A bird's-eye view of the five kinds of law : six radio addresses Jzck I (<£ j Travel — f\ vlevjC--- AT> ^ 6*3 & 5" A Bird's-eye View of the FIVE KINDS OF LAW AN OPEN LETTER ERICAN LEGISLATO SIX RADIO ADDRESSES BY REV. FRANCIS X. SALLAWAY, S.T.D., P.P. Archdiocesan Director of Radio Activities Archdiocese of Boston * DELIVERED OVER STATION WESX, SALEM, MASS. APRIL—MAY, 1945 FOR COPIES ADDRESS FATHERS RUMBLE AND CARTY RADIO REPLIES PRESS SAINT PAUL 1, MINNESOTA, U.S.A. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/birdseyeviewoffiOOsall A Bird’s'eye View of the FIVE KINDS OF LAW SIX RADIO ADDRESSES BY REV. FRANCIS X. SALLAWAY, S.T.D., P.P. Archdiocesan Director of Radio Activities Archdiocese of Boston DELIVERED OVER STATION WESX, SALEM, MASS. APRIL— MAY, 1945 Cum peraiissu superiorum IMPRIMATUR: Most Reverend Richard J. Cushing, D.D. Archbishop of Boston Copyright 1948 RADIO REPLIES PRESS St. Paul, Minnesota, TJ.S.A. Printed in TJ.S.A. CONTENTS Page I. The Natural Law 5 II. Positive Law 12 2) Divine 13 3) Christian 14 4) Ecclesiastical 15 III. Positive Law, 5) Human Civil 19 IV. Discrepancies between Divine and American Civil Law 25 V. The Pope’s Peace Plan (Part I) 32 VI. The Pope’s Peace Plan (Part II) 40 EDITOR’S NOTE This series of Radio Talks, given before the close of World War II, contain, all unknowing to the author, a strain of prophecy now being fulfilled in ways more dramatic even than the fears expressed in these writings. Today’s sad events make more emphatic than ever the need of recalling and insisting upon the solution which the Holy Father expounds in his Plan for Peace. Basically there must be a realization by all men, within and outside the Catholic Church, legislators and subjects alike, that any Law, before it can ever hope to govern the world successfully must spring from, and continue to be a true echo of that divine plan of God, or- daining and promulgating a certain right order of living for His human creature. Otherwise it is not true Law, worthy to bind the noble spirit and free conscience of man. Indeed so enlightening an exposition of the true source of all Law is this little treatise, that it takes on the proportions of an “OPEN LETTER TO AMERICAN LEGISLATORS” REV. C. M. CARTY A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE FIVE KINDS OF LAW I. THE NATURAL LAW The soul of man reflects the image of God in four ways: 1) in its spirituality; 2) in its immortality; 3) in its intellectuality and 4) in its free will. We here study that reflection of God’s image as it shines forth in man’s intellect and free will. Both of these faculties of man’s soul God governs by His Law. And thus a con- sideration of the human intellect and will leads us almost automatically into a broad survey of the whole subject of Law, beginning with its first expression, the Natural Law and ending with its fifth and last and incidentally weakest form: Human Civil Law. GENERAL DESCRIPTION The Natural Law, the first and most basic of all laws, is that mysterious, unseen, unheard, unwritten, silent, all-pervading, irresistible gov- ernment which activates and controls every- thing known to us, throughout all ages and stages of Creation. Whether it be the chemical elements attracting or repelling one another to build or to dissolve mines or mountains, whether it be the raging ocean or peaceful rain- bow or sunset, tinting the distant snow-capped peaks, whether it be the fiery volcanoes or the flowering trees, whether it be the habits or in- stincts of the minutest insects, or the concep- tion, birth, growth and death of human beings, —all things are pervaded by it, directed and limited by it, in their powers and functions. 5 No statute books contain it and yet everything in the world ceaselessly proclaims it. With the original planning or promulgation of it, or constant sustaining of it, we know man has had nothing whatever to do. This law ex- isted from the beginning of time before man was. In fact it formed him, and it will con- tinue, no matter what he thinks or does, until time shall be no more. To it, man has contrib- uted nothing, unless perhaps his own boundless wonderment at it and ever mounting admira- tion of it. When called upon to explain it, we can only exclaim “Such is Nature,” and in all honesty add: “as God made it. and as we find it!” I have called it irresistible. Only one power can ignore it: the human mind. Only one force can oppose it: the human will. For of all crea- tures, only man can stubbornly say: “I don’t believe it. I won’t obey it.” NATURAL LAW FOR THE “KINGDOM OF THING-DOM” When the Almighty Creator made the world, He said to the sun: “You give light and heat, and play with the ocean. Draw it to your warm bosom in clouds. My winds will carry it over the land, where they will drop it in the form of rain. After watering the trees and the plants and the flowers, it will run back gladly in streams and rivers to the sea. All this, you shall continue to do, without understanding, without argument, without complaint, without possibil- ity of disobedience, until I tell you to stop.” And that was the Natural Law for the sun and ocean and the clouds and the winds and the rain and the rivers! 6 NATURAL LAW FOR THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM Then He said to the trees: “You shall give shade and temper the heat of the sun. Your life will be shorter than that of the sun and the ocean. When you grow old, you will fling your seeds to the breeze. They will fall on the earth and behold, new trees as beautiful and strong as yourselves will grow up in your places, and will continue to do just as you have done, with- out understanding, without argument, without complaint, without possibility of disobedience, until I stop the process.” And that was the Natural Law for the trees and all forms of the vegetable kingdom! NATURAL LAW FOR THE ANIMAL KINGDOM And then He said to the animals, the birds and the fishes: “I give you all very different and varied powers: the power to walk, to fly, to swim. I establish for you still shorter limits of life, and a different law of reproduction of your kind. You shall serve man, as servants and as food, and he is to be your complete master. These duties I assign to you. Do them, without understanding, without argument, without com- plaint, and without possibility of disobedience, until I tell you to stop!” And that was the Natural Law for the animal kingdom! NATURAL LAW NOT VOCAL NOR EXPLICIT I said that God said all this, but that was only a dramatic figure of speech on my part. It was not necessary for God to say a word. He ex- plained nothing to the sun, nor ocean, nor trees, 7 nor flowers, nor birds, nor fishes, nor animals. They had no intelligences to understand His words anyway. He simply wrote His intentions into the various natures which He assigned to them. And that is why these wishes of God are called the Natural Law, i. e., the law written by the creative hand of God into the very Nature of things! NATURAL LAW FOR MAN He did quite the same thing, with a few varia- tions, in the case of man, whom He made half- way between the animals and the angels. He assigned to him likewise various powers and functions, some of them like the animals, some of them like the angels. God gave to man a very complicated nature, composed of body and soul, material and spirit, and crowned it all with two gifts borrowed from the Divinity and shared only by the angels: Understanding and Free Will. IMPLICIT AT FIRST IN INTELLECT The first of these, man’s intelligence, enabled him, wiser than all other creatures, to read his own nature and interpret therein, the wishes of his Creator. To man, God did not say: “Do these things without understanding.” He said rather: “I give you an intellect. Use it! Study the heavens and they will tell you of My power. Study the flowers and they will tell you of My beauty. Study My profusion of gifts to you and they will tell you of My goodness and generosity and love for you. Study your origin and your intellect will tell you that you owe your exist- ence to Me. Study yourself, and you will find My moral Law written all over the body and 8 soul which I have given you. You will find that your wonderful gift called intelligence will enable you to govern and regulate all your other various and seemingly contradictory powers, appetites and passions, according to right reason,— the first dictate of which will tell you that the