CHURCH AND PEOPLE.

Press, Volume L, Issue 149814, 30 May 1914, Page 16

CHURCH AND PEOPLE.

ROMAN CATHOLIC ATTITUDE.

Catholio Democracy.—lndividualism and. Socialism, by Henry C. Day, S.J., with ft Preface by the Cardinal Archbishop. London Heath, Cranston and Ousley, 68 net.

This book by Father Day, with a preface.by Cardinal Bourne, is a critical examination of 7 tho social theories and influences at work in modern life, and gives tho noint of view of the Catholio Church towards the claims of democracy. For this reason it is of unsuuul importance, because it is of no mere academic interest to know whether the Catholic Church, with its spiritual power over, millions of minds, is hostile or not to the democratic ideals of the age, and whether there is an essential spirit of antagonism between democracy and religion. Looking round the world to-day, it is obvious to the student of life that there is, mistakenly or not, a belief in the minds of many leaders of democracy that the Church is the .enemy of the people, and that it is governed by reactionary principles. Republicans, Socialists, Collectivists, Syndicalists and Anarchists oombine, as a rule, in their attack upon Catholic faith and morals an institutions. In France, in Portugal, in many other countries, waves of revolutionary passion have dashed against the walls of the Church, and threatened, without success, to overwhelm it.

CONSTANT SYMPATHY. The importance of Father Day's book, therefore, is twofold, because it shows in tho first place that the Catholic Church has been the greatest democratic force throughout the ages until a temporary period of reaction after tho French Revolution ; and, secondly, *that to fulfil her destiny and to maintain her spiritual power, the Church must, and in fact does, give the full weight of her sympathy to the just claims and ideals of tho most advanced democracy.

About the democratic influence of the Catholic Church in the past little need be said, becauso it is admitted by all fair-minded students of history. As President "Wilson has remarked: —

The only reason the Government did not suffer" dry rot in tho Middle Ages, under the aristocratic system which then prevailed, was that most of the men who were efficient instruments ot government wero drawn from the Church, which was then, as it is now, a great democracy. Thero was no peasant so humble that ho might not become a priest, and no priest so obscure that he might not become a Popo of Christendom. • , . _ , The Middle Ages with their Trade Guilds were the golden age of Christian democracy. Father Day criticises modern economic philosophies ruthlessly and impartially. Ho shows how a cast-iron individualism enslaved the workers. He points out what he believes to be the dangers to tbe liberty of mens serais and bodies which lurk in the ngid theories of Socialists like Karl Marx and all his followers, wkr by denying the rights of private property, by endeavouring to make the State all-power-ful, and pronosing to break up tbe institution of "the home, would, if they had their wav, establish a tyranny of the majority" more mimical to the liberty of the individual than any that the world has seen.

FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS. But he shows ako that while the Catholic Church is bound to condemn any system which would destroy the old "Christian ideals of spiritual, moral, and economic well-being, her sympathy is now, as it always has been, truly democratic. It was St. Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century who, while upholding the rights of private property as necessary to human lite, attacked the false doctrine of ludjTidualism that

each, can do as he likes with his own He declared:—

3lan can nover look on tho fruits of wealth as his exclusivo property, but .is the common property ot all, and'should therefore bo ready to shaxe them .with others in their need.

Pope Leo XIII. reaffirms, six hundred yoara Inter tho principles of tho old schoolman, and in his famous encyclical on tho condition of the vrorkim? classes, proclaimed tho right of all ■workers to a living wage, and formulated ;i charter of liberty aud progress., so broad ami generous in its democratic spirit, that tho most advanced democrats of all nations hailed it as the greatest pronouncement in modern history. One< sees in Father I>ay's book how this encyclical of tho Pope led immediately t-r* a tremendous activity of Christian democratic work throughout Europe, and to-day one of thc outstanding features of Catholic social life is the formation oi societies and unions, clulw and reading guilds lor tho study of industrial In spite of the conservative tendencies of many Catholics, duo to tho violent attack* upon the Church by anti-Christian movements, this remarkable book b.y a Jesuit nricst, is&ned" with the approval of the Cardinal Archbishop, reveals a liberal and truly democrats spirit as veil as an ti"flinchin.c: eondemof extreme. iHocriral. and anarchical theories. It sdiould bo read by ail students of social progress.