| Editor : Abbé Georges de Nantes | N° 79 – April 2009 |
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THE COUNCIL, ALTHOUGH A HAPPINESS-MERCHANT,
HAS CAUSED THE MISFORTUNE OF PEOPLES
We must continue reading and commenting on Gaudium et Spes’s third chapter from the point where the Abbé de Nantes had left off in paragraph 64 (cf. He is Risen n° 77, February 2009). The world-wide financial, economic, and social “crisis” into which the planet is sinking, makes it our urgent duty to do so. The Church’s silence is all the more deafening because an encyclical dealing with this subject is periodically announced to us but is not forthcoming…
The Holy Father has justified himself to the parish priests of the diocese of Rome whom he meets every year at the beginning of Lent. One of them pointed out to him that, faced with the state of emergency brought about by this crisis, the Church indeed contributes concrete help to people in difficulty but does not contribute solutions.
The Pope answered:
« As you are aware, we have been preparing an encyclical on these subjects for a long time now. In this long course, I have noticed how difficult it is to speak competently about a certain economical reality; if we do not competently tackle it, we cannot be credible. »
Let us give it a try! And first, here is the explanation for the catalepsy that Benedict XVI has admitted. The philosophy of the Enlightenment and of the Revolution of 1789 that broke the whole ancient order (cf. St Pius X, Letter on the Silllon, n° 44), under the pretext of « freeing people » from the ancient tutelages of corporations in a philanthropic spirit, has, rather, deprived them of all protection. Such a deprivation has benefited an ever more powerful owning class that the “system” allows to enrich itself endlessly, to dominate the economy, and to establish itself as solid dynasties, coalitions, multinational companies. Materialism, the philosophical name for vice and selfishness, began to poison men’s spirit and heart. One “commandment”: “Get rich!” now determines the struggle of each individual for life and his immediate self-interest, heedless of a higher order or any benevolence or charity towards others.
This monstrosity has given birth to two rivals.
The elder one is liberal capitalism, which has given primacy to money under pretext apparently of the requirements for industrialisation. It has instituted a supposed « economic science », which is not innocent. It serves the interest of property owners by means of the sway that money holds over the goods and labour market. Its aim is to fill the coffers of property owners by developing production and by raking in profits in order to increase capital. The axiom, which has become a dogma, is: produce more, always more by buying raw material at the lowest possible price, by making labourers work ever more while paying them the least possible.
Liberal capitalism’s younger brother is proletarian socialism, which gives primacy to the working masses under the apparent justification of an ideal, fraternal organisation of society. Even the « social moral doctrine » that results from it is not innocent. It favours labour in sharing out capital gain and makes it a rule to obtain the maximum salary for the worker. It imposes, in the name of justice and equality, a distribution of goods and profit-sharing. By means of authoritarian State intervention, all the capital accumulated in the hands of a few people is thereby gradually distributed to all, in the name of the solidarity of a really democratic society.
Under the influence of these two conflicting forms of materialism, our Western society has slowly advanced towards a compromise solution. Capitalism manages the production system of goods and the profit of money and thereby provides the stakes. But it lets itself be divested of a part of its profits and goods, through the combined effort of trade union claims and interventions of the Socialist state.
In this context, Leo XIII inaugurated what was going to be called the « social doctrine of the Church ». The Abbé de Nantes has never ceased denouncing it as « putting a mere bandage upon the capitalo-socialist system », which is as baneful as it is unrealistic.
In fact, since this doctrine considers “capital” and “labour” as established powers, it does not challenge an “economic science” that is totally directed towards the increase of wealth, which it respects in the name of “progress” and “the course of history”. Considering that it will always be so, it only claims to intervene at the stage of the distribution and sharing out of profits between the classes of both property owners and labourers that have been pitted against each other.
Thus, this doctrine presents itself as an enlightened and motivated collaborator of « social morality » and justifies popular claims for better payment for work by calling for an ever wider and costlier recognition of the « dignity of the human person » and of the rights that result from it. It continually inflates the share in the capital gain to distribute to workers because of new considerations: the needs of the family, the risks incurred, sickness, retirement, unemployment...
However, since it maintains the state of conflict – a fruit of the French Revolution – between « unions and management » as a platform for its analyses and demands, it actually consolidates their fortresses. While it is easy for « labourers » to use the Church’s lofty lines of argument to advance their class interests in the name of their « morality » and to call for unfettered State intervention, « capitalists », on the other hand, obstruct them based on the economic impossibilities that their « economic science » dictates, a « science » that the Church scrupulously recognises and respects!
Thus it is that the system has endured for more than a century, getting peoples bogged down in a shameful materialism that generates more injustice than wealth.
The « social doctrine of the Church » was at first “liberal” under Leo XIII; it became “democratic” under Pius XI, then “progressivist” under Paul VI, and finally “Communist” under John Paul II. As early as 1981, the Abbé de Nantes produced proof of it when he denounced the encyclical Laborem exercens « as a capitalism because it supposes that there is a superabundance of wealth to distribute and to throw out the window; as state socialism because it appeals for a world government that will ensure justice and equality in the distribution of work; and, finally, as a Communist collectivism because of its utopia of a unanimity that takes class warfare to a new plane by means of a moral disqualification of the bourgeoisie. »
The situation is now at a standstill, our Father explains. The flourishing “capitalo-socialism” of the years 1945-1975, to which the Church rallied during the Second Vatican Council and that she is still supporting today in the name of the “rights of Man” and the « dignity of the human Person », will not be able to withstand the shock of the crisis through which we are going. « The system only exists through the ever increasing outpouring of goods and profits, but the infernal machine is seizing up and running out of steam before our eyes, just as an aging organism. It is still supported by a “social doctrine of the Church”, which, for its part, is nothing more than a “mummy once honoured in the past”. »
Fleeced, tied up, and dissuaded from undertaking and risking anything, Capitalism no longer invents anything or struggles, and the sources of its wealth are drying up. As for Socialism, it discourages the stuffed masses from working, exaggerates their claims, and turns the poor into persons living on hand-outs.
The market and labour, the lifeblood of industrial society, are being exhausted and emptied of their substance. In order to give themselves activity and profit, they resort to external market and labour, but this headlong flight aggravates the peril and precipitates the « crisis ». Today we are approaching this extremity, which may turn out to be decisive for giving rise to a salutary reaction. When there is no money left to give a return, to fight over, to waste, the time of communitarian ecology will have come. It will also be the time of God and the king.
In order to prepare ourselves for it, we must understand the responsibility of the Fathers and Popes of the Second Vatican Council in the present decomposition of our society. To this end, let us resume the commentary on Gaudium et Spes at the beginning of the third chapter.
PASTORAL CONSTITUTION ON THE CHURCH
IN THE MODERN WORLD
GAUDIUM ET SPES
(7 December 1965)
Second part
CHAPTER III
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL LIFE
SOME FEATURES OF ECONOMIC LIFE.
