Part 11 — CATHOLIC WORLD.
Reading edition
VOL. XIV., No. 83.—FEBRUARY, 1872.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by Rev. S. T. Hecker, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
THE DUTIES OF THE RICH IN CHRISTIAN SOCIETY.
NO. I.
IN REFERENCE TO COMMUNISM.
Since we expect to say some things to the rich, and to those who are by other advantages besides wealth in an elevated social position, which will be severe, and perhaps to some unpalatable, we may as well begin by placing a guard against a possible misunderstanding of our intent. No careful reader of our magazine can suppose that we would sympathize with or encourage any movement hostile to the just rights or reasonable privileges of the wealthy class. Moreover, we cherish a deep respect for all the hierarchical institutions of the political and social order, as well as for their more sacred and elevated counterparts in the ecclesiastical system. We recognize the necessity, even in our republican commonwealth, of a certain elevated social class, in which men of wealth must unavoidably have an eminent position. Whatever we have which can check our ultra-democratic tendencies, infuse a conservative spirit into our public opinion, give dignity, decorum, and stability to our institutions, elevate and refine our social tone, and add a becoming splendor to our civilization, calls forth our sympathies, and receives our deliberate and reasoned approbation. Whatever censures, therefore, we may pronounce upon the vices, follies, and delinquencies of the rich and the otherwise highly placed in social rank, and whatever admonitions we may address to them respecting the duties and dangers of their position, must be taken as coming from a friend, not only to themselves as individuals, but to their class. With these preliminaries, we address ourselves to our task.
We have placed the title “In Reference to Communism” at the head of our first article for one special reason. Communism threatens the wealthy class with a war of extermination. It is obvious, therefore, that the rich have more need to reflect on the duties and dangers of their position, at the present time, than they have ever had before. So, then, we call their attention at the outset to the war which the fanatics of revolution are preparing for them, in order that our words may have more weight, and that they may give more serious thought to the subjects we intend to discuss with them. And here we will explain that we employ the single terms “rich,” “rich people,” etc., for convenience’ sake, including under this designation other qualifications besides moneyed wealth, and other persons besides those who possess great fortunes; namely, all those who possess any species of privilege or power which gives them social dignity and influence.
We say, then, to the rich: your class, your privileges, your possessions, your lives, are threatened by an enemy whose character is disclosed by the bloody orgies of the Paris Commune. What application do we make of this grave and alarming fact? Simply this. The rich members of society ought to reflect seriously on all the questions which relate to their position in the commonwealth. They ought to think of their duties, to examine their own delinquencies,
All this would he strictly true and sufficient to arouse the rich to a greater vigilance in fulfilling the duties of their high position, even if they were free from blame, as a class, for the disorders and evils of modern society; but, if they are chiefly to blame for these evils through their past neglect and delinquency, there is an additional and imperative motive in this fact for a strenuous effort on their part to repair the past in the present and the future by a redoubled fidelity and energy. We think they are to blame. It is our deliberate judgment that communism, and the whole mass of social disorders which have lately come to the surface of the body politic under this loathsome and deadly form, are principally to be traced to the abuse of power and wealth by the governing classes. Kings, nobles, rich men, authors, politicians, have, in part by their gross abuse of the trust committed to them, and in part by their neglect and indifference, generated the moral petroleum to which demagogues and leaders of revolution, the Mazzinis, Garibaldis, Karl Marxes, Dombrowskis, and Raoul Rigaults, have applied the torch. There have been many great and good things done by kings, and by the members of the political, social, and intellectual aristocracy. There have been many admirable and excellent persons, many heroes and saints, among these elevated classes in society. Nevertheless, on the whole, they have been, especially for the past three centuries, grievously delinquent, and continually becoming worse; and even more extensively delinquent by neglect than by positive criminality. The greatest part of the miseries and crimes which darken the annals of history may be traced to kings and their associates in government. Their ambition, their selfish policy, their renaissance of paganism, have prostituted their heaven-born gifts to the service of every destructive error and every corrupting vice. The greater number of those who have not positively aided the work of ruin have been apathetic and indifferent, and have not positively aided the work of salvation, at least with the zeal and energy which might justly be expected from them.
Moreover, kings, nobles, and the wealthy class have made war on the church. They have revolted against the Holy See, enslaved the hierarchy and the clergy, and despoiled the church.