higher, nobler, spiritual facul- ties of your soul must dominate the lower in- stincts, keeping them always in subjection to the ends and purposes for which I gave them to you! “These lower yearnings of your animal na- tures may mystify you a little at first. That seeming incompleteness of your nature, the strength and insistence of that urge within you toward constant association with another help- mate, companion, partner of the opposite sex, who will share with you and sweeten for you the tiresome journey of life, — these strange things you will gradually understand are all planted by Me in your nature in order to allure you on into that very serious and difficult work which I wish you to perform, the task of human parentage, so that My goodness may be known and enjoyed by new and numberless other crea- tures like yourselves and whom you will coop- erate with Me in bringing into existence. “Carry out this plan of life which I establish for My human creatures. Use and enjoy these powers which you find in your natures, but do not abuse or degrade them in ways which frus- trate the glorious purposes to which I have or- dained and consecrated them!” “And this is the Natural Law for you!” In the case of man, too, I repeat, it was not necessary for God to say these things in so many 9 words. He said it sufficiently in planting these powers in our natures and in giving us intellects with which to interpret them, AND IN WILL Nor is that all that He said to us in this quiet, forceful, wordless way. He wrote further into this marvellously complicated nature of ours: “You will find within yourself another strange power, and a very dangerous one, one which I dare entrust to no other of My creatures except the angels: viz., a Free Will. To you 1 do not say: ‘Do My will without argument, without complaint and without possibility of disobe- dience/ To you I say: ‘Do My will, yes, but do it of your own free choice, even although you will find within you the power to contradict My word and to disobey My law/ ” God knew perfectly well that there would be many who would argue about this and other laws, who would complain against it, whose free wills swayed by passion would try to under- mine that law, to obscure it, to confuse it, to ridicule it and deny it, in order to make disobe- dience to it more easy. And yet He made us as He did. But for this volatile, undependable, con- tradictory creature called Man, God added something else which was unnecessary and su- perfluous for His other creatures. BUT LATER EXPLICIT IN THREE OTHER FORMS OF LAW Besides writing His wishes upon the fleshy tablets of the human heart, besides stamping upon every human mind that inborn sense of right and wrong which we call Natural Con- science or the Natural Law, so that there would 10 be no mistake about it, He engraved that same law: 1) Upon tablets of stone, delivered it to Moses on Mt. Sinai and called it the “Positive Divine Law.” Nor did He even consider that enough. Then 2) He sent His divine Son in person to de- clare and perfect that law: and His utter- ances are called the “Positive Christian Law.” And finally because men’s perverse minds and wills, even after all that, would still argue, complain and disobey, 3) He left His Church to interpret it further and infallibly for all time. And her pro- mulgations are called the “Positive Eccle- siastical, Canon or Church Law.” In other words, although the Natural Law alone was sufficient for ail God’s other crea- tures, for man, God piled law upon law, so that man’s sin, if he still persisted in argument, complaint and disobedience, would be inexcus- able! GOVERNS WORLD DESPITE DENIAL AND DISOBEDIENCE This four-fold divine Law, God’s will ex- pressed in one way after another, is the funda- mental law governing this world, no matter how persistently and perversely men may con- tradict and disobey it. God still has one more means to bring them back to a remembrance of it when they do attempt to rule the world forgetting or ignoring it:—His sword of divine chastisement. All men at this very moment are in greater need of recalling it and re-building a shattered world upon it, than ever before in li human history. It is this basic law to which Our Holy Father, Pope Pius XII is constantly appeal- ing, begging all rulers of nations, all makers of laws (American legislators therefore included), to restore it to the place of dignity and honor from which it has fallen. Woe indeed to the world, if His voice is unheeded or unheard at the Peace Table. II. POSITIVE LAW: 2) DIVINE 3) CHRISTIAN 4) ECCLESIASTICAL For man, in view of his ability and tendency to argue and complain and disobey even the Natural Law, Almighty God piled law upon law so that man’s sin is inexcusable. Note please in passing that the adjective is not mine, but St. Paul’s, inspired by God. This piling law upon law is neither a figure of speech on my part, nor an exaggeration. To be exact, God piled four types or kinds of law on top of the basic Natural Law, the original law written by the Creator in the very nature of things, the law which we have already discussed. THE SECOND, THIRD AND FOURTH KINDS OF LAW We speak herein of the second, third and fourth forms of law: the second, called the Positive Divine Law; the third, the Positive Christian Law; and the fourth, the Positive Ecclesiastical Law. The word “Positive” in this connection means: “actually expressed in so many explicit words,” as opposed to “implied in the nature of things.” 12 2) POSITIVE DIVINE LAW The Ten Commandments, delivered to the Jewish people, through Moses on Mt. Sinai, are the backbone of the second kind of law, piled by God upon the first. The first three of the Ten deal with man’s direct relations with God. “I am the Lord, thy God, mighty, jealous. I visit the iniquities of the father upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me. Thou shalt adore Me and no one else, nor any other thing. Thy awe of Me shall extend even to the use of My name. Thou shalt not take it irreverently, in vain. And remember keep holy the Sabbath Day. One day in seven thou shalt put aside to Me, which shall be called the Lord’s Day.” THE TEN COMMANDMENTS The other seven commandments of the Ten regulate in some detail our thoughts and actions with regard to our neighbor. First of all, our parents, whom the fourth commandment bids us honor, love and obey. Then all other neigh- bors: by the Fifth Commandment, we are told to harm them neither by deed, word or even thought, physically nor spiritually. By the sixth commandment, we are ordered to control our sexual impulses within the limitations which God has set upon their use. By the seventh, we are warned to respect our neighbor’s rights of ownership. By the eighth, to speak always the Truth. The ninth and tenth, repeat the sixth and seventh, but with a special insistence that sin may be even in our thoughts and desires merely, as well as in our external and completed deeds. Do all these positive divine laws fare any bet- 13 ter at the hands of men, than does the first form of law, the Natural Law! 3) POSITIVE CHRISTIAN LAW Our divine Lord, during His lifetime on earth amplified, extended and perfected all these laws. He also laid down new laws upon His own au- thority as the Son of God, with His celebrated formula: “You have heard it said of old: Thou shalt or thou shalt not do this or that/ . . . but I say unto you” . . . and then He would promul- gate His new law whatever it might be. “You have heard it said of old Thou shalt not kill, but I say unto you, Whosoever is angry with his brother is in danger of hell fire. You have heard it said of old: Thou shalt not commit adultery, but I say unto you that whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her, hath already com- mitted adultery with her in his heart.” THESE THREE KINDS EXPRESS SAME WISHES BY SAME VOICE He likewise summarized the whole law and the prophets in the simple brief phrase: “Love God above all things and thy neighbor as thy- self.” So much for the Positive Christian Law, third form of law, and surely a brief mention of it, it is, but enough to indicate to you a whole form of law, a second type of law which God piles upon the original Natural Law. I should however, point out to you that these three forms of law are only three different expressions of the same divine wishes, in different ways and times, and note well, all by the same divine voice. Therefore there cannot possibly be any disagreement between these first three forms or types of law. No possible confusion, no possible 14 contradiction, because all proclaimed directly by the same divine voice, with no human inter- mediary to inject confusion or contradiction into these utterances. 