63 § 1. « In the economic and social realms, too, the dignity and complete vocation of the human person and the welfare of society as a whole are to be respected and promoted. For man is the source, the centre, and the purpose of all economic and social life. »
It does not occur to our conciliar Fathers that « the welfare of society » may clash with the interest of « man » or his « vocation »!
As though the aforesaid society were only a collection of free and autonomous individuals and not a group of families that organised themselves in the framework of our villages, our regions, our country!
This text sets out as a principle that the “rights of man” are the common denominator on which men of « society as a whole » must agree for prosperity to reign throughout the world. We can see today the outcome of this chimera: it takes shape in a revolutionary project in which everything that does not satisfy the aspirations and claims of « man » is considered as “unjust”.
In order to thwart this chimera, in order to recover from it « in the economic and social realms, too », « the first thing necessary, therefore, is to authorise and restore family liberty, to allow it to live and to expand. Such a liberty implies authority, property and responsibility. In other words: decision, capability, and prudence. » (The 150 Points of the Phalange, Catholic, Royal, Communitarian, n° 107, 2).
§ 2. « Like other areas of social life, the economy of today is marked by man’s increasing domination over nature, by closer and more intense relationships between citizens, groups, and countries and their mutual dependence, and by the increased intervention of the state. At the same time progress in the methods of production and in the exchange of goods and services has made the economy an instrument capable of better meeting the intensified needs of the human family. »
This text draws up a very positive and also very vague sociological list, yet one that contains socialist tendencies. « The increased intervention of the state » seems to be a fact of nature. Economic « progress » is really the ultimate reality, the one that will make happiness on earth possible for everyone.
The text overlooks the ideologies that animate this « economy of today », and so, no value judgement is passed on them. It also fails to tell us what the Good God thinks of all this.
This utopian claim to immediate material happiness for all provokes the dissolution of society due to the fact that each individual now acquires the supreme rule of turning everything to his own individual advantage, with no respect for anything, no fear of any sanction, nor love for anyone. He now acts in the stupid or savage cult of his immediate pleasure alone.
As for us, we affirm that our condition implies the search for the good of the family; the science and art of this common life of a single family, among families, of men in general, is called “ecology”. It is regulated by the virtue of prudence, a natural virtue and a practical wisdom applied to the creation, development and conservation of the material and spiritual patrimony of families, which is, in the temporal order, the first goal of human works.
Now, the modern economy, which is presently collapsing, knowingly tends to replace the real needs of individuals with illusory desires, the compelling necessities of their condition with their arbitrary and passing wishes, their certain duties with their self-styled rights, and finally their true good with the pleasures of the moment. It is an anti-ecology that is barbarous and inhuman. This is primarily because it wants to be and indeed is, fundamentally democratic. As a result, it would suffice for men, whether Christians or not, to seek the good of their family, to apply themselves to this natural prudence, in order to be led to reject the impious democracy founded on the Revolution’s principles.
Alas, through a distressing correspondence of views, contemporary Catholic economists have rallied to this system, establishing a Christian (!) democratic economy. They have kept the monumental error of the system, which is individualism. But they have thought to remedy it by calling it « personalism » and by transfiguring it into the profound search – too profound! – for the person’s dignity, his well-being, and his spiritual and moral rights in this temporal life! Thus the whole economy should be in the service, not indeed of the individual who, according to them, comes under society and is therefore subject to its impositions, but of the person, the possessor of sacred, inviolable and imprescriptible rights, who is therefore superior to any common law.
No! Economic society is not for the person, nor for his salvation (theory of the years 1930-1960), nor for his liberation (theory of the years 1960-1980). But man, who receives everything from his family and who owes it everything, only finds his proper ecological finality in the common good of his own family, which must not be confused with the mythical concept of the « human family ».
§ 3. « Reasons for anxiety, however, are not lacking. Many people, especially in economically advanced areas, seem, as it were, to be ruled by economics, so that almost their entire personal and social life is penetrated with a certain economic way of thinking. Such is true both of nations that favour a collective economy and of others. »
This “economic way of thinking” is the consequence of democracy in its two versions: capitalist or socialist. Such is the principle of Evil, of all the evils that flow from it. The Council contents itself with observing without criticising, because in the eyes of the Fathers and the “periti”, there only exists the “modern world” and its “values” born of the Revolution.
« At the very time when the development of economic life could mitigate social inequalities (here is the first opposition of a moral element, our Father observes, pointing out that it comes from leftist propaganda and not, as it is commonly and wrongly thought, from the Gospel), provided that it be guided and coordinated in a reasonable and human way, it is often made to embitter them; or, in some places, it even results in a decline of the social status of the underprivileged and in contempt for the poor. »
The Council pins all its hope on the economy, which is capable of anything, on condition of putting an end to the inhuman selfishness of the rich.
« While an immense number of people still lack the absolute necessities of life, some, even in less advanced areas, live in luxury or squander wealth. Extravagance and wretchedness exist side by side (As our Father says: « The shock formula has been found », but the Council moralises and preaches in the wilderness for want of political authorities that are eager to put its instructions into practice). While a few enjoy very great power of choice, the majority are deprived of almost all possibility of acting on their own initiative and responsibility, and often subsist in living and working conditions unworthy of the human person. »
It is Marxist sociology. It is not the language of the Church, who always strove to extinguish the flames of envy and to preach confidence in God and resignation. Even if it meant exhorting the rich to charity rather than threatening them with strikes...
§ 4. « A similar lack of economic and social balance is to be noticed between agriculture, industry, and the services, and also between different parts of one and the same country. The contrast between the economically more advanced countries and other countries is becoming more serious day by day, and the very peace of the world can be jeopardised thereby. »
This is populism and demagogy. These inequalities and lack of balance are not facts of nature for the Council, nor are they the reward for the virtues of a people or the chastisement for the vices that it maintains through its false religion. No! They are monstrous injustices that cry out for vengeance, and « the very peace of the world can be jeopardised thereby ». There is no analysis of this mechanism. A fortiori, there is no critique of the system that is responsible for everything, economical liberalism that places money and man, Having and Need, in a direct relationship without any need for mediation. It thus creates a collaboration, not of communitarian exchange, as it would seem, but of servitude, coupling the natural flow of the production of goods for consumption to the profit flow of money lent and repaid with usury. The whole of liberal economic science is the organisation of this parasitical addition of the capitalist flow to the economic flow, all for the purpose of its own maximum profit.
« It was foreseeable that those exploited by the system, the proletariat of the nineteenth century, the third world of the twentieth century, should become aware of this perfect trickery in order to pay back in kind. All they had to do was to stand together and maintain high demand in the face of short supply, at the risk of starvation; and in the face of high demand to maintain a meagre supply, come what may! It is the fight for wages, increases in the price of petrol... There comes a time when everyone is equally good at the game, equally devoid of scruples, and also just as exclusively focused on making a profit as is the capitalist class. Then, there is no great profit in the game for anyone. » (The vengeance of the exploited, Point n° 115).
