The Pope Speaks

To millions of Catholics who had long awaited guidance, to statesmen who cocked careful ears on both sides of the battle lines, Pope Pius XII last week broadcast his first solemn pronouncement on basic social issues--the rights of the individual v. the growing power of the State; the equitable distribution of social goods; the relations of capital & labor; the importance of the family; the necessity of Lebensraum for overcrowded peoples; the need for a return to the land. The Pope's address charted the rights and obligations of Catholics in a changing society and foreshadowed the Church's determination to have a hand in making a new order when peace comes.

Occasion was the 50th anniversary of Leo XIII's famed social encyclical, Rerum Novarum. Originally the Pope had intended to bring Rerum Novarum up to date in an encyclical of his own. Instead, he decided to speak directly by radio to that "worldwide Catholic meeting" made possible by "this most expedite bridge which the inventive genius of our age throws across the ether in a flash." The Pope declared his purpose "to give some further directive moral principles and three fundamental values of social and economic life: the use of material goods, labor, and the family." He gave them in a series of powerful assertions:

> On the Role of the Church: "It is . . . the indisputable competence of the Church ... to decide whether the bases of a given social system are in accord with the unchangeable order" of God.

> On the Rights of the Individual: The power of the State "does not imply a power so extensive over the members of the community that in virtue of it the public authority can interfere with the evolution of that individual . . . decide on the beginning or the ending of human life, determine at will the manner of his physical, spiritual and moral movements." This would mean "falling into the error that the proper scope of man on earth is society, that society is an end in itself."

> On the Distribution of Goods: "The goods which were created by God for all men should flow equally to all according to the principles of justice and charity."

> On Labor: "The duty and the right to organize the labor of the people belongs above all to the people immediately interested: the employers and the workers. . . . Every legitimate and beneficial interference of the State in the field of labor should be such as to guard and respect its personal character. ..." > On the Family: "In the family the nation finds the natural and fecund roots of its greatness and power. ... A so-called civil progress would be unnatural which--either through the excessive burdens imposed or through exaggerated direct influence--were to render private property void of significance, practically taking from the family and its head the freedom to follow the scope set by God for the perfection of family life."

> On the Land: "Only that stability which is rooted in one's own holding makes of the family the most vital and most perfect and fecund cell of society."

> On Lebensraum: The world has many "habitable regions and vital spaces now lying abandoned to wild natural vegetation and well suited to be cultivated by man. . . . We [urge] the more favorable distribution of men on the earth's surface . . . that surface which God created and prepared for the use of all."

To this declaration in favor of Lebensraum no man of democracy in favor of just and workable post-Hitler peace could object. Nor could Fascists well object to it. The Pope had taken away from the Nazis one of their most useful slogans, and substituted for a solution by violent conquest, a solution of peace and justice.

Squelched last week by Secretaries Stimson and Knox were church-backed bills to prohibit liquor sales near Army and Navy centers.

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