4) POSITIVE ECCLESIASTICAL OR CHURCH OR CANON LAW Neither is there any possibility of disagree- ment or confusion in the next or fourth expres- sion of these same divine wishes, called the Positive Ecclesiastical, Church or Canon Law. But this is expressed by a different voice, now a human voice. And so in considering this fourth form of law, we meet for the first time: Human Law, law framed and promulgated by men. The material is still the divine will, but the voice which proclaims it, is human. Here we meet I say a new, usually fallible element. And men are apt to hesitate about accepting and obeying a law springing from an equal. They ask: by what right does he command us? By what duty must we obey his word? We ask no such ques- tions when we are dealing with God. But such investigations of a lawmaker’s authority are reasonable, when he is a man like ourselves. A DIVINE-HUMAN LAW Before we place the Church’s human voice however, on a par with other human law-mak- ers’ commands, we must remember that Christ constituted the head of His Church, His Vicar, or representative on earth. He practically trans- ferred to Peter and the Apostles in unmistak- able language, His own powers and authority — “All power is given to Me in heaven and on earth. As the Father hath sent me, so I also send you. Go, teach all nations . . . Whosoever 15 heareth you heareth Me. Whosoever despiseth you, despiseth Me and Him who sent Me. What- soever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven. Indeed to thee, Peter, I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven. . . CLOSELY SHARING DIVINE AUTHORITY Other human legislators do possess some share of divine authority and just how much and within what limitations, we shall see when we discuss in our next instruction: Human Civil Law. But no other human legislators ever re- ceived such an absolute charter of legislative power as Christ conferred upon the Head of His Church. So complete is this guarantee that it amounts to an assurance to all men, for all time, that the voice of Peter is the Voice of Christ, the voice of Christ’s Church is the voice of God. And so to tell the full story, this human voice we have to hyphenate. Just as we must hyphe- nate the name of Jesus Christ Himself in order to tell the full story about Him, calling Him the God-Man, so we must hyphenate the voice of the Church of Christ and call it the divine- human voice. No other human voice can be so described without exaggeration. Thus does Positive Ecclesiastical Law occupy a position half-way between purely divine and purely human law. GUARANTEED TRUE ECHO And that was distinctly Christ’s intention. Without such an assurance from God, it would be too much to expect all men, gifted as we all are with an intellect, naturally and rightly sus- picious of human frailty, error, ignorance, as we all are, it would be too much for even God to expect that the entire human race would 16 submit itself to the rulings of any one of its members. Only such a divine guarantee would make such a submission reasonable. And so God gave it. Once given, all men must accept it, and listen to Peter’s voice and his successor’s, as they would to Christ. The voice of the Catholic Church then, in oth- er words: Positive Ecclesiastical law is the clos- est echo of God’s own voice that exists in the world. If it could depart from the Truth, if it could deceive or lead the world into error, then God Himself would be responsible for the de- ception and the wholesale error. Why? Be- cause God has announced solemnly to the world that that is the way He has chosen to have His law repeated, re-echoed throughout all time to the ears and to the hearts of men. GOD’S WAY—MEN’S OBJECTIONS FUTILE Whether some men like it or not, whether some men think that He should have figured out some other way, whether some men think that He should have managed somehow to stand ceaselessly upon some cloud or mountain-top and broadcast constant repetitions of His divine will in thunderous tones that none could fail to hear and understand, — all such preferences and arguments are as futile as those of a child in a classroom who would object to the manner in which the teacher chose to repeat the lesson. The all-important fact is that such is the way God chose to teach His will to men. SOME, REPETITIONS. OTHERS MORE DEFI- NITE EXPRESSIONS And such therefore is the right, such the au- thority of the Church of Christ to announce what is known as the fourth form of Law, Posi- 17 tive Ecclesiastical, Church or Canon law. Some of these laws, in fact most of them, are simply and purely repetitions in so many words of God’s wishes as expressed in the words of Christ or other sentences of Scripture. Others are laws of her own making, and here again on this point arises more chance for argument, complaint and contradiction. But even these laws of her own, such for instance as her regulations about hear- ing Mass, about annual Confession and Com- munion, Fasting, Marriage and a hundred other matters, are simply more definite expressions of general wishes of God, made more definite just to help her children understand more clearly what God really wants of them, but made on her own authority, as a perfect society, necessarily equipped with all powers required to carry out effectively the work assigned her to do. EXPLANATION OF OBEDIENCE God’s assurance of correctness, legitimacy, un- likelihood that she will overstep her bounds, ex- tends to these legislative functions also. He has promised to remain with her always, guiding her in the way of holiness and truth unto the consummation of the world. Such is the basis of the Catholic Church’s legislative powers, such the authority of her voice in the world, the only sure and infallible trumpet of Truth in the world, not only for her own children but to all men, whether they will listen to her or not. Such too is the explanation of her own children’s utter confidence in her, a reverence and a love that is the marvel, admiration and envy of every other religious teaching body which either at- tempts, pretends or seems to speak in the name of God. 18 III. THE FIFTH FORM OF LAW HUMAN CIVIL LAW We have seen so far four forms of law: 1) Natural 2) Positive Divine 3) Positive Christian 4) Ecclesiastical, Church or Canon Law, which is a mixture of Divine and Human Law. This was all suggested by the discussion of that law which God expressed in the very act of creating all the various orders of creatures with various powers and functions, viz., the Natural Law. And since there is only one more form of law the discussion of which would complete a broad survey of the whole field of law, we take a quick bird’s-eye view of the last and fifth form of Law, Human Civil Law. BASIS OF MORALITY—CONSCIENCE OBEYING LAW The basis of all morality, public and private is individual conscience recognizing law. Our whole idea of right and wrong flows from the individual’s recognition that his own will is in agreement or disagreement with a superior will, which has a right to command his obedience. That is in fact the Catholic Church’s definition of sanctity or sin. It is also the citizen’s idea of patriotism or crime. In other words, some superior, either God, the Church or the State decides what it wants done, publishes that will so that all subjects may know it, and then the inferior obeys, with sanctity or patriotism re- sulting, or disobeys with sin or crime as the consequence. 