§ 5. « Our contemporaries are coming to feel these inequalities with an ever sharper awareness, since they are thoroughly convinced that the ampler technical and economic possibilities which the world of today enjoys can and should correct this unhappy state of affairs. Hence, many reforms in the socioeconomic realm and a change of mentality and attitude are required of all. »
« Granted! men believed in the myth of perpetual and accelerated progress in those years 1961-1971, when the Council was listening to them, our Father wrote. The situation has completely changed, the myth of progress has given way to a despair that is just as unjustified… ». With the help of the “crisis”, despair has worsened. While, on the contrary, the sanction that events has produced should be an incentive to « bring the social problem down to its strictest and most human proportions, by putting it in the context of local and regional communities, trading, industrial and professional activities, instead of imprudently extending it to the national level, or even the multinational and international level. » (Solution of the social problem, Point n° 139).
Such are the « many reforms » that the Council reckons to be « required ». But it does not go into any further detail on their content, still less on their objective. Following our « doctrine of communitarian ecology », their purpose should be « that collaboration and mutual service between the various members of the world of work may prevail in men’s minds, as they do in daily reality, over the antagonism of private interests and systematic class warfare.
« To rent land or to cultivate it, to lend money or invest it in an undertaking, to employ workmen or to apply for work, are all fraternal human acts, mutual agreements establishing a common interest, the success, stability and better development of which has to be ensured by the prudence of the beneficiaries. It is amazing that in our Christian political society, these myriads of human relationships in the material order have become as many sparks in one great blaze of hatred, firebrands of discord between faceless and soulless collective powers in a world suddenly struck by destructive madness.
« The immense complexity of modern economic life must not discourage those who invoke fraternity from proposing clear ecological principles, simple corporatist solutions to the social problem, drawn from reflection on nature and on history. Such principles will in any case be truer, more just, and more likely to succeed than any of the inhuman and irrational theories of those who, in the name of liberty and equality, have piled ruin upon ruin and have led the modern world to unavoidable catastrophe. » (ibid.)
SECTION I
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AT THE SERVICE OF MAN
64. § 1. « Today more than ever before attention (whose attention?) is rightly given to the increase of the production of agricultural and industrial goods and of the rendering of services, for the purpose of making provision for the growth of population and of satisfying the increasing desires of the human race (what are planetary « desires »?). Therefore, technical progress, an inventive spirit, an eagerness to create and to expand enterprises, the application of methods of production, and the strenuous efforts of all who engage in production –in a word, all the elements making for such development – must be promoted. »
These lines, which are tinged with the euphoria of the sixties, appear laughable today.
« The fundamental finality of this production is not the mere increase of products nor profit or control but rather the service of man (the conciliar revolution lies in these lines. Previous to the Council, the Church used to make all our works a service of God, a service determined in accord with this sole aim of submitting everything to Him through a divine, Christian, and thus supernatural morality), and indeed of the whole man with regard for the full range (sic) of his material needs and the demands of his intellectual, moral, spiritual (ah! still), and religious (marvellous!) life; this applies to every man whatsoever and to every group of men, of every race and of every part of the world. Consequently, economic activity is to be carried on according to its own methods and laws (who defines them? The “oligarchs”? Militants of Catholic Action?) within the limits of the moral order (same question. In the past, the Church turned earthly things into an object of divine, Christian, and thus supernatural morality, which came from God and was turned towards Him. Even the Church of the Counter-Reformation persevered in this will to submit everything to Christ against the pagan humanism of the Renaissance and of the Protestant Reform that split both natural and supernatural elements from a Christian social order: here, the natural is snatched from Christ, and there the supernatural is enclosed in consciences), so that God’s plan for mankind may be realised. »
« God’s plan for mankind » is not very explicit! A note, however, refers us in extremis to the Gospel and to St. Paul. Whoever refers to it will read: « What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? » (Mt 16:26). Still one must understand what it means: eternal « life » is at sake! The teaching of the Council is totally different, as it is specified in § 7 of the decree on the Apostolate of the Laity:
« God’s plan for the world is that men should work together to renew and constantly perfect the temporal order. »
The decree insists to the point of heresy:
« All those things which make up the temporal order, namely, the good things of life and the prosperity of the family, culture, economic matters, the arts and professions, the laws of the political community, international relations, and other matters of this kind, as well as their development and progress, not only aid in the attainment of man’s ultimate goal but also possess their own intrinsic value. This value has been established in them by God. »
So, God wants the world to make a success of its technico- cultural development. The purpose in so doing is « to unite all things, both natural and supernatural, in Christ ».
What about Heaven? It is implied by those who are aware of it. But it is no longer « the only goal of our works » (St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus), far from it! The tower of Babel must also be built and blessed: « This destination, the decree on the Apostolate of the Laity continues, not only does not deprive the temporal order of its independence, its proper goals, laws, supports, and significance for human welfare but rather perfects the temporal order in its own intrinsic strength and worth and puts it on a level with man’s whole vocation upon earth »!
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT UNDER MAN’S DETERMINATION
65. § 1. « Economic development must remain under man’s determination (whose? Of what man? Of no one!) and must not be left to the judgement of a few men (oligarchs, get out! Well done!) or groups possessing too much economic power (lobbies, get out! A big cheer for this courageous Council!) or of the political community (Hold on! But then, who is going to implement this « development »?) alone or of certain more powerful nations (for example the United States of America or China. It comes at the right moment: China, « the workshop of the world », where manufactured goods “made in China” are produced and sold to the whole world, is closing its factories). It is necessary, on the contrary, that at every level (it costs nothing to say it!) the largest possible number of people and, when it is a question of international relations, all nations have an active share in directing that development. »
After having challenged the real « political community », the Council’s only thought is to replace it by globalisation... It is totally unrealistic and the present crisis is the retribution for this chimera according to which a world government alone is able to manage « development ».
« There is need as well of the coordination and fitting and harmonious combination of the spontaneous efforts of individuals and of free groups with the undertakings of public authorities. »
This last sentence tinges this purple passage in extremis with a touch of realism, but it can only become effective in a Christian society, when « the Church and the State in happy concert » (St. Pius X) combine their efforts.
