you with Our paternal anxiety, full of anguish and concern. The

Lord knows how We would like to possess His omnipresence and
His omnipotence so that We might enter into each of your dwell-
ings to bring you help and comfort, bread and work, serenity and

peace. We should like to be near you, while you are weary in the
fields and in your workshops, while you are laid low by the

diseases which afflict you, or tormented with the pangs of hunger.

Finally, We cannot conclude without observing that the very
best charitable organization would not suffice to itself alone to

assist those in need. Personal action must necessarily be added, full

of solicitude, and anxious to overcome the distance between the

alleviator and the alleviated, personal action which draws one near

to the poor man because he is Christ's brother and Our own.

The great temptation in an age that calls itself social—an age
in which, besides the Church, the State, the municipalities and

other public bodies are devoting themselves to so many social
problems—is that when the poor man knocks on their door, people,
including the faithful, may simply refer him to an agency, a social
center or to some organization, in the belief that their personal ob-
ligation has already been sufficiently satisfied by their contribu-
tions in taxes or in voluntary offerings to those institutions.

Undoubtedly, the poor man will receive your help in this latter
way. But often he coimts also on you yourselves, at least on a word
of kindness and comfort from you. Your charity ought to resemble

God's, Who came in person to bring His help. This is the meaning



60 SIX SOCIAL DOCUMENTS

of the message of Bethlehem. Finally, social agencies cannot al-

ways extend their assistance in a sufficiently individual way; ac-

cordingly, charitable institutions must be complemented, and

necessarily so, by voluntary helpers!

EXHORTATION

All these considerations encourage Us to call upon your per-
sonal collaboration. The poor, those whom life has cruelly reduced
to straitened circumstances, the unfortunates of every kind await

it. In so far as it is in your power to do so, strive to see to it that

no one shall any longer feel constrained to say, as once did the man
in the Gospel who had been infirm for thirty-eight years: “Lord, I
have no one” (John 5, 7).

With the wish that genuine Christian love, nourished by a deep

and living Catholic Faith, may mitigate the material and spiritual
sufferings and may conquer the enmity of hearts. We affectionately
impart to you all, beloved sons and daughters, who are listening
to Us, and to those who are near to you in their Faith in one true
and personal God and to your families and to all persons and things
that are dear to your hearts, Our Apostolic Blessing.