19 SANCTIONS ARE LAW GIVERS’ ENFORCEMENTS The main difference between divine and hu- man law is in the sanctions of each. By sanc- tions we mean the rewards and punishments which the lawmaker attaches to obedience or disobedience to his laws, in other words, the follow-through by which authority enforces its law. GOD S SANCTIONS VARIED AND MYSTERIOUS In discussing divine law in its four-fold form we never mentiond sanctions at all. But now we do, for the sake of a contrast. In divine law, God does threaten some punishments in this world. But at the same time, He tempers them, oftentimes unexpectedly, by mercy and love here below. He frequently postpones them through His desire to win the willing service of His creature, man. Furthermore foreseeing a sinner’s eventual damnation for all eternity, the Almighty often rewards in this world with apparent success and temporary happiness, whatever good deeds such a sinner may per- form. Thus God’s sanctions of His law, His plan of punishments for disobedience to it, becomes in some men’s minds a rather confused and vague thing. In fact, no man can really follow it all, or understand all its workings completely. And indeed God’s great and final sanctions are prin- cipally a matter of the next world, the future life. This, our earthly life, is only the first act of the drama anyway. It is on the Day of Judg- ment only, that He has promised to reveal to all men His vindication of His own infinite Jus- 20 tice, to reward and punish all men publicly according to their works. But such sanctions as these seem to be insuf- ficient to deter men from disobedience to His law. “Men of little faith” consider them too distant, too uncertain, to be influenced over much by them. In other words, in spite of the clear, four-fold manner in which the Creator has published His will to men, and sanctioned it with eternal rewards and punishments, such is man’s blindness and perversity that he brushes it all aside, insisting upon his own will at any cost and at any punishment. MEN’S SANCTIONS DEFINITE, VISIBLE, HERE AND NOW So widespread is this attitude that finally in self-protection, men themselves began to say among themselves: “God’s law and His sanc- tions are not enough. We ourselves must make still more laws, over and above God’s laws. We must create Human Civil Law, with immedi- ate and visible punishments, right here and now in this world,—jails, fines, tortures and even death, for those who disobey, who endanger public peace, security and morality, who honor not their parents, who kill and rape and steal and lie and betray their country.” And thus almost through desperation was born Human Civil Law. HUMAN LAW EMPHASIZES MAN-MADE PUNISHMENTS Basically it is only another repetition of the divine law, but with a greater insistence upon visible, immediate, man-made punishments, de- signed by well-meaning .men to impress those 21 who disregard or view lightly spiritual and other-world penalties. Thus viewed, it is still an echo of the divine voice, but with added pun- ishments invented by men. Only, however, as long as it repeats the divine will, and thus re- mains in harmony with the divine law, only insofar does it deserve to be called an echo of God’s voice and thus share His authority. WEAKEST ECHO—YET TO SOME, STRONGEST The strange thing about this fifth form of law is that although Human Civil Law is in reality the weakest echo of God’s voice, the farthest removed from the original source and thus the least authoritative of all the forms of law which we have considered so far, yet to many men in the world, it is the only expression of God’s will which they know, and thus for them, it is the strongest echo of it. Deprived of the other forms of knowledge through ignorance, preju- dice or lack of religious instruction, whether or not through their own fault, this law is for them the only law they know. If for no other reason then, it is therefore of great importance. We said in speaking of the Catholic Church’s Canon Law that there is practically no possi- bility that the Church would ever depart from God’s own law even when promulgating laws made on her own authority, and that therefore there is scant likelihood of any discrepancy between Ecclesiastical Law and the Divine Law, no contradictions between them. The one is built upon and merely explains the other. Not so, unfortunately, with Human Civil Law, and why? 22 DANGER OF DISAGREEMENT OF ECHO FROM ORIGINAL VOICE Well, first of all Civil law does not possess such a powerful guarantee of complete fidelity to or constant agreement with the will of God, as Christ promised as a special gift to His Church. There is a much greater danger that Human Civil Law, made at times by men whose knowledge of things divine leaves much to be desired, will not always be a true, undistorted echo. Usual human legislators have no such accurate grasping of the things of God as churchmen possess. Thus the fidelity of human legislator’s enactments, is apt to become a rather undependable thing, as far as being an echo of the divine will is concerned. Neverthe- less, in spite of that danger, just as the Church is a perfect society, i. e., one equipped with all powers necessary to carry out efficiently the work which she is destined by God to do, viz., the spiritual government of all men, so, too, the State is likewise a perfect society, theoretically at least, and by perfect I mean only,—one like- wise equipped with all necessary powers to carry out effectively the work which it, too, is destined by God to do, viz., the temporal gov- ernment of its subjects. NEVERTHELESS STATE POSSESSES COMPETENCY IN LAW-MAKING Thus despite its frailties and dangers and weaknesses, the State nevertheless still pos- sesses the right to create laws on its own au- thority, laws which may not be exactly repeti- tions of any divine law, but reasonable regula- tions, born of experience, statesmanship, com- 23 mon sense, solutions of political and practical problems. These things all constitute a wide field which ranges from war-making to imposi- tion of taxes, from property disputes to traffic rules, from police and fire protection to road and ship building,—in general, whatever activ- ity the State for the public good can better perform than the individual for and by himself alone. And in these fields, some of which are certainly quite far removed from any expres- sion of the divine will, the State has a compe- tency which nevertheless flows from the divine will, insofar as right, order, peace and tran- quility call for some authority to direct and govern for the common good. And all are bound in conscience to respect that competency and to obey those laws which flow from it. ONLY PROTECTION OF PEOPLE IS IN LEGISLATOR S RELIGIOUS SENSE But let us examine a little further the nature of the danger of departure from the divine will, which is ever present in Human Civil Law. Un- fortunately Human Civil Law possesses very few guarantees against misuse of even its legiti- mate power. What guarantee is there against arbitrary and perhaps mistaken rulings? Against personal or nationalistic ambitions? Against greed, jealousies, hatred, enmities, vengeance, injustice? Indeed, its greatest guarantee, if not its only safeguard against such things is the legislator’s own religious sense of God’s own laws. When that is absent, God help the peo- ples whose Human Civil Laws are dictated only by godless men’s passions and ambitions! Then it is that Human Civil Law can become, not an echo, but a contradiction of divine law. 24 HISTORY . AND PRESENT-DAY FACTS ATTEST DISCREPANCIES All history, but especially current events, reveal only too clearly and too sadly to what an extent these contradictions have actually taken place, to the ruinous confusion of all law, order and justice. This condition, as it exists even in partial ways, and even in our own be- loved country, we shall consider in our next broadcast, which we entitle: “Discrepancies between the Divine Law and American Civil Law.” IV. DISCREPANCIES BETWEEN DIVINE AND AMERICAN CIVIL LAW ONLY DISAGREEMENT IN WHOLE REALM OF LAW Human civil laws do not always remain in harmony with the divine law. Throughout the ages and even today more than ever, they defi- nitely contradict God’s will in many instances. Here then appears the first evidence of dis- agreement and confusion in the whole realm of law. Civil law has been snatched by dictators as a means of imposing their will upon other men. That dictator may be an individual or a majority of a legislative body, but whenever any human lawmakers turn against any dictate of God’s law and set up the opposite in their own name, then does the echo contradict the original voice, then does the ambassador belie the power that sent him, then does confusion reign supreme, as in the world today. ENORMOUS CONFUSION What is the actual state of affairs in the world with regard -to these simple fundamental ideas 25 of law and conscience to which we have been lately devoting a few instructions? Outside the Catholic Church, enormous confusion! Such a multiplicity of human laws, ground out with such speed and volume by legislators and poli- ticians, so frequently contradicted, repealed, declared unconstitutional, wiped ‘out or per- mitted to lapse, that people’s attitude toward all law becomes cynical and indifferent. The majesty of the law fails to impress. Men simply brush it all aside with a sort of impatient con- tempt and place individual opinion above all law. INVADING EVEN CHURCH LAW More sad still is this confusion when it is felt about Church law, I mean of course outside the Catholic Church, because within it there is no confusion. But with one sect of Protestantism approving birth control and divorces, another condemning them and a third quibbling about the reasons which justify both, is it any wonder that the ordinary man draws the conclusion that even the supposed leaders of Christian thought do not seem to know what God wants, and that therefore all religion must be pure guess-work, all religious regulations and laws must be nothing more than the opinions of these leaders,—right or wrong, who knows?