§ 2. « Growth (is the name of the new god whom the Church, an expert in humanity, serves by showing “the erroneous doctrines” that hinder it) is not to be left solely to a kind of mechanical course of the economic activity of individuals, nor to the authority of government. For this reason, doctrines which obstruct the necessary reforms under the guise of a false liberty, and those which subordinate the basic rights of individual persons and groups to the collective organisation of production must be shown to be erroneous (the way these so-called “errors” are shown is discreet, as it were, metaphorical). »
Well! Let us denounce them, since the Council does not and in the next paragraph changes the subject, for a good reason: it shares the same fundamental materialism as both the systems concerned. « The vital force of traditional society used to be the family interest prudently managed. Liberalism has replaced this with the free individual pursuit of the maximum profit in a market without constraint, where money is the absolute deciding factor in everything. But “what does it profit a man to gain the whole world if he loses his own soul”, and even his life? »
Therefore, « the imprudence of liberal capitalism » is this: « It lies in its blind obstinacy in destroying every force other than that of money and in crushing, exploiting and devouring every weakness which it believes it controls. » (Point n° 114)
In the opposite camp, Socialism is primarily a claim to equality in the distribution of goods acquired through human labour. Of Methodist inspiration, it defines itself as a popular uprising of the masses, whose strength resides in the prophetism of its leaders and the utopia of a better world where virtue alone will guarantee the prosperity of all in universal justice and equality.
§ 3. « Citizens, on the other hand (our bishops had announced a critique of liberalism and Socialism and already they have passed on to something else), should remember that it is their right and duty, which is also to be recognised by the civil authority, to contribute to the true progress of their own community according to their ability. Especially in underdeveloped areas, where all resources must urgently be employed, those who hold back their unproductive resources or who deprive their community of the material or spiritual aid that it needs – saving the personal right of migration – gravely endanger the common good. »
This enumeration of categorical imperatives comes from Kantian morality. Unlike the latter, « Catholic doctrine recognises the proper value of the good things of natural life. It is a humanism. It accepts the maxim of sacred egoism, “each man for himself and God for all”, a provocative expression of the fundamental principle of autonomy, referred to as “subsidiarity” by our moderns: let each first be concerned for himself; each family for its own life and its own prosperity. The Church, therefore, recognises the natural autonomy of temporal communities, and she recognises their authority to determine their ends and means, their rights and duties, through a science and an art that come under reason alone. » (Point n° 102)
IT IS NECESSARY TO PUT AN END TO THE IMMENSE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DISPARITIES
66. § 1. « To satisfy the demands of justice and equity (just what « demands »?), strenuous (obviously!) efforts must be made, without disregarding the rights of persons (of course!) or the natural qualities of each country (hem!), to remove as quickly as possible the immense economic inequalities (there you have the « demands of justice and equity »: to get rid of « inequalities »; therein lies the whole conciliar utopia), which now exist and in many cases are growing (for want of having denounced their real causes and their authors; as though it were a question of atmospheric conditions) and which are connected with individual and social discrimination (forty years later, the situation is even worse!). Likewise, in many areas, in view of the special difficulties of agriculture relative to the raising and selling of produce, country people must be helped both to increase and to market what they produce, and to introduce the necessary development and renewal and also obtain a fair income. Otherwise, as too often happens, they will remain in the condition of lower-class citizens (since the Council we have not seen a single bishop rise up against the Common Agricultural policy and other globalist nonsense!). Let farmers themselves, especially young ones, apply themselves to perfecting their professional skill, for without it, there can be no agricultural advance. »
The Council goes into the details of disparities and inequalities, and brings them back to the disequilibrium between « Paris and the French desert » (Gravier), and more generally between great cities and the “bush” on all continents. Such disequilibrium is the direct consequence of both a liberal profit economy and an egalitarian socialist ideology.
It was the profit of industrial capitalism that demanded the rural exodus, urban concentration, intensified transport networks and the transfer of entire populations. Socialist claims merely accelerated the progress of this system by reducing the individual costs of collective life; allowances were granted to salaried workers, subsidies were given to industry, and the State underwrote the senseless increase in « collective costs ».
In the end, it is the province that pays for the capital, those who do not count in modern life who pay for its happy beneficiaries. Both morality and economics agree on condemning this system.
What should be done? It is extremely urgent to bring about a radical reversal of tendency. This must not be done brutally on pain of making evil worse. First and foremost, everyone must be prudently and gradually led to paying his own public costs, by suppressing systematic State subsidies, allowances, fare reductions, and tax relief, all too widely granted in the cities. Thus, the inequality of living conditions will have to be restored, in a realistic and positive psychological climate. To the great advantages, high returns and high salaries of those in areas of heavy population density, there must correspond equivalent financial charges.
§ 2. « Justice and equity likewise require that the mobility, which is necessary in a developing economy (the god “growth” has been transformed into the god “development”. The latter is the one that commands and entails transfers of people, injustices, inevitable acts of discrimination because of the law of supply and demand), be regulated in such a way as to keep the life of individuals and their families from becoming insecure and precarious. »
Entirely taken up with its chimera, the Council does not speak less highly of « mobility »:
« When workers come from another country or district and contribute to the economic advancement of a nation or region by their labour, all discrimination as regards wages and working conditions must be carefully avoided. »
Here is the height of unrealism. Are they sincere or hypocritical?
« All the people, moreover, above all the public authorities, must treat them not as mere tools of production but as persons, and must help them to bring their families to live with them and to provide themselves with a decent dwelling; they must also see to it that these workers are incorporated into the social life of the country or region that receives them. Employment opportunities, however, should be created in their own areas as far as possible. »
We wonder what the Council does not put in the hands of « public authorities »? We also wonder what magic wand they will require to be able to assume all the enormous responsibilities that our conciliar Fathers, who are comfortably settled in the Vatican city or in their opulent bishop’s houses, put on their shoulders!
Do you really believe in it? Yes I do, provided we are in a Catholic state ruled according to the principles of our ecology, according to justice and fraternal charity. In such a State, « the national community, in all its natural circles, welcomes, educates and protects its members, in the first place out of pure natural generosity, then in accordance with this “immense reciprocity of services” (Mgr Freppel) where each one’s rights and duties are spontaneously determined, without too much egalitarian calculation, for the greatest good of all, account being taken of the recognised supernatural vocation of each person and of the service required of him by the nation. » (Point n° 132)
§ 3. « In economic affairs which today are subject to change, as in the new forms of industrial society in which automation, for example, is advancing, care must be taken that sufficient and suitable work and the possibility of the appropriate technical and professional formation are furnished. The livelihood and the human dignity especially of those who are in very difficult conditions because of illness or old age must be guaranteed. »
The Council, which is still as unrealistic, promulgates the categorical imperative of full employment and health insurance or pension schemes, in order to satisfy the requirements of « human dignity ». Who is responsible for it? Those whose identities are concealed by impersonal grammatical structures...
What about God? He is obviously absent from the Council. Yet, He is the one who enacted the law of work:
« “In the sweat of your brow shall you earn your bread.” Consequently, every duty fulfilled, all honest work, any service, becomes a source of merit and of right. Work and social service are protected, that is to say aided and favoured, and guaranteed as far as possible by the social authority, because they are the first and principal source of wealth, honour and authority in the nation, in contrast to speculation, intrigue and favouritism.
« This law of work and of social service forbids the parasitism of rich and poor alike. It forbids claims to rights without duties and the excesses of a degrading social welfare system.
