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 DEMOCRACY

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DEMOCRACY

words, of Christian democracy. As soon, therefore, as pohtical and social circumstances allowed it, the Ch\irch set her hand to this work, and she has con- tinued without interruption her traditional action in behalf of the people. To prove this there is no need of distorting the facts of history. Even if we exclude the marvellous economic organization of the Church of the first three centuries (see the last part of the "Storia" referred to above), it is certain that from the time of Constantine the Church began the practical work of Christian democracy, when the clergy showed (heir zeal in establishing hospices for orphans, for the at;o(i and infirm, and for wayfarers.

Constantine in a period of famine chose the bishops rather than the civil officials to distribute corn among a starving people, and thus showed his appreciation of Christian democracy. Julian the Apostate showed e\('n a clearer insight when in his famous letter to the pagan high-priest of (ialatia he urged him strongly to admonish the pagan priesthood that they must rival file Christian clergy in this field of popular work. But wli(>n the fall of the Empire of the West under the sliock of the barbarian invasion brought civilization tn the verge of ruin and shook the very foundation of tl'.e people's welfare; when it became necessary to huilci up again laboriously the neo-Roman culture of the West out of the remnants that escaped the catas- trophe and the raw material of the scarcely civilized races, then shone forth in its real light the true Chris- tian democracy of the Catholic Church. Suffice it to say that an entire system of laws and customs in fur- therance of the civil and material well-being of the people was established, or at least strengthened and lieveloped, by the united action of clergy and laity. Tlie right of sanctuary, the art guilds and trade guilds, the relentless war against usury, the numberless benev- olent institutions, the protection afforded to labour in general, and the special provision made for the un- emjiloyed, all these form a golden thread of Christian 'leniocracy that nms throtigli the whole course of me- dieval Church historj', unbroken and untarnished amid its surroundings of iron and stone. The Truce of God (which proclaimed the inviolability of the lands and dominions of a lord who had gone to the Crusades) was not only a safeguard of that lord's interests, but above all of his people, who, in the ab- sence of their military chief could offer but a sorry defence against the frequent inroads of neighbouring lords or princes. The monies pietalis, too, were an admirable Catholic institution that delivered the poor from the clutches of the extortioner from whom they were obliged to borrow. The many thousand confra- ternities scattered up and down Europe were religious associations, but in nearly every instance they had a common fund for the benefit and protection of their members. Thus, in the Papal States, up to the time of the French Revolution, many guilds (such as shoe- makers, carpenters, etc.) had a notary public and a lawyer who were bound to transact for a few pence the legal business of the members of the guild. These few examples, chosen from widely different fields, suf- fice to show that an organized action, really CathoUc and really of the people, is one of the time-honoured traditions of Catholicism.

But the last definitive stage of Christian democracy, and one that has given the name a fixed and technical meaning, dates from the time that elapsed between the fall of Napoleon I an<l the international Revolution of 1848. Among the many calumnies heaped upon the Church during the French Revolution was the charge that she was anti-democratic, and this not only in a political, but al.so in a larger social sen.se; it rne:int that the Ch\irch favoured the great and mighty, iiid sided with the monarchical oligarchy against the j'lst political and economic <lemands of the miiklle and Ir.wer cla.sses. The horrors of the Revolution and, later on, the illusions of the Restoration, drove the

clergy and a number of the thinking laity into the move- ment of the Counter-Revolution, which, in the hands of politicians like Metternich, developed into a "re- action", i. e. it was not deemed sufficient to struggle against the evil of revolution and uphold the social order; it was thought necessary to restore the old regime, bury everything good and bad that savoured of democracy, and thereby deprive the people of a means of improving their politico-economic condi- tions. This reactionary programme looked on the social question as one to be solved by fear of the Gov- ernment's armed hand, by charitable subsidies, and by the creation of holidays. This programme found support in a saying attributed to the King of Naples: To rule the mob you must use three /'s: jeste, farina, and forca (festivals, food, and gallows). But a new revolution was in the air. The Carbonari began their work in 1821 and kept on until it resulted in the gen- eral upheaval of 1848. The mass of the clergy and of militant Catholics stood by the "reaction" as far as it was a counter-revolution in the better sense of the word ; but in the general public opinion the clergy and the Catholics, partly through mistakes of their own, but chiefly through the malice of their enemies, came to be looked upon as reactionaries who favoured the oppression of the people.

Then there began among Catholics "a reaction against reaction", and there arose, especially in France, the de Lamennais party which had as a mouthpiece the newspaper known as "L'Avenir," and for its motto, "God and Liberty". There is no doubt that Ozanam, with his conferences of St. Vincent de Paul, had the true practical idea of charity, at once thoroughly Christian and thoroughly adapted to act- ual needs ; he was not content with the passing touch of the hand that gave and the hand that received, but he sent the charitable into the very homes of the needy and brought them face to face with the hard reality in order to give them a better understanding an<l a stronger sense of brotherhood. De Lamennais had an insight, confused but keenly felt, into a popu- lar Catholic action not restricted to works of material and immediate beneficence, but extending beyond these to an assertion of justice and social equity for the lower classes. De Lamennais, therefore, was in real- ity a pioneer of Christian democracy. Unfortunately, he also led the way in errors that even to-day we de- plore. By involving the ethico-juridical and econom- ical action of Christian democracy in political agita- tion, he fell into a mistake which was the more un- fortunate as the parties of his day made use of it to bring about a violent political crisis. He was wrong, too, in believing that liberty was the positive founda- tion of everj'thing; hence the justice of the reproach cast upon his fonnula, "God and Liberty": either Liberty was superfluous, since that is already implied in God, or the phrase was illogical, since there can be no question of liberty miless it harmonizes with social order. And so de Lamennais and his move- ment ended in failure.

The revolution of 1848 and the consequent reac- tion of 18.50 hindered the Catholics from availing themselves of such good as there was in de Lamen- nais' attempt. Then came the political and relig- ious struggles which the Church had to face (hiring the long pontificate of Pius IX and the early years of Leo XIII's rule. But the latter pontiff soon issued his Encyclicals on the political, ethical, jurid- ical, and economical questions of the day, and in dealing with the social question in its popular aspects he published, 1.5 May, 1891, the immortal "Rerum Novanmi" which has become the Magna Charta of Christian democracy. Mexsures were at once taken to .secure popular Catholic action: and it (piickly ap- peared how unequal most Catholics were to the doc- trinal and practical requirements of the situation. Un the one hand, many of them, terrified by the evils