—imposed upon the laity. CONTRAST OF CATHOLIC COUNTRIES In Catholic countries, legislators see to it that the laws of the State do not conflict with the laws of God and Church. That is usually one of the benefits of concordats or legally drawn up agreements between Church and State. But 26 in other countries, lawmakers often neither know nor care about the laws of God or Church. In some, a definite hatred of both seems to be the only explanation of some of the laws. It would be unnecessary amplification to digress here with instances in Russia, Germany, Spain, Mexico, Japan, France, and England. Of closer interest to us is our own country, and mani- festations of the same spirit of godlessness right here in our midst. IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Fortunately the founding fathers of our na- tion were a God-fearing, religious group of men, who injected into our basic governmental struc- ture, a correct recognition of God and a sense of true dependence upon Him, which has con- tinued throughout the century and a half of our national existence. Nevertheless it becomes more and more questionable with the passing years whether we are now still a nation which can be called a Christian nation, in the sense that a majority of our citizens are informed about, and attached, either numerically or even in sympathies and docility, to any Christian Church. Certainly many evidences of a spirit far from Christian are discernible in some of the laws which find their way through our elected legislatures on to our statute books, both state and national. TEMPTATION STRONG TO ORIGINATE LAW FROM WRONG SOURCE In a country such as this, where theoretically the laws spring from the will of the governed, the temptation is strong to express in the form of law, ideas appealing to the legislator’s con- 27 stituents, quite regardless of other more im- portant considerations which should guide the science of government: such considerations as these: that the rights of minorities should suffer no injustice, and that in matters upon which God has spoken, even the will of the majority is not the ultimate source of right, any more than is the balance of might in guns and bombs. EXAMPLES: PROHIBITION To point out a half dozen examples: 1) The “noble experiment of Prohibition” suc- ceeded in incorporating into the law of the land an attitude with regard to the use of liquor, more stringent than the law of God, which con- demns only its abuse. It is seldom that an inter- pretation of morality stricter and more rigid than necessary gains such a following as to become a law, except locally. The usual tend- ency is the opposite, viz., to let down all bar- riers, and to open the way to ever looser and looser moral restrictions. It is rather ever greater and greater laxity that usually appeals to majorities, and thus indirectly to legislators who consider no higher law than their con- stituents’ wishes. MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE LEGISLATION Witness the attempted and accomplished legislation upon such issues as 2) birth control, 3) sterilization, 4) euthanasia and 5) some of our marriage laws. 6) What other basis have the divorce laws of our country? Was there ever, in their enact- ment, any serious study of their agreement with the divine law? Is not their spirit simply this: “Whether Almighty God has had anything to 28 say about His will, to the effect that for the good of the race, He wishes Marriage to be in- dissoluble, even although that may work some hardship upon individuals at times, we Ameri- cans neither know nor care. All we want is to be able to throw off these obligations, if they become distasteful to us or a hardship for us? LEGISLATION ON EDUCATION 7) And the educational policy of this nation as a whole: wherein the subject of God, His place in our children’s lives, their responsibility to Him for all their individual actions, a knowl- edge of His rights and laws,—are definitely ex- cluded from the secularized curricula of our public schools, not to mention a definite teach- ing of the opposite ideas in many private col- leges,—how can such an educational policy for the youth of a country be said to be in agree- ment with the First Commandment of the Ten? DANGEROUS TENDENCY All these tendencies are a dangerous leaven in our political life to start with. But when they become a part of our public legislation and thus a directive for vast numbers who know no other law, then they are doubly dangerous. And in a democracy there is only one antidote that can be applied. And it is: the doctrine that the personal will of any human lawmaker is not the true source of law, least of all when his lawmaking starts with sweeping away the true foundations of whatever authority he may right- fully exercise, viz., that duty to express and corroborate the laws of God in terms of human, temporal sanctions. That, remember, to re-echo the divine will, is the limited, but only true 29 scope of Human Civil Law. “Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther.” ANTIDOTE: SOURCE OF LAW IS NOT LEGISLATOR S WILL Do our American legislators take this high view of their momentary, borrowed power? Is it not to be feared that they think more often merely in terms of their constituents’ wishes and their own re-elections? But whether or not the majority of them are infected with that weak viewpoint of their duty, there certainly are abroad in the world, human lawmakers of the godless type. They start from scratch so to speak, by simply saying: “This is to be the law of the land only because I say so!” They may or may not add other reasons, but they frankly start by excluding God. This is unreasonable enough, but bearable, provided their subjects agree with the wisdom of their other political ideas and consent to be governed on that basis. But when after starting on such a sandy foundation, they proceed to build a false super-structure as well,—when the bricks and mortar of their edifice are Atheism, with its natural consequences of hatred of all religion,—when the girders are the exaltation of racial pride, with its unjust and unfounded discrimination against other races,—when the field of morality is invaded with principles in direct contradiction to God’s will, when divorce, unnatural birth control and a hundred other evils are encouraged by legal enactment, then the Church feels it her duty to step into the arena with a clear statement as to the right and the wrong in all this lawmaking, and with a very simple rule: 30 PRACTICAL SOLUTION “Unless Human Civil Law, American or any other kind, agrees with divine law or right rea- son, it does not bind in conscience!” FUNDAMENTAL AMERICAN PRINCIPLE Let us take a quick backward glance into recent history, our own particularly. About a century and a half ago, the American colonists felt the injustice of a government which lacked sufficient respect for some of these rights in- herent in the very nature of man. And so, encouraged by distance and favorable chances of success, they embodied their protest in an immortal document since become the magna charta of democracy. They declared that all just governments spring from the consent of the governed, that all men are created free and equal, are endowed by their Creator with cer- tain inalienable rights: to property, to freedom of speech, conscience, worship, and thought; that these rights come directly to man from God and nature, are recognized, sanctioned and defended by