« The charitable services needed by the national community will be created by individual initiative. “You are all brothers, you all have but one Father”, Jesus Christ taught. Our common Father is not the State, but God. Any deficiencies in institutions and social systems will be corrected, or at least attenuated and mollified, by charitable creations initiated by the best, by the Church in the first place, and, as an exception, by the State provisionally making up for a lack of spontaneous devotion, but more normally by the local and professional communities in direct contact with the hardships to be relieved. »
SECTION II
CERTAIN PRINCIPLES GOVERNING SOCIO-ECONOMIC LIFE AS A WHOLE
LABOUR, WORKING CONDITIONS, LEISURE
67. § 1. « Human labour which is expended in the production and exchange of goods or in the performance of economic services is superior to the other elements of economic life, for the latter have only the nature of tools. »
Here « human labour » is hypostatised in virtue of a Marxist presupposition that bears no relation to Christian doctrine, according to which it is, in our present condition, a chastisement for original sin.
§ 2. « This labour, whether it is engaged in independently or hired by someone else, comes immediately from the person (!), who as it were stamps the things of nature with his seal and subdues them to his will. »
This was true before original sin: « God created man in his image; in the divine image He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them, saying: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth.” God also said: “See, I give you every seed-bearing plant all over the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food. » (Gn 1:27-28)
« By his labour a man ordinarily supports himself and his family, is joined to his fellow men and serves them, and can exercise genuine charity and be a partner in the work of bringing divine creation to perfection. »
The consequences of original sin are overlooked, that is the heresy: « To the man he said: “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat, cursed be the ground because of you! In toil shall you eat its yield all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you, as you eat of the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face shall you get bread to eat, until you return to the ground, from which you were taken. For you are dirt, and to dirt you shall return. » (Gn 3:17-19)
« Indeed, we hold that through labour offered to God man is associated with the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, who conferred an eminent dignity on labour when at Nazareth He worked with His own hands. From this there follows for every man the duty of working faithfully and also the right to work (and what if there is no work?). It is the duty of society, moreover, according to the circumstances prevailing in it, and in keeping with its role, to help the citizens to find sufficient employment. Finally, remuneration for labour is to be such that man may be furnished the means to cultivate worthily his own material, social, cultural, and spiritual life and that of his dependents, in view of the function and productiveness of each one, the conditions of the factory or workshop, and the common good. »
It is easy to recognise in this paragraph the touch of Karol Wojtyla who, as Archbishop of Cracow, attended the Council. Once Pope, he would clearly express the same thought tinged with thinly disguised Marxist materialism: man defines himself by labour, which is his raison d’être. Its goal is the domination of earth in which he finds « his dignity, his likeness with God (his union with Him? his religion?) in a natural, cosmic operation that is alien to good and evil, to the revealed divine law just as it is to all religious faith. » (Laborem exercens, a Marxist encyclical, CRC n° 171, November 1981).
There is no question of the supernatural work that brings about man’s sanctification and eternal salvation through grace.
§ 3. « Since economic activity for the most part (sic!) implies the associated work of human beings, any way of organising and directing it which may be detrimental to any working men and women would be wrong and inhuman. It happens too often, however, even in our days, that workers are reduced to the level of being slaves to their own work. This is by no means justified by the so-called (sic!) economic laws. The entire process of productive work, therefore, must be adapted to the needs of the person (!) and to his way of life, above all to his domestic life, especially in respect to mothers of families, always with due regard for sex and age. The opportunity, moreover, should be granted to workers to unfold their own abilities and personality through the performance of their work (!). Applying their time and strength to their employment with a due sense of responsibility, they should also all enjoy sufficient rest and leisure to cultivate their familial, cultural, social and religious life. They should also have the opportunity freely to develop the energies and potentialities which perhaps they cannot bring to much fruition in their professional work. »
It is claptrap. The Council has no power to implement any of these pious hopes. This entire paragraph is therefore only chatter of middle-class persons who want to put on social airs, short of preaching the revolt of labour against capital.
You must read this paragraph of Gaudium et spes at a single sitting in order to experience the absence of God. Practical atheism reveals itself therein; it is the proper, characteristic, unprecedented mark of the Second Vatican Council. The author of this “reforming” text does not seem to have the faintest notion of the treasures of civilisation that the Church commissioned over the course of the centuries. At that time she worked in happy concert with a State, with a Most Christian king, to protect, favour, and give rise to the foundation of free associations among families. More often than not they were confraternities placed under the aegis of a Saint with a view to collaborating in the production and consumption of goods.
The Fathers who approved this text eased their conscience in view of its personalism. But if the world has become a slave market – and not only in Mali! – composed of miserable and exploited people, it is unfortunately with the blessing of the Church, who has rallied to the revolution since Vatican II.
At the time of the Ancien Regime, an immemorial ecological order prevailed based on this principle: the benefit of this understanding prevails over any antagonism of interests and leads to their harmony. Where family responsibility comes first, mutual justice proceeds from a prudence which constructs a fraternity, and the honest advantage of all parties results in stability.
But the Council denies Christian civilisation.
THE SHARING OF ALL IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF ENTERPRISES AND GLOBAL ECONOMIC ORGANISATION. INDUSTRIAL DISPUTES.
68. § 1. « In economic enterprises it is persons who are joined together, that is, free and independent human beings created in the image of God. Therefore, with attention to the functions of each – owners or employers, management or labour – and without doing harm to the necessary unity of management, the active sharing of all in the administration and profits of these enterprises in ways to be properly determined is to be promoted (co-management was the great post-war myth, which was jointly supported by Communists and Christian-Democrats! The Council is still at this stage despite the patent failure of this revolutionary utopia!). Since more often, however, decisions concerning economic and social conditions, on which the future lot of the workers and of their children depends, are made not within the business itself but by institutions on a higher level, the workers themselves should have a share also in determining these conditions – in person or through freely elected delegates. »
The proud claim to religious pretention comes to pollute, to poison all social relations. In order to remedy the war climate that follows from it, the text refers to « institutions on a higher level » without mentioning which ones. But it is implied that it is impossible to settle « industrial disputes » concretely, on the spot, and on a human scale, without interference from authorities and administration. The Council believes that it is dealing with a whole host of individuals – pardon me! of free, autonomous persons who are created in God’s likeness... It sorts out their relations, that is to say, the shock, the continual war of their rights and claims through Democracy... it is up to them to elect representatives who will defend their interests before the « institutions on a higher level », i.e., ultimately before a world government, which the title of the paragraph modestly calls: a « global economic organisation ».
The day when the defeat at that very level will be more than stinging, Gaudium et Spes’ new religion will collapse at the same time as this proud new world, whose servant-mistress it wanted to become. We have reached that point! In this deluge, it is incumbent on us to launch « the Franco-Catholic Ark » that will restore fraternal relationships at the hearts of enterprises. This will not be done among « free, independent human beings » but, on the contrary, among beings who are dependent on each other and on the authority of employers, and who are also freed from the slavery of money.
