Pius XI in Longhand

With his own right hand, his own pen. Pope Pius XI traced the 20,000 words of Quadragesima Anno, his encyclical on Capital & Labor, issued last week in Vatican City. Fortnight ago a vague 2,000-word official summary was released (TIME, May 25). The actual words of His Holiness last week were fresh and vibrant, precise and bold. Most remarkable were those passages in which the Supreme Pontiff pronounced squarely upon three basic elements in the life of almost every human being: the corporation, the factory, the machine.

Corporations. Upon corporations great & small Pius XI made this infallible* pronouncement: "The regulations legally enacted for corporations, with their divided responsibility and limited liability, have given occasion to abominable abuses. The greatly weakened accountability makes little impression, as is evident, upon the conscience. The worst injustices and frauds take place beneath the obscurity of the common name of a corporative firm. Boards of directors proceed in their unconscionable methods even to the violation of their trust in regard to those whose savings they administer."

Factories: "The mind shudders if we consider the frightful perils to which the morals of workers (of boys and young men particularly) and the virtue of girls and women are exposed in modern factories; if we recall how the present economic regime and above all the disgraceful housing conditions prove obstacles to the family tie and family life; if we remember the insuperable difficulties placed in the way of a proper observance of the holy days."

Machines: "How universally has the true Christian spirit become impaired which formerly produced such lofty sentiments even in uncultured and illiterate men! In its stead, man's one solicitude is to obtain his daily bread in any way he can, and so bodily labor, which was decreed by Providence for the good of man's body and soul even after original sin, has everywhere been changed into an instrument of strange perversion; for dead matter leaves the factory ennobled and transformed, where men are corrupted and degraded."

Communists. In the most intense portion of his encyclical Pope Pius termed Communists degenerate, cruel, inhuman, impious, nefarious, and many of their works ghastly. "One section of Socialism," declared His Holiness, "has degenerated into Communism. Communism teaches and pursues a two-fold aim: Merciless class warfare and complete abolition of private ownership. And this it does, not in secret and by hidden methods, but openly, frankly and by every means, even the most violent. To obtain these ends, Communists shrink from nothing and fear nothing, and when they have attained power, it is unbelievable, indeed, it seems portentous, how cruel and inhuman they show themselves to be. Evidence for this is the ghastly destruction and ruin with which they have laid waste immense tracts of Eastern Europe and Asia, while their antagonism and open hostility to Holy Church and to God himself are, alas, but too well known and proved by their deeds.

"We do not think it necessary to warn upright and faithful children of the Church against the impious and nefarious character of Communism."

Minimum Wage. A Catholic cannot be a Communist, but can he be a Socialist? Before answering this question last week Pius XI made clear his general position respecting Labor. He is for the minimum wage:

"The wage paid to the workingman must be sufficient for the support of himself and his family. . . . Intolerable and to be opposed with all our strength is the abuse whereby mothers of families, because of the insufficiency of the father's salary, are forced to engage in gainful occupations outside the domestic walls."

In the second place Pius XI is not only for private property but urged that each workman should acquire a "modest fortune" and that social steps should be taken to ensure this, as well as to stamp out unemployment, "a dreadful scourge.''

As to precisely what steps should be taken His Holiness examined and admitted the advantages of syndicalism, having evidently studied Fascist syndicalism, but concluded "there are some who fear that the State is substituting itself in the place of private initiative. ... It is feared that the new syndical and corporative institution possesses an excessively bureaucratic and political character."

To avoid these excesses, while retaining the admitted benefits of syndicalism, His Holiness appeared to favor a system of co-operation between Capital & Labor based upon local units, similar in scope to the medieval guilds. Syndicalism on a national scale he thought too great a concentration of "vehement power" (in such hands as Benito Mussolini's, not of course mentioned by name). A sufficient overseeing influence Pius XI discerned in "the blessing of God" and "the co-operation of all men of good will."

"Christian Socialism" Having thus clearly stated his own, advanced social views, the Supreme Pontiff was ready to answer the question whether a Catholic can be a Socialist. He did so thus: "This is a question which holds many minds in suspense; and many are the Catholics who, realizing clearly that Christian principles can never be either sacrificed or minimized, seem to be raising their eyes toward the Holy See, and earnestly beseeching us to decide whether or not . . . Socialism has retracted so far its false doctrines that it can now be accepted without the loss of any Christian principle, and be baptized into the Church.

"In our fatherly solicitude we desire to satisfy these petitions, and we pronounce as follows: Whether Socialism be considered as a doctrine, or as a historical fact, or as a movement, if it really remain Socialism, it cannot be brought into harmony with the dogmas of the Catholic Church, even after it has yielded to truth and justice in the points we have mentioned; the reason being that it conceives human society in a way utterly alien to Christian truth."

Pius XI defined last week "the principle peculiar to Socialism, namely opposition to the Christian faith." Well knowing that the Catholic party of Austria calls itself the "Christian & Socialist Party" and that the largest party in Germany as in Great Britain is the Socialist party, His Holiness boldly declared: " 'Religious Socialism,' 'Christian Socialism' are expressions implying a contradiction in terms. No one can be at the same time a sincere Catholic and a true Socialist."

Thus Pius XI last week advanced and liberalized the Vatican's attitude toward Capital and Labor, but reasserted the stand of rich, world-potent Mother Church on the side of Capital against Communism, with, however, greater solicitude than ever for the toiling classes to whom Leo XIII said: "Poverty is no disgrace."

*When speaking ex-cathedra or in an encyclical, bull, etc. the Pope assumes a formal infallibility not attaching to his lesser, daily remarks.

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