Religion, and must not be tam- pered with by kings, dictators or civil govern- ments. HISTORIC CATHOLIC PRINCIPLE In the fifth century, when in its decadence, the Roman Empire ceased to hold them back, hordes of Germanic tribes inundated Italy like an irresistible, deadening lava from a volcano. It took civilization from three to five hundred years to lift its head again and stagger to its feet, which it eventually did through the spir- itual ministrations of the Catholic Church. His- tory is repeating itself before our very eyes. 31 Civilization is being similarly suffocated and destroyed today, strangely enough upon the very same battlefield, but not there alone, by any means. Some attacks upon it are far more subtle than the assaults of gunfire. REPEATING ITSELF IN OUR DAY The stand for morality and Christian Truth which the Holy Father takes, is no less firm or brave in general, than when his home was upon the very line of military advance. But even with the limelight of the world’s attention focussed upon him as seldom before, his words are still unheeded by many, and the slaughter goes on. They may drench the soil of Europe or half the world with the blood of half or all of its population, before there will be silence or exhaustion enough to permit that voice to be heard. But never will the final Peace be written unless his pen shall have composed its conditions, conditions not couched in terms of commerce, colonies, cash indemnities, crushing servitude or exulting conquest, but in terms of human rights and duties, not the false, vicious concept of these sacred things concocted to bolster up some dictator’s dream-state, but true, human rights and duties that conform to the eternal principles of Divine Law. V. THE POPE S PEACE PLAN (PART I) ONLY SOLUTION Law is the principal language by which God has told us what His wishes are with regard to His government of His world. The five-fold law which we have explained is the basis upon which rests Our Holy Father’s Post-War Peace Plan, undoubtedly the sanest, 32 wisest, most disinterested, in fact really the only true, correct and effective solution of the whole confusion which faces mankind. To make this clear to you is the purpose of today’s broadcast. NATIONALISMS BALK WORLD STATE The fact is that men in power in the world today are attempting first to imagine and then to create some sort of international court or tribunal or power to control the ambitions, greeds, animosities and aggressions of nations. We have learned how to do that pretty well for individuals within a single state or nation, but beyond that, historically, we have never progressed successfully, due to the numerous national sovereignties, loathe to submit them- selves to any other power, even such as A United States of Nations. VALUE OF FIRST FOUR FORMS OF LAW OVERLOOKED Really most of the success of our efforts to control and govern individuals within a city, or state or single nation is due more to the indi- vidual’s recognition and respect for the first four forms of law, than it is to the fifth form merely, i. e., Human Civil Law. But our mod- ern lawmakers are not very much given to admitting that fact. They are apt to give far too much credit to the laws they make them- selves. And so when the few powerful men in whose hands the world’s fate happens to rest at the moment, confer about Peace, they pro- ceed upon the very false assumption that the laws or regulations which they frame are the really important things, forgetting that usually 33 they have about the same strength and perma- nence as a shifting breeze, unless backed up by military forces, which they will no doubt be in the future. ONLY SANCTION, FORCE They may or may not try to make them ap- peal, on grounds of reason, to all nations, but after all, the other nations can see in them only the political theories of a handful of men, whom they may or may not like,—nothing more. And therefore whatever the proposals, they are always open to the same old suspicions of self- interest, “non-liquidation of power already at- tained, whether justly or not is left unsettled. And so these originators of new schemes for peace look around for some sanctions, some means to enforce their theories, or charters, or agreements, or treaties, or pacts, and usually they can find none, except military might. INTERNATIONAL POLICE FORCE IMPRACTICAL Having excluded God and His Law, or taken for granted that God's word has no influence with the nations with whom they are dealing, they are driven to rely upon an international police force, hitherto non-existent. But when the international police force has to be invoked to discipline one or two of the four or five na- tions who comprise it: what then? Where are we? Just about where we were with the League of Nations, or in other words: nowhere! And that is the actual, sad situation which faces us! 34 HOLY FATHER S SOLUTION What then is the answer to this problem? Simple enough, as the Pope gives it, merely re- echoing God’s own words: “Go back to the beginning and teach all men what I their Almighty Creator have said and done. Substitute for the confused vaporing of diplomats, the far more simple, more funda- mental and truer divine code: all so clearly uni- versal, so easily remembered, the only laws that have ever meant peace, order and prosperity for individuals and nations, the laws which I gave to Moses, the Hebrew formula which built up a great race, that formula which Christ my divine Son then strengthened by observance and extended to all peoples. That law I have written upon every human heart when I created it. It is still there and need only be appealed to, and insisted upon by other lawmakers and listened to by all subjects, who in so doing will be listening, not to a Stalin or a Hitler, but to their own Father who is in heaven.” NOT ACCEPTABLE TO PRESENT POWERS And not until all men do recognize it and obey it, will we ever have peace or security in the world. It is only because it is denied and disobeyed that we have any wars at all! Wasn’t Versailles proof enough for us of the futility of man’s plans, when by secret pact the only voice in the world which insisted upon these basic laws, was excluded from taking any part in the Peace Conference? Must we now repeat the same mistake because a Stalin asks: as he did at Teheran: “Who is the Holy Father? How many divisions of soldiers did he con- tribute to the Victory?” How much thought is 35 given to the voice of the Almighty, in all the conferences which have taken place to date? SIGNIFICANT GIFT An interesting story is told of the visit of President Woodrow Wilson to the Vatican on Jan. 4th, 1919. He had just crossed Europe in triumphal procession and was finally received by Pope Benedict XV midst scenes of medieval splendor. Court etiquette required that he then pay a formal call upon the Papal Secretary of State, Pietro Cardinal Gasparri, that eminent Canon Lawyer who for thirteen years had labored, at the bidding of the Pope, to create the new Code of Canon Law that was to mod- ernize, simplify and supplant all previous law and extend to the whole world. The President at the time was on his way back to Paris and to Versailles for the Peace Conference. The Cardinal Secretary of State had lived and taught law in Paris for eighteen years. He knew its every crossroad, its every cross-current of international opinion and in- trigue. He also knew that the Vicar of the Prince of Peace, the only unselfish exponent of that true peace which the world cannot give, had been excluded from the Peace Table by a pact hatched in ignoble secrecy. He no doubt felt that the idealistic President of the United States of America, acclaimed as the Saviour of the world, no less!—was like an Innocent Abroad, a mere child in diplomacy in compari- son with the Europeans with whom he was about to deal. The aged, experienced Cardinal must have looked into the steel blue eyes of the American Dreamer and wondered sadly how he would fare at Versailles. 