§ 2. « Among the basic rights of the human person is to be numbered the right of freely founding unions for working people (in France, « freely » does not exist. No one can create a trade union that does not stem from the “Resistance”). These should be able truly to represent them and to contribute to the organising of economic life in the right way. Included is the right of freely taking part in the activity of these unions without risk of reprisal. Through this orderly participation joined to progressive economic and social formation, all will grow day by day in the awareness of their own function and responsibility, and thus they will be brought to feel that they are comrades in the whole task of economic development and in the attainment of the universal common good according to their capacities and aptitudes. »
In the 150 Points, the Abbé de Nantes also presents enterprise as an association of collaborators, salaried workers, of different levels of responsibilities around a project that the patron leads with a view of ensuring all a stable way of prosperity for their family.
For the Council as well, it is a question of « feeling that they are comrades », but not only among members of the enterprise, it would be too stingy! Everyone must « be brought to feel that they are comradesin the whole task of economic development and in the attainment of the universal common good! If you please! »
Let us come down to earth. Restoring the authority of employers does not for all that mean introducing tyranny into the enterprise, quite the opposite. The “family” conception of the enterprise under the “paternal” authority of its head grants a greater consideration to each of its members. It is not the egalitarian concept of human dignity, which is dear to Christian-Democrats, that will prevail but the reality of fraternal human relationships. This in itself implies mutual aid, security of employment, decent salary, as well as diligent work and quality production.
It is everyone’s interest in the success of the enterprise that makes it a duty for the employee to indicate to his management the pertinent critiques or suggestions that are useful to the smooth running of the enterprise; it is what we call “the duty of advising”.
Yet, this conception of an enterprise, which is both focused on its permanence and its prudent management, and based on mutual agreements and on the authority of employers, obviously necessitates arbitration authorities; for it is not enough to restore the authority of employers for the one who wields it always to exercise it properly. Likewise, it is not enough to recognise a “duty of advising” for employees not to make unjust or imprudent claims any longer.
The text does not name trade unions but it promotes them without indicating that most of them are linked to big financial or ideological interests. They add to the insecurity and deterioration of the social climate with their political strikes, inopportune demands, and working to rule, the goal of which is alien to the interests of their own members, aiming as it does at the ruin of the enterprise and the ruin of the national economy itself, to the benefit of the foreigner and of subversion.
This is undoubtedly what the Council calls « universal common good ». In order to envisage the « common good » on this planetary scale, one must have no notion of the real common good of a family, an enterprise, a country... One must be a dreamer, an ideologue or a demagogue.
« All these intruders must be chased out of enterprise; and to whom should enterprise be given if not to the entrepreneur, to its patron and its own master, its very best manager, the one best placed to defend its common interests and to do justice to the reasonable demands of all its members. And so much the better if this patron is the owner, for he is then the most reliable person to take charge. If he is not the owner, then social and corporative law will tie his fate closely to that of the enterprise or company whose director or manager he is constituted by law. The rules of the corporation, on the other hand, will oblige this patron, freed from all aberrant controls and restored to his full personal authority, to establish organs for mutual dialogue amongst all the members of the economic community he directs, between themselves and with him, whatever be the situation. » (Point n° 141)
§ 3. « When, however, socio-economic disputes arise, efforts must be made to come to a peaceful settlement. Although recourse must always be had first to a sincere dialogue between the parties, a strike, nevertheless, can remain even in present-day circumstances a necessary, though ultimate, aid for the defence of the workers’ own rights and the fulfillment of their just desires. As soon as possible, however, ways should be sought to resume negotiation and the discussion of reconciliation. »
In veiled terms, this text favours class warfare, for want of going back to the real causes of « disputes » and of being resolved to eradicate them. To this end it would be necessary to exorcise our society of the truly diabolical Hegelian conception of human relationships, according to which the head necessarily oppresses his subordinates. Today, this master-slave dialectic poisons all our human relationships. It persuaded our contemporaries that every effort that is required of them certainly conceals an injustice that must, by rights, provoke contestation, claims and revolt.
What will help us to be done with Hegel? What else other than the truth of the Gospel, according to which our human relationships reflect the divine relationships of paternity and filiation between the Father and the Son and lead us to work together in a mutual love that inequality of situations favours?
« Inequalities, Mgr Freppel taught, far from harming the good order of human societies, strengthen and consolidate it, by linking men one to the other by a happy reciprocity of services and functions. We need others precisely because we do not have the same aptitudes or resources. One gives of his intelligence, the other of the work of his hands; everyone puts his existence and his life into it. This is what makes the grandeur and the strength of human societies. The rest is nothing but rubbish. »
The Abbé de Nantes adds: « But the superior light of faith, the energies of hope and charity, recourse to the Church’s prayer and sacraments, are necessary if individual egoism and the frenzy of passion are to yield to the interest of families, to the ideal of a happy communitarian life, defined and necessitated by a communitarian ecology. » (Point n° 102)
THE GOODS OF THE EARTH ARE INTENDED FOR ALL MEN
69. § 1. « God intended the earth with everything contained in it for the use of all human beings and peoples. Thus, under the leadership of justice and in the company of charity, created goods should be in abundance for all in like manner. Whatever the forms of property may be, as adapted to the legitimate institutions of peoples, according to diverse and changeable circumstances, attention must always be paid to this universal destination of earthly goods. In using them, therefore, man should regard the external things that he legitimately possesses not only as his own but also as common in the sense that they should be able to benefit not only him but also others. On the other hand, the right of having a share of earthly goods sufficient for oneself and one’s family belongs to everyone. The Fathers and Doctors of the Church held this opinion, teaching that men are obliged to come to the relief of the poor and to do so not merely out of their superfluous goods. If one is in extreme necessity, he has the right to procure for himself what he needs out of the riches of others. Since there are so many people prostrate with hunger in the world, this sacred Council urges all, both individuals and governments, to remember the aphorism of the Fathers, “Feed the man dying of hunger, because if you have not fed him, you have killed him,” and really to share and employ their earthly goods, according to the ability of each, especially by supporting individuals or peoples with the aid by which they may be able to help and develop themselves. »
A reference to St. Thomas Aquinas, as interpreted by Leo XIII, Pius XII, and John XXIII, is intended to conceal the slide, which is meant to lead us from the right to property to Socialist, and even Communist, wealth “sharing”. This sharing is based on the « universal destination of earthly goods », which is considered a dogma.