They have robbed and well-nigh suppressed the monastic orders. In this way, they have sapped and undermined the foundations of their own stability; for it is the principle of religious obedience and reverence, first of all toward God, and then secondarily toward all powers established and sanctioned by the law of God, which is the source of the sentiment of loyalty. The rebellion of the state against the church must, therefore, terminate in the rebellion of the lower against the higher classes in the state. The monastic institution was the strongest of all links between rich and poor, great and humble, by reason of the fact that its members belonged to both classes at the same time. The destruction of monasticism, therefore, resulted necessarily in a hostility of these two classes toward each other. So it has come about that the aristocracy, excited by kings against the church, turned next against the kings, the commercial and middle classes turned against the aristocracy, and now the masses are turning against the men of wealth, or, as their own leaders express it, against “the supremacy of cash.” The condition of the laboring classes is, at best, in many respects a hard one. It is a great and an arduous thing which is required of them; to submit patiently to the supremacy of the higher classes. Religion alone makes their position tolerable; religion, binding together both the superior and the inferior classes in divine love. The hierarchy and the aristocracy must be recognized by the people as holding their high position for the common good of all, and as working with a self-denial equal or superior to their own; that is, as really laborers in another sphere of action, but with a common end in view, in order that they may contentedly acquiesce in the inequality of rank, wealth, and social privileges which prevails in society. So soon as the people are convinced, whether wrongly or rightly, that the privileges of their spiritual or temporal superiors are mere privileges of a caste, which despises, rules, and taxes the people for its own selfish aggrandizement and pleasure, they begin to hate them with a deadly hatred. The Catholic people are content that the Pope govern, rebuke, and punish them; that he possess the wealth and splendor of a spiritual and temporal sovereign; that he reign as the vicegerent of God on earth—because they believe that all this is for their own highest good. They are content that bishops and priests possess Egalité of Geneva, in order to show with the utmost clearness what is their spirit and aim:
“When the social revolution shall have dispossessed the bourgeoisie, in the interests of public utility, as the bourgeoisie dispossessed the nobles and the clergy, what will become of them?
“We cannot answer with positive certainty, but it is probable that the new order of things will give them, to borrow an expression from one of our friends, an infinitely more precious wealth, that of labor, well paid, at their discretion; so that they may be no longer obliged to live by the labor of others, as they have hitherto lived. In case some of them should be incapable of labor, which will happen to a good many, seeing that hitherto they have never learned the use of their ten fingers, what then? Well, then they will be given tickets for soup.
“‘But that is too little,’ the bourgeois will howl.
“‘Too little!’ the workman will reply—‘too little to have work, at your discretion, well paid, and soup for the invalids! The deuce! You are hard to please. We could have been well satisfied with such terms formerly.’”[119]
This is the unavoidable conclusion, and the practical as well as unavoidable conclusion, to which the whole mass of the people must come, unless they are convinced that the rich labor more usefully for the common good, and for the good of the poor, by means of their wealth with its attendant privileges, than they would by manual labor. They cannot be convinced of this, unless rich and poor alike recognize the truth of religious and Christian principles, and act on them practically. On the materialistic, anti-theistic ground, you cannot get a foothold against communism. It is all a waste of words to show that civilization, art and science, social and political splendor, national greatness, etc., require the concentration of wealth in a few hands. What does the poor man care for these, if this life is all, material good the summum bonum, and he himself miserable? His condition becomes insupportable, and he would rather burn the world with petroleum than bear it. It is very true that his desperate efforts will make his condition far worse. But he will not listen to you when you try to prove this to him, and, if you should even convince him, you would only render him more desperate. He must believe that he is under the government of God, that he has been redeemed by Christ, that heaven is opened to him by faith, that this world is a place for gaining merit by labor and suffering, that the difference in rank, wealth, and privilege is ordered by God for the good of all and every one, if he is to be contented with his lot. For him is the Pope, the bishop, the priest, the splendid church, the glittering vestments and chalices. For him, too, is government, for him is commerce and trade, for him science and art, for him are some
If the people are to be convinced of this, they must see that their spiritual and temporal superiors are convinced of it, and act accordingly. The rich as well as the poor must act on Christian principles—act as men who have a trust committed to them for the common good. They must, in a word, be zealous laborers in their own sphere. And it is especially incumbent on them, at the present time, to do everything possible to ameliorate and elevate the condition of that class of society who are not merely doomed to a life of manual labor, but to a life of misery and degradation. The people have been taught that they possess political sovereignty, and universal suffrage has given them the right and power to exercise it. Can they be expected, then, to remain content for ever with a sovereignty which is united with a state of social abjectness and misery? Is it safe or prudent to neglect, despise, or insult them; or to swindle them and defraud them of their rights, and at the same time to flaunt before their eyes the gaudy insignia of what they believe to be ill-gotten wealth? Especially when we consider that they read the newspaper every day. We leave it to our rich merchants and our educated men to think over and answer to themselves these questions.
For ourselves, we are convinced that the only safety for the wealthy class, and for society, is to be found in a return to purely Christian and Catholic principles. And we shall proceed to give our views more definitely and in detail upon the part which devolves on the rich in this work of social regeneration, in our future articles.