36 CANON LAW CONTAINS SECRET OF SUCCESS As his guest rose to depart, Cardinal Gasparri placed in his hand a gift, a token, an ominous token one might say, of his visit to the house of Peter the Fisherman. It was a book, beauti- fully bound in white parchment. On its cover gleamed in letters of gold, the title: Codex Juris Canonici, (the Code of Canon Law). It was the law by which the Catholic Church rules and governs her three hundred million children of all races and nations. Its distinctive feature, in contrast to all other codes of law, is that it is a clear, simple, logical, impersonal series of practical rules of life, deduced by scholars from the Natural Law planted by God in every human heart, reinforced by further expressions of the divine will found in Scripture and the traditional teaching of the Church, His voice to men on earth. Truly a contrast indeed to many types of civic Law which govern nations, laws ranging from the popular voice of unthink- ing majorities to the overnight whims and ulti- matums of dictators. A MASTERPIECE OF LAW It was as if Michelangelo had presented him with his masterpiece of painting or sculpture. It was indeed the masterpiece of this great Canon Lawyer, the child of his brain, in the sense that it was the fruit of years of study, research, experience and judgment. In fact it was the distillation of the Catholic Church’s practical wisdom gathered from two thousand years of dealing with men, and all compressed within a single book of Law. What a significant 37 gift to bring to the glittering Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, where the fate of nations was to be decided. Significant gift, yes; it really con- tained the secret of true, just, lasting peace, although little did Wilson realize it and still less did he or any one else use it. It contained the world-sanctifying programme of Christ’s earth- ly kingdom. But it remained unread and un- opened by the bargainers who patched together that so-called Peace! LAW IS A CREATION OF GOD—NOT OF MAN And the pity of it all is that History bids fair to repeat itself! Law is an impersonal thing, by which persons are guided, ruled, gov- erned according to a plan of wisdom and justice, of rights, duties and responsibilities, established by God, not invented by man. Law has many forms and names:—natural, divine, ecclesiasti- cal, human, civil, national, international,—of which we have spoken in detail now at some length, but if it is true law, it must be logically deduced, it must flow clearly from the will of God, ordaining and promulgating a certain order of right living for His human creatures on earth. Otherwise, it is not true law, worthy to bind the noble spirit and free conscience of man. ONLY DIVINE LAW CAN WIN UNIVERSAL ACCEPTANCE AND SUBMISSION But if it is derived legitimately from the authentic source of God’s will, then all men are automatically subject to it, no matter to what nation they may belong. None are above it, no matter what their position, for to place one’s 38 self above it, would be to make one's self the equal or superior of God. That is the concept of Law which the Catholic Church teaches to the world. CONTRARY CONCEPTS ENGENDER WARS AND RUIN On the contrary what is law in the minds of the statesmen who rule the world today? It is no more than the will of some individual man, or group or combination of men, tempo- rarily in the saddle, shaping other men's des- tinies to their own will, enslaving their freedom to some ambitious programme of their own con- coction. If any higher law should stand in their way, it is ruthlessly brushed aside. All who would proclaim it, are silenced by threat of hangman, firing squad or concentration camp. Thus do personal schemes of power become the law of some lands. And such a concept of law leads automatically and has led actually to the woes in which the world finds itself engulfed today. POPE RECALLS TRUE LAW Therefore the First Step in the Holy Father's Peace Plan is to recall all men, with special emphasis upon those in places of power (and American legislators, take notice!), to the acceptance of that supreme Law of right and wrong that is above and independent of any man or combine of men, however powerful, that Law which flows directly, logically and imper- sonally from God's will and commandments: that Law which continues to thunder: “Thou shalt not steal," no matter what nation may be the thief, no matter whether the thief be the 39 victor or the conquered,—that Law which con- tinues to announce: “Thou shalt not commit adultery” no matter if eighty percent of a nation laugh light-heartedly at such an old-fashioned idea, no matter even if the state itself has actu- ally thrown the mantle of legal protection over such immorality. UNDER DIREST PENALTIES And unless men do return to the acceptance of that Divine Law in its entirety, that law pro- claiming right and wrong as calmly, boldly, openly, fearlessly and impartially to a ruthless totalitarian state as to a democracy, or mon- archy or single individual, then men must be ready to bow as slaves to whatever madman may grasp the reins of any government and impose his crazy will upon a hopeless and help- less and hapless world! LIKELY LAW OF THE FUTURE Pray that those who attempt to formulate the post-war peace may accept God’s idea of law. Pray, I say, because the chances are about even that they will not. The temptation is great indeed, perhaps too great to resist, that they will make their own wills and schemes, backed by their own militaristic power and quite re- gardless of any higher will, the Law of the future under which we will all have to live. VI. POPE’S PEACE PLAN (PART II) REAL PEACE UNKNOWN IN WORLD All minds are yearning for peace, and the air is filled with plans for post-war peace. And yet for the last 300 years or more, this world has 40 not known any real peace. It has known only periods of armistice, like the years between the treaty of Versailles and the German invasion of Poland. Why? Because after the treaty of Westphalia in 1648, Europe entered upon a long period, not yet ended, of intense nationalisms, so anti-christian in character that the Church’s influence over rulers was scarcely any more than a warning finger pointed in the direction opposite to the course upon which they were traveling. FOR LAST THREE HUNDRED YEARS It was Protestantism which shortly before had lessened Europe’s respect for Peter’s voice. And that unbelieving attitude gradually settled into an habitual ignoring, if not a proud, obsti- nate, superior contempt for such pious teach- ings, as not sufficiently worldly-wise. As a re- sult, there has not been in the world for 300 years now, any central agency, any universally recognized power house of Truth and authority, sufficiently strong to curb these warring nation- alisms, with their worldly-wise ambitions and greeds, no voice to which they would listen when any questions of justice and morality would stand in the path of their plans. The result of that mad, unchecked race for power is only too evident now. SINCE A SUPREME CHRISTIAN ARBITER WAS RECOGNIZED There was a time, and would to God it could return to this distracted world, when the whole Christian world at least did recognize a supreme arbiter and judge of right and wrong, someone to whose disinterested decisions all men could 41 safely look with confidence, with a trust based, if not on an infallible divine guidance, then at least based upon an impartial, fatherly love of all men as his own spiritual children in Christ, whatever their nationality. That time, I repeat, has been gone now for 300 years. And as a result, men have strayed further and further away from any practical idea of unity and har- mony among themselves. And now we face the enormous, if not in- superable problem of creating a peace that will be permanent at last. And it will be perma- nent only if it is just. For it is instinctive in the human heart, and gloriously so, to resist injustice just as soon as physically able to do so. What are the chances of success? I said previously that they were only about an even 50 percent. Why? Because we placed as the first condition of success, the acceptance by all men of an eternal, unchanging fearless law of which God, not men, is the author. SELFISHNESS THWARTS LAW And some of those who will make the peace will bow to no law, even God’s, higher than their own will. The men who will be in the saddle will likely be men and nations whose worldly interests might be somewhat thwarted by the dictates of Christian principles. God’s law might call for too much generosity, kind- ness, charity, forgiveness. These men will pre- fer to think about vengeance, about ever greedier plans of conquest, holding of past and present gains, “non-liquidation of empires,” to quote a classic expression. They will be thinking in terms which will make the victors more