The Council, thus, lays down the “religious” foundations of a planetary civil war that brings into conflict the “starving” and the “satiated” to cries of « Property is sheer robbery », and « Power is sheer usurpation! »
Note that this is quite true in a capitalo-socialist democracy:
« The liberal Revolution has transformed these two social functions, which form the basis and the rule for all civilised human order, into instruments for destabilising the French heritage and into ways whereby financial and political oligarchies can rob the country of its wealth. It is institutionalised violence. Liberal capitalism, by its abusive and intensive commercialisation of all wealth and by making monetary or commercial tokens prevail over real wealth, has forcibly destabilised every class in society, and the latter are looted and despoiled by inflation, speculation and monetary agitation in exact proportion to their stability and entrenchment, their steadiness and honesty. Socialism completes this ruin by arrogating to itself the exorbitant function of a great avenger, charged with the redistribution of wealth by transferring the property of private persons to the State and from the State to its own favourites, judging itself to be the principal beneficiary. » (Point n° 135)
The fact remains that property is an element of the natural freedom of families and one of the bases of order, vitality and stability for any society. In every profound civilisation there exists a bond between property and persons, between wealth and its social function, between the prestige of the property owner and his moral obligations. In abolishing privilege, the Revolution discredited property, freed it from all honour and service, and thus made of it a purely material wealth exclusively for individual and vulgar enjoyment.
§ 2. « In economically less advanced societies the common destination of earthly goods is partly satisfied by means of the customs and traditions proper to the community, by which the absolutely necessary things are furnished to each member. An effort must be made, however, to avoid regarding certain customs as altogether unchangeable, if they no longer answer the new needs of this age. On the other hand, imprudent action should not be taken against respectable customs which, provided they are suitably adapted to present-day circumstances, do not cease to be very useful. »
The true and false follow one another according to the « Yes… but » technique. « However », the ecological traditions of peoples will have to be shaken up in order to enable them to attain “progress” in accordance with « the new needs of this age », that is to say: Democracy is inseparable from a « suitable adaptation to present-day circumstances ». Thus it is that the Church has become the mainspring of the decolonisation that caused the ruin of the whole African continent.
« On the other hand », these traditions will have to be respected as a shabby makeshift, which is tolerated for a time...
« Similarly, in highly developed nations a body of social institutions dealing with protection and security can, for its own part, bring to reality the common destination of earthly goods. Family and social services, especially those that provide for culture and education, should be further promoted. However, when all these things are being organised, vigilance is necessary to prevent the citizens from being led into a certain inactivity vis-a-vis society or from rejecting the burden of taking up office or from refusing to serve. »
The Second Vatican Council accepts a welfare state, without calling it by its name. « Common destination of earthly goods » obliges... « However »... it should be necessary to avoid its consequences: « inactivity, rejecting the burden of taking up office or refusing to serve ». This warning is totally ineffective.
Our ecological doctrine breaks with « the monstrous, irresponsible, anonymous and bureaucratic social security of our modern democratic States… with the lamentable results we all know too well: punitive deductions, muddle and waste, surfeits and shortages, and a prodigious increase in expenditure. » Social organisms, which may have to supplement the personal savings of families and mutual or patronal insurance and credit organisations, must coordinate as closely as possible with the real needs of the population and, thus, with decentralised authorities.
« Whatever families are unable to provide for out of their own savings and through their mutual insurance and credit organisations, the corporations will provide: sickness, accidents, unemployment, retirement, apprenticeship bursaries, credit for starting a business, buying a home, leisure… Everything will be organised as fast, as simply and as suitably as possible, firstly at the level of the social fund of the enterprise and then at the highest level by drawing on the corporative patrimony at national and regional council level.
« In this way, at the least expense, the protection of French workers and their families will be suitably, justly and generously ensured against the hazards of life. They will be helped to rise to their deserved social level, without the enslaving and corrupting influence of state control, plutocracy or trade unionism. » (Point n° 143)
INVESTMENTS AND MONETARY MATTERS
70. § 1. « Investments, for their part, must be directed toward procuring employment and sufficient income for the people both now and in the future. Whoever makes decisions concerning these investments and the planning of the economy – whether they be individuals or groups of public authorities – are bound to keep these objectives in mind and to recognise their serious obligation of watching, on the one hand, that provision be made for the necessities required for a decent life both of individuals and of the whole community and, on the other, of looking out for the future and of establishing a right balance between the needs of present-day consumption, both individual and collective, and the demands of investing for the generation to come. »
The Council preaches morality to capitalists, democrats, atheists, Freemasons and obliges them to achieve an ideal that belongs more to Heaven than to earth. Yet, the present crisis may well bring us to it whether we like it or not. But we will need a sovereign, dictatorial tutelary authority – just as in Russia since Putin –, or better, a royal one capable of evicting from economical and political power occult and oppressive synarchic organisations, whether they be those of high finance, big industry, parties or their syndical offshoots. The dissolution of these states within the State will have to be rigorous, radical, immediate and effective.
This will have to be followed by the retirement of the senior management of the dissolved organisations, but also by a definitive amnesty in favour of all those political, economic and social personnel who were lured by their thousands into their movement.
There will be no spirit of revenge, no “purge”, and no class warfare. On the contrary, all the nation’s economic forces will be generally mobilised, and those with competence will find their place and will be re-employed, no longer for partisan ends, but in the general interest. And in a climate of honest freedom, a long period of peace will begin when the natural communities and their spontaneous economic organisations can slowly be reconstituted. Is it utopia? No, it existed before the Revolution and miraculously revived in very difficult conditions under Marshal Pétain. That proves that with the mercy and grace of our Heavenly Father, it will recur tomorrow.
« They should also always bear in mind the urgent needs of underdeveloped countries or regions (crocodile tears are shed over the poorest, as though nothing had ever been done for them before the Council!). In monetary matters they should beware of hurting the welfare of their own country or of other countries. Care should also be taken lest the economically weak countries unjustly suffer any loss from a change in the value of money. »
As we are still unaware of who is responsible for the implementation of these recommendations, they went unheeded. Now we suffer the consequences of it: the financial crisis, which was born of a profusion of credit, the subprimes – these real estate loans that were granted to insolvent American citizens –, is leading to another profusion of credit, which is, this time, contracted by states in order to feed their extravagant “reflationary plans”. Tomorrow they may have no means to repay, other than to print money. This will necessarily lead to « a change in the value of money ».
What did the Vatican intend to do, what is the Vatican doing... at whose expense do the Pope and Cardinals travel? They do it at the expense of this “Church of the poor” whose patrimony is misappropriated.
What « economically weak countries » are sorely lacking is a regal authority that sovereignly maintains order and honesty in the nation’s finances. That is to say, he keeps under his supreme control the central organisation that creates money, and he supervises all the methods of payment, the issue of currency, and especially bank credits, all elements which have an effect on the volume and the value of money. He regards it as a moral duty to guarantee the stability and circulation of money and to defend it against speculation, against excessive lending and banking abuses either at home or abroad. Finally he prevents dangerous wastage by the State itself by imposing on the State a strong budgetary and financial discipline.
ACCESS TO PROPERTY AND OWNERSHIP OF GOODS. THE PROBLEM OF THE LATIFUNDIA.
