Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/488



482 CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY.

with due consideration to the greater or less intemperance of its utterance, is carried to such an excess by many as to maintain that there is really nothing existing above the natural order of things, and that the acquirement and enjoyment of corporal and external goods constitute man's happiness. It aims at putting all government in the hands of the people, reducing all ranks to the same level, abolishing all distinction of class, and finally in- troducing community of goods. Hence, the right of ownership is to be abrogated, and whatever property a man possesses, or whatever means of hvehhood he haS; is to be common to all.

As against this, Christian Democracy, by the fact that it is Christian, is built, and necessarily so, on the basic principles of divine faith, and provides for the betterment of the masses, with the ulterior object of avaihng itself of the occasion to fashion their minds for things which are everlasting. Hence, for Christian Democracy justice is sacred; it must maintain that the right of acquiring and possessing property cannot be impugned, and it must safeguard the various distinctions and degrees which are indispensable in every well-ordered commonwealth. Finally it must endeavor to preserve in every human society the form and the character which God ever im- presses on it. It is clear, therefore, that there is nothing in common between Social and Christian Democracy. They differ from each other as much as the sect of Socialism differs from the profession of Christianity,

Moreover it would be a crime to distort this name of Christian Democracy to politics, for although democracy, both in its pliilological and philosophical significations, implies popular government, yet in its present apphcation it is so to be employed that, removing from it all political significance, it is to mean nothing else than a benevolent and Christian movement in behalf of the people. For the laws of nature and of the Gospel, which by right are superior to all human contingencies, are necessarily independent