powerful and the conquered still weaker, but 42 not less resentful. The danger is that the pat- tern of the peace will be the same old futile formula: treaties and secret agreements rein- forcing special privilege for the most powerful of the victors, more and more intense national- isms that will simply start the trouble all over again. NO PROPHETS NEEDED We need not be prophets to see these jealous nationalisms already seated around a table carving up helpless countries, some made stronger by victory, some ground to ashes by defeat, the only guiding law in the whole heart- less process being the plans and ambitious schemes of those whom Might has made the Dictators. We can almost hear their exultant language: “We are now supreme at last, with no one strong enough to stop us further. Why should we now bow before any man. or even God?” TO PREDICT EFFORTS TO UNDERMINE POPE S PLANS Thus do they speak even now, before they are victorious. They will certainly not be any more humble or considerate later on. And if we were to penetrate beneath the surface of such language, it seems quite evident that it is a part of their scheme to undermine ahead of time, any force in the world that might snatch from them the fruits of their might, the spoils of war. Therefore is the Pope’s prestige out- lawed in the councils of the Nations. Therefore is the law of God equally a stranger to their deliberations! 43 EXCLUSION OF POPE There is only one mind and one voice in the world which is assured of divine guidance. And he is not recognized by the majority of men. There is only one heart far removed from nationalistic ambitions, one great impartial Father to whom all nations are merely children who should be seeking the Word of God from his lips, although they are far from doing so. To him, no nation’s aspirations can outweigh a single act of injustice to a single individual. He alone knows more about what is really right and what is really wrong in God’s eyes and by God’s laws, than all the other representatives of the nations who will sit at the peace table, all put together! But will he be allowed to sit there? He wasn’t in 1918. And if excluded, would it be because he would have no plan to offer? Not at all. It would be more likely because his plan is too clear, too simple, too just to suit the angry bar- gainers who want no divine law to cross the future laws they have in mind to enact. It would be because in his Christmas broadcast of 1941 he said: “The destruction brought out by this present war is on so vast a scale that there must not be added to it the further ruin of a frustrated and illusory peace.” HEART OF THE PROBLEM—UNPOPULAR MEDICINE And then he points out the real heart of the whole problem, the essence of its solution, but a medicine which will not be popular at the peace table and which therefore excludes the doctor who would prescribe it: 44 “Peace is an atmosphere, a state of mind among all peoples in which the very seeds of conflict are dispersed and killed and in which in their place grows a mutual spirit of active cooperation for the common good. “This longed-for atmosphere of lasting peace, (the Holy Father says) will not be created by peace treaties, nor by solemn pacts, nor interr national conventions, conferences, nor charters, nor even by the noble and sincere efforts of statesmen unless beforehand the sacred rights of the Natural and Divine Laws are recognized and obeyed. “This is the true strength upon which the life of all nations depends. This is the most assured of all values. As long as it stays steady, the others cannot waver, for they would then be guaranteed by the most unshakeable authority, the unchanging and eternal Law of God.” PAPAL LANGUAGE FOREIGN ONE TO MODERN EARS I ask you whether the delegates who will sit at the peace table will be able to understand such language. And if they could, would they listen to it or heed it? His Holiness knows the answer to that ques- tion as well as you or I. He knows that numeri- cally Catholics are in a minority in most of the nations and governments of the world to- day, and so as a separate unit, able to accom- plish little. And what does he say about it? He appeals therefore directly and openly for cooperation with and from “all men who believe in God (and again, American legislators, take heed!) . . . collaboration, inter-association with 45 men of other creeds, provided they are ani- mated, however vaguely, by Christian ideals of justice. 5 ’ APPEALS FOR COOPERATION FROM NON-CATHOLICS And this is the Second Step of the Pope’s Peace Plan: cooperation with others, not of the Faith, to increase the influence of Christian teaching upon those momentarily in power. THREE MEANS How is this accomplished? In many ways: a) Perhaps the most effective of which is by diplomatic relations of the Holy See itself with various governments, in fact, with all who seek this advantage, even with Ger- many and Japan. Thus are these nations and governments made conscious of the Pope’s standards and principles, which otherwise they might never have guessed. b) By public statements, interviews, protests made from time to time by Cardinals, Arch- bishops, whole hierarchies of one country or another. All these means help to formulate the policies of these governments and these countries. c) And in a smaller way, but in democracies like ours, a very effective way, through in- structions by Pastors to their flocks at Sun- day Masses, or in sodalities or in study clubs or other channels of teaching, such as this radio programme, for one instance. LEST POPULAR WILL BE DEFEATED After all, the theory of democratic govern- ment is that the people’s will, as felt by their 46 legislative representatives, is the ultimate source of law. If that theory is to work out in harmony with the higher divine law, the people will need and will appreciate clear en- lightenment and authoritative guidance, in such complicated matters as these, lest the popular will be confused and divided by false or futile emphases. CHRISTIAN PEOPLES MUST RISE IN THEIR MIGHT The Providence of God itself is a thing which sometimes does not wait for such slow means of progress. It may easily provide other means by which this leaven may spread more rapidly, more completely, even startlingly. The very miseries of war which God permits, may so disgust the world with the games of greed and schemes of shameless usurpation of sacred indi- vidual rights by states, that through sheer ex- haustion and weariness and degradation of spirit, whole peoples may rise up in their might, and in the light of Christian Truth, as ex- pounded by the Holy Father, wend their way back to God and His laws, in spite of their dictators and oppressors. AND WEND THEIR WAY BACK TO GOD No matter how the world may seem to get out of hand, it can never get out of God’s hands. He still remains its Creator, its Governor and its Judge. Great public catastrophes have led whole peoples back to Him, just as proud pros- perity leads them away from Him. These are thoughts that should lead us never to despair. Nor to be idle on the sidelines. We can aid the situation by prayer, prayer that the 47 benign influence of the Holy Father’s teachings may permeate the minds and hearts of men in positions of power and not of our faith. We Catholics can aid by explaining to others the fundamental principles of the Church’s Plan for Peace. We know them almost instinctively, almost without study. We know the teachings from childhood by which she would make us holy. She simply wants all men to accept them and live by them. Thus, and only thus, can true Peace come and remain. 48 OTHER PAMPHLETS FROM THE ESSEX COUNTY CATHOLIC RADIO PROGRAMME. Published by the Radio Replies Press, St. Paul, 1, Minnesota. THE MUSIC OF THE MASS. Radio commentaries upon forty-four Texts of the Mass and their various musical expressions. By Rev. Francis X. Sallaway, S.T.D., P.P., Priest of Archdiocese of Boston 25c THE MUSIC OF IRELAND. Radio commentaries upon thirty-four representative Irish songs. By Father Sallaway 20c GUIDE POSTS OF THE ALMIGHTY TO INDUS- TRIAL PEACE AND PROSPERITY. By Most Rev. R. J. Cushing, Archbishop of Boston 10c FATHER SALLAWAY'S FIRST EPISTLE TO THE UNITARIANS. (The Theology of the Crucifixion, a reply to Rev. Mr. John Haynes Holmes) 10c FATHER SALLAWAY'S SECOND EPISTLE TO THE UNITARIANS 10c OUR LADY OF FATIMA. Four Radio Talks by Rev. Joseph F. Gough, Station WESX, Salem, Mass.. . .15c