An Appeal for Activism

However conservative he may be in matters of traditional doctrine and discipline, Pope Paul VI has always had a warm predilection for social activism. As Archbishop Giovanni Battista Montini of Milan, he initiated a range of programs for the workers and poor of that problem-plagued archdiocese. In his travels as Pope, he has repeatedly made a point of seeking out the sick and impoverished. His remarkable 1967 social encyclical, Populorum Progressio (On the Development of Peoples), called on nations to engage in a worldwide program of aggressive social action. Now comes an apostolic letter* in which the Pope addresses his appeal for social reform to the individual Christian, describing personal involvement as a duty.

In acting, the Pope warned, Catholics should eschew both the "dangerous and illusory" appeal of Marxism, as irreconcilable with a Christian concept of man, and the lure of unrestrained liberalism, which exalts the individual beyond social obligations. He called for action, determined at a local level to meet specific situations, to bring about "modern forms of democracy" that combine equality with participation. Though he named no names or specific deeds--except for a favorable reference to worker priests--a source close to him gave some examples of what the Pope had in mind, and they are likely to inflame the existing debate over activism in the church.

The Vatican aide cited approvingly both the U.S. activities of the Berrigan brothers (provided they did not resort to violent methods) and the widespread campaign to improve living conditions for migrant workers. He also pointed to the dedication of Archbishop Helder Pessoa Camara of Recife to Brazil's poor, and the work of Peruvian Bishop Luis Barbaren, "the slum bishop," who devotes his time to the slum dwellers around Lima. One common denominator of such forthright action is a degree of risk, as Bishop Barbaren found out last week; Peruvian authorities arrested him as an "agitator in a cassock."

New Proletariat. The Pope's message, 66 pages and some 12,000 words long, makes it clear that a considerable degree of commitment is necessary to overcome social ills, which the papal document views as unusually formidable. Grinding urbanization is among the Pope's prime targets. The "inordinate growth" of cities has left men with "a new loneliness in an anonymous crowd.

Instead of favoring fraternal encounter and mutual aid, the city fosters discrimination and indifference. It is the weakest who are victims of dehumanizing living conditions." Cities create a "new proletariat" of the aged, the maladjusted, the handicapped and others on the fringes of society.

Conspicuous consumption is another target. "While very large areas of the population are unable to satisfy their primary needs, superfluous needs are ingeniously created. Is [man] not now becoming the slave of the objects he makes?" Paul also scores the "ill-considered exploitation of nature" that may create "an environment for tomorrow which may well be intolerable." Yet on population control he hews to the line he established in Populorum Progressio: governments may encourage only those birth control methods that conform to "the moral law" (i.e., rhythm).

One notable theme in the letter, one that some might find ironic coming from the Vatican, is a warning against concentrated masses of power or influence. The Pope attacks huge multinational corporations that can "conduct autonomous strategies largely independent of national political powers." He also warns of another "new power," the communications media. Television, he notes, echoing Marshall McLuhan, has created "an original mode of knowledge and a new civilization: that of the image."

In discussing Christianity's special concern for the poor, the Pope suggests a voluntary redistribution of wealth: "The more fortunate should renounce some of their rights so as to place their goods more generously at the service of others." His one caveat on individual action is a specific warning against violence; he notes the mistakes of "certain members of the church who have attempted violent and radical solutions." But his letter is an insistent demand on the Christian conscience for action. He says: "It is not enough to recall principles, state intentions, point to crying injustices and utter prophetic denunciations. These words will lack real weight unless they are accompanied for each individual by a livelier awareness of personal responsibility and by effective action."

* An apostolic letter differs from an encyclical mainly in form; it is addressed not to the church at large but to one person, in this case Maurice Cardinal Roy of Quebec, president of the Vatican's Council of Laity and the Pontifical Commission on Justice and Peace. But it carries roughly the same teaching authority as an encyclical.

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