71. § 1.« Since property and other forms of private ownership of external goods contribute to the expression of the personality (here again, personalism is good for enslaving the individual to capitalism or socialism according to expediency), and since, moreover, they furnish one an occasion to exercise his function in society and in the economy (!), it is very important that the access of both individuals and communities to some ownership of external goods be fostered. »
This is a surprising, emblematic definition of property! It does not « contribute » to a harmonious family life, as we would expect, but to « the expression of the personality ». Whose personality? Dad’s, Mum’s or baby’s? Everyone’s equally?
§ 2. « Private property or some ownership of external goods confers on everyone a sphere wholly necessary for the autonomy of the person and the family, and it should be regarded as an extension of human freedom. Lastly, since it adds incentives for carrying on one’s function and charge, it constitutes one of the conditions for civil liberties. »
Freedom, sweet freedom, which was an object of solicitude of the whole Church united in Council, is substituted for God’s holy will. That will is the lone guarantor for the equilibrium of men, society, or the nation, at least at the time of “the Ancien Regime”; it is an equilibrium that is characterised by obedience to this divine will.
§ 3. « The forms of such ownership or property are varied today and are becoming increasingly diversified. They all remain, however, a cause of security not to be underestimated, in spite of social funds, rights, and services provided by society. This is true not only of material property but also of immaterial things such as professional capacities. »
« All property is recognised as legitimate once it is inherited or acquired in accordance with custom and law, whether it be the capital accumulated by families or the fruits of an honest income, of savings, work, services rendered, an exchange or a normal gift, the intention and use of which is not for society to discuss. Jus fruendi, utendi, abutendi, yes, but this is not the absolute and individualist right of the liberal bourgeois who brought about the Revolution of 1789. It is a right to free possession and disposal, adjusted, limited and relativised by every communitarian convention and mutual agreement, establishing the balance of social relations. Such in former times were the various controls regulating family, feudal or common goods. It is because this counterbalance no longer existed, that property – especially industrial and commercial property – acquired such a savage character in the nineteenth century. » (Point n° 135)
§ 4. « The right of private ownership, however, is not opposed to the right inherent in various forms of public property. Goods can be transferred to the public domain only by the competent authority, according to the demands and within the limits of the common good, and with fair compensation. Furthermore, it is the right of public authority to prevent anyone from abusing his private property to the detriment of the common good. »
In order to respect and to honour property, the State itself must correct the two fundamental vices of the capitalo-socialist modern economy: inflation and the tax system. For inflation and fiscal pressure without rhyme or reason are disguised robbery of people’s savings and honest labour by grand financial speculators, exploiters of the people, and by the State and its ravenous organisms. Both favour individual wealth, which is monetary, irresponsible, undeclared and fraudulent, to the detriment of visible wealth, which is the revenue from honest activity and family property, servants of the common good.
§ 5. « By its very nature private property has a social quality which is based on the law of the common destination of earthly goods. If this social quality is overlooked, property often becomes an occasion of passionate desires for wealth and serious disturbances, so that a pretext is given to the attackers for calling the right itself into question. »
At last, the Council grants property a social character... so that it may serve to share, with a view to « the law of the common destination of earthly goods ». It is accompanied by a warning that truly blackmails us with the anger of the poor.
§ 6. « In many underdeveloped regions there are large or even extensive rural estates which are only slightly cultivated or lie completely idle for the sake of profit, while the majority of the people either are without land or have only very small fields, and, on the other hand, it is evidently urgent to increase the productivity of the fields. »
« Not infrequently those who are hired to work for the landowners or who till a portion of the land as tenants receive a wage or income unworthy of a human being, lack decent housing and are exploited by middlemen. Deprived of all security, they live under such personal servitude that almost every opportunity of acting on their own initiative and responsibility is denied to them and all advancement in human culture and all sharing in social and political life is forbidden to them. »
« According to the different cases, therefore, reforms are necessary: that income may grow, working conditions should be improved, security in employment increased, and an incentive to working on one’s own initiative given. Indeed, insufficiently cultivated estates should be distributed to those who can make these lands fruitful; in this case, the necessary things and means, especially educational aids and the right facilities for cooperative organisation, must be supplied. »
« Whenever, nevertheless, the common good requires expropriation, compensation must be reckoned in equity after all the circumstances have been weighed. »
These great agricultural properties numerically represent 1 % of agricultural establishments in Brazil. These so-called « latifundia » are private holdings of more than 1000 hectares that are extensively exploited in an archaic way. They occupy 45 % of the often unexploited productive surfaces. The twenty largest properties alone monopolise the same surface area as 3.3 million small farmers. In the meantime, at least 3.5 million farming families are awaiting an agrarian reform.
What is lacking in this paragraph is... God! and the call to the grace of Christ, without whom we can do nothing. Otherwise this text plans a sort of Soviet-style agrarian reform. The political system that was born of South America’s decolonisation, which Freemasonry fomented, must be incriminated. It is precisely this impious Democracy that creates scandalous land monopolies, monopolies off of which Democracy lives. The Council, therefore, conveys Socialism, which, for its part, denounces this injustice as the hidden vice of the liberal system. It also pleads on behalf of the poor who are abused, robbed and exploited by the rich, but, in reality, it works for revolution, war, famine, and enslavement of the poor.
SOCIO-ECONOMIC ACTIVITY AND THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST
72. § 1. « Christians who take an active part in present-day socio-economic development and struggle for the progress of justice (which one?) and charity (Masonic solidarity?) should be convinced that they can make a great contribution to the prosperity of mankind (!) and to the peace of the world (before the Council, the Church showed concern for its salvation and God gave it peace in addition). In these activities let them, either as individuals or as members of groups, give a shining example (pious hopes! We would like our bishops to set an example). Having acquired the absolutely necessary skill and experience, they should observe the right order in their earthly activities in faithfulness to Christ and His Gospel. Thus their whole life, both individual and social, will be permeated with the spirit of the beatitudes, notably with a spirit of poverty. »
This paragraph brings together Gaudium et spes’ principal plough horses: « socio-economic development » and « progress »... through the« struggle »! For whom? For what? For nothing less than « the prosperity of mankind and the peace of the world » through... Christian Democracy! « Such are the big words by which human pride is exalted », Pius X said when he condemned the Sillon.
§ 2. « Whoever in obedience to Christ seeks first the Kingdom of God, takes therefrom a stronger and purer love for helping all his brethren and for perfecting the work of justice under the inspiration of charity. »
Let us be careful, they are deceiving us by playing once more with words. Here, « the Kingdom of God » is not Christian civilisation, which our conciliar Church abhors, but « the civilisation of love » that Paul VI proclaimed and in which man who gives himself a cult has taken God’s place. This ultimate falsehood of this final paragraph seems to have been added in extremis by a member of the traditionalist minority. This subtle poison was distilled in all the documents in order to rally the minority to this baneful Council. These were useless amendments, a rearguard action when what was demanded was to reject everything and “strike the head”. This is what our Father vainly attempted to persuade Mgr Lefebvre to do.
Next month: