He will return with his immense heart, with his heart of fire, his poor man's soul
and his smile. He will return! And the Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph!

OUR CATHOLIC AND FRENCH « SOCIAL MODEL »

i. the guilds of the ancien régime

ii. the destructive revolution

iii. a true friend of the people: mgr freppel

iv. leo xiii, a liberal pope? no, a revolutionary pope!

The « social question » arose in the nineteenth century from the rupture of the happy cooperation between the Church and the State that had been the prerogative of past centuries. This rupture, a fruit of the French Revolution, was combined with a true industrial revolution, by the intervention of mechanisation that radically transformed work conditions and created pauperism. This was the condition of those who, although they had a regular, often tedious and exhausting trade, found that they and their families were unable to live decently from it.

Faced with this plague, unknown until then, legitimists – “social Catholics” as they were called at that time – proposed, in place of the liberal “economic science” of Protestant origin, which came from England, a “social doctrine” that was based on God and the King with the aim of restoring a Christian social order. At the same time, without waiting for society to be restored on these foundations, they created works of charity. Justice and Charity are the key words of their thought and action.

Nevertheless, an ardent debate arose among them concerning the preponderance, the subordination or the union of these two virtues. The Magisterium of the Church intervened with a series of encyclicals that defined what it is appropriate to call the social doctrine of the Church, according to which « the Church, as an expert in humanity, intends to propose to all men an integral and unified humanism capable of creating a new social, economic and political order, founded on the dignity and freedom of every human person, to be brought about in peace, justice and solidarity. » (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church)

A question may be asked: is this « social doctrine » in conformity with the teaching of Jesus Christ and with the precepts of His Gospel? In the light of the experience of social Catholics and saints of the nineteenth century, one may well doubt it and set against this doctrine a “communitarian ecology”, as the Abbé de Nantes likes to phrase it. The « human person » is not a monad bedecked with inalienable rights, but the fruit of a combination of relationships willed by God that gives him a native dignity as creature, and that determines a particular vocation. He is thus “dependent” on God and on others, and his well-being consists in putting himself at the service of the community in which God has placed him.

I. THE GUILDS OF THE ANCIEN RÉGIME

The class struggle is something modern; it is not the law of history, pace Karl Marx. For a thousand years of Christendom, society lived in a harmonious manner. It was not that competing or even conflicting interests, and sometimes real antagonisms, did not exist, but struggle was not the normal and habitual situation because there were institutions of association and defence that were based on the influence of the Church and the authority of the King.

The economists and “philosophes” of the eighteenth century were unanimous in condemning the guilds which, in their judgement, enclosed all the members of the same profession within their rigid framework to the detriment of the sacred rights of the individual, of freedom of exchange, and of true progress. Such an affirmation proves in itself their bias and ignorance.

THE CONFRATERNITIES

The guild originates in the confraternity, to such an extent that often the words guild and confraternity are indiscriminately used as synonyms. Masters and journeymen belonged to the same religious association, which contributed to maintaining good relations between employers and workers. Each guild had its own patron saint.

THE GUILD

The tradesmen, who were brought together under the Church’s influence in these confraternities, were led to extend their organisation in order to safeguard their professional interests: the result was the guild. The Ancien Régime drew inspiration from facts and from the very nature of things. Thus « professional associations were spontaneously formed. In the beginning, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, they were only simple collective contracts among the workers of the same trade having common interests. They were only governed by oral regulations that later became traditional. Afterwards, statutes were written for almost exclusively fiscal purposes. »

« The most important document that has come down to us relating to workers associations, The Book of Trades by Étienne Boileau, Provost of Paris, which was written during the reign of St. Louis around 1268, only recorded semi-officially the much more older existence of corporative groups that until then had orally passed on regulations that were already established by tradition. These regulations had not been imposed on the workers of the profession by any established authority. They had been agreed upon by the interested parties themselveswithin the groups that had been formed freely without any control by public authorities. » During their compilation, masters and workers came in turn to present to the provost the ways and customs of their trade in order to have them registered (cf. Henri Crépin, La liberté de travail dans l’ancienne France, 1938, p. 8-16).

From the eighteenth century to our times, economists claimed that such communities were compartmentalised, forcing everyone to remain in his rank, with no hope of rising in the hierarchy. This is absolutely false! In order to become a master, it sufficed to know one’s trade and to be recognised by his peers. Later on would come the obligation of having to execute a masterpiece and, in some cases, of acquiring the fee required for acceding to mastership. In Étienne Boileau’s time, however, in Paris, access to mastership in many trades was free of charge. Thus, every master knew that the workers or the journeymen who worked under his orders had the possibility of becoming employers, his equals. Out of prudence, he was forced to take this into account in his daily dealings with them.

PROTECTION OF THE WEAK

In order to prevent any coalition of the “big” masters against the “little” ones, every association of masters, even temporary ones, was forbidden. A master was not allowed to hire away the journeymen of another master; he could not employ a “foreign” worker, that is to say a worker who came from another city or region, before all the workers of his city had work. Likewise, it was forbidden to have more than one store in the same town. In order to avoid cornering or monopoly, he could not buy all the raw materials of the region without them having first been sold off by auction.

Work times were fixed by the guild. The so-called “English week” is in fact nothing more than a good old French custom: work had to stop on Saturday « after none », i.e. at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, on penalty of a fine. Certain guilds added Monday, sometimes even Tuesday. Of course, one did not work on Sunday or on the afternoon of the day before feasts, with the result that one can estimate leave at 141 days of rest; certain guilds even had as many as 171 for 194 workdays.

Apprentices and journeymen, like masters, benefited from “propriety rights” in the trade, giving them a certain number of advantages: the right to work, but at a precise and determined job that had to be acquired in a particular manner, was specially protected by regulations and assured everyone a source of income, the right to assistance in the case of illness, bankruptcy, travel, unemployment, old-age, and particular honours at weddings and funerals. A “labour contractor” was responsible for placing temporary labourers with a master who lacked workers. If there was no work for a labourer, he was given an indemnity that allowed him to go find work elsewhere.

THE GUILD IS A FAMILY

« From the beginning, the trade community took on the character of a veritable social institution; far from disregarding the living cell of society constituted by the family group, it was adapted to it and submitted to its requirements. Herein originated, for example, the widow’s right to continue the trade of her husband, which was considered a family asset. Thus the trade community took on the appearance of a simple extension of the family structure in the professional order. »

The guild enjoyed a large autonomy. « The various royal edicts that were made concerning the oath-bound communities never pretended to be able to meddle in their administration. The prescriptions of the edicts only concerned various external points conducive to harmonising particular regulations with the public good and with certain taxation requirements. A uniform legislation was never imposed on the communities; and it is a profound error to believe that the attempts that may have been made in that direction were ever able to succeed. The varieties of professional regulations corresponded too closely to local realities and to the particular characteristics of the provinces and regions. They espoused the infinite variety of regions, cities and the provinces and lands where they were spontaneously formulated in order to satisfy local needs and specific and very specialised interests. » (ibid., pp. 64, 92)

This true freedom and this great adaptability of the statutes of the guilds would have made them easily capable of adapting to the mechanisation of the nineteenth century if the Revolution of 1789 had not taken place.

THE NECESSARY REFORM

From the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on, the guilds would have needed to evolve in order to have a role in the new pre-industrial society. Alas, slumbering in a stagnation and immobility that was going to lead to their ruin, this is what they were unable to do. The kings, as fathers of their people and having as such the right to interfere in private or family affairs, sought to intervene. They were too respectful, however, of the rights and liberties of the oath-bound communities to dare to impose upon them. Louis XIV charged Colbert with creating royal factories, in order not only to compete with foreign products, especially English, but also to provide a model, an indication of the evolution that he desired for French industry. The guilds did not understand the royal lesson.

Enervated by the false theories of the State inherited from Montesquieu, according to which the King is always and necessarily an enemy of intermediate bodies, they froze into an inappropriate integrist immobility. They were unable to differentiate between the necessary reforms that the King desired and the revolution that was being prepared by Turgot and his disciples, supposed “philosophes” who denounced the guilds.

A simple observation suffices to demonstrate the beneficial effects of the guilds: while under the Ancien Régime salaries represented 55 % of the value of production, in 1850 they only represented 15 %!

Despite certain drawbacks, which would have been easy to correct, the guilds were able to conserve their original spirit in order to inspire, maintain, and propagate the best professional virtues.

The love of the profession and taste for it were in the hearts of these men imbued with the technique of their profession by a long apprenticeship followed by work experience as journeyman. The concern for their daily bread was lessened for them by the security afforded by the situation they had acquired – modest it is true – but permanently assured and offering the perspective of rising to mastership. Thus they were all the more capable of devoting themselves to their craft with the disinterestedness that favours the birth of the works of art that we can still admire even in the humblest of churches or on the most modest squares of our villages.

II. THE DESTRUCTIVE REVOLUTION

The revolutionary Committee was going to destroy the guilds for « the good of the people » by accusing them « of being rebels against the spirit of freedom »! The Jacobin party had understood well that it was unable to dominate as long as the nation remained organised in professional associations. After the Church and the King, the guilds represented the last obstacles. Already, Jean-Jacques Rousseau had condemned the intermediate bodies by stating: « There cannot be any society that is interposed between free, equal and fraternal man and the State; popular sovereignty is one and indivisible. » Thus the revolutionary ideology only recognises the individual and the State, and it is on this duality that the modern constitution of our society has been founded since 1789.

Alongside this philosophical reason, there was a practical reason: the Revolution had been the triumph of a party of financiers and middle-class liberals who impatiently awaited this liberation of labour from which they hoped to draw a large profit for their industries and businesses. After having made a fortune from the sale of the nation’s assets, they would soon need cheap labour. They had to destroy the « common property of the trades » that constituted a solidarity, a protective and almost organic fraternity of the trade associations, just as they would be careful later on to guarantee, in the name of the « rights of Man », the absolute right to individual property… meaning: their safes, their (stolen) castles and all their privileges.

THE ALLARD DECREE

The Revolution established the patente, a tax that allowed the State to control the professional activities of individuals. The counterpart of that was that everyone provided with a patente could set up in business for himself wherever he wished and in whatever profession he chose. It was no longer competence, expertise, the quality of the work and of the finished product that were called for, but money. In the past it sufficed to know the trade in order to set up in business; from then on it sufficed to have the money necessary to set up. This decree was voted on the 2 and 17 March 1791, in the name of the « freedom of work »! Immediately there resulted defective goods, price increases and finally strikes.

In April, the discontented workers of Paris wanted to use their freedom to reorganise the guilds. Since the authorities felt threatened, a law seemed necessary in order to bring an end to the associations created after the abrogation of the guilds: it would be the Le Chapelier law.

THE LE CHAPELIER LAW

It broke up all workers’ associations, guilds and coalitions, and all religious associations. By means of a legal trick, « this law of freedom » was going to permit the silencing of all the opponents to the Revolution. It was very easily passed, without even being discussed or studied, which shows how little interest the revolutionaries had in the social problem.

Its first article declared: « Since the annihilation of all kinds of guilds of citizens of the same state and profession is one of the fundamental bases of the French Constitution, it is forbidden to re-establish them de facto, on any pretext and under any form whatever. »

Thus this law naturally led to the exploitation of the weakest by the strongest, by delivering up the workers bound hand and foot to the goodwill of the capitalists in periods of employment shortages, and the employers to the workers in periods of full employment. It thus led directly and infallibly to class struggle and social dissension.

The Le Chapelier law was the great law of heartless and unchecked capitalist liberalism. It was vigorously enforced with the utmost harshness until 1884, thus keeping the world of labour under the yoke. By driving the workers towards socialist and anarchist ideas, it prepared the exacerbation of the class struggle. It is the act that gave birth to the proletariat, to the pauperisation of the working classes, and to their rivalry with the middle classes, which threw them into the arms of Socialism and Communism. It remained one of the laws passed by the Republic that would have the most significant and above all the most harmful consequences on the social and economic history of our country, consequences from which we have not yet escaped. (On this subject, cf. Lional Govignaux’s unpublished thesis, La loi Le Chapelier et le droit d’association.)

III. A TRUE FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE: MGR FREPPEL

In 1893, Fr Cornut, the first biographer of the Bishop of Angers wrote: « One hundred years from now, the reading of the works of Mgr Freppel will be almost as opportune and profitable as today. » Judge for yourself:

« If we do not succeed in resolving the labour question in this last quarter of the nineteenth century, in restoring peace to the world of labour with sound ideas, the twentieth century will be the century of struggles, to say nothing of social wars. » These are words of the Bishop of Angers at the opening of the Regional Congress on the labour question in 1886.

Was he a prophet, then? Not in the least! All he had to do was to identify the cause of all the evil, such as we have analysed it as above: it is the French Revolution that created the “social question” by taking away the right of association through the Le Chapelier Law, on 14 June 1791. « For the fundamental error of the revolutionaries of the last century, who applied to excess the ideas of Rousseau’s Social Contract, was to imagine only two factors in the economic order as in everything else: the individual and the State. This leaves, then, nothing more than a mass of individuals all endowed with equal rights, divorced from any natural or social hierarchy, and the State imposing its will on everyone. »

The catastrophic consequence of this revolutionary doctrine did not take long to become evident.

« The absolute freedom of labour could have no other result than to place the poor and the weak at the mercy of the rich and the strong. Behind a façade of freedom, it is isolation that was brought to the worker, and with isolation, weakness. From then on there was no longer a trace of a hierarchy; no longer any social paternity, no longer any professional fraternity; no longer any common rules; no longer any solidarity of interest, honour and reputation; no longer any close links between masters, workers and apprentices; no longer any guarantees for the weak against the strong; no longer any protection by the great for ordinary people. Rather, it was replaced by a frenetic competition, a struggle for life in which everyone, reduced to relying on his own strength, seeks to prevail over others, at the risk of bringing about their ruin; a fray in which one is elbowed, crushed, trampled underfoot, that is to say, in sum, oppression from above, servitude below, antagonism everywhere and union nowhere: such is the situation the French Revolution came to create for the working class. »

Thus, Mgr Freppel condemned liberalism just as much as socialism, these poisoned fruits of the French Revolution. What did he set against it? A single motto, which would be that of St. Pius X, Omnia instaurare in Christo, to restore all things in Christ:

« Corporative life, social life must be Christian life, a life according to the maxims of the Gospel, and directed in such a manner that each member more easily reaches his ultimate destiny in life beyond his earthly and immediate goal. »

Nevertheless, Mgr Freppel equally condemns socialism: « socialism is no more the true social doctrine than liberalism is true liberty, it is on the contrary the very negation of the principles on which social order rests, the negation of property, the family and religion. »

To these two hostile forces, the Republic was able to oppose only the force of law and State control, a remedy worse than the evil: « it would be State socialism, he declared in the Chamber in 1888, if the State itself became the insurer, the administrator, the entrepreneur, the exploiter of these welfare funds. The point is not to make public power into some sort of housekeeper or universal purveyor! »

Nevertheless, « the State has a social function, which would be incompletely fulfilled if, through its negligence or its lack of foresight, thousands of citizens remained abandoned, without sufficient protection against all the vicissitudes of a precarious existence ».

GOD SERVED FIRST!

For Mgr Freppel, before being an economic question the « social question is, basically and above all, a religious and moral question. The solution, the true and only one, lies in the complete return of the working class to God; to Christ, the Redeemer of humanity; to the Church, the great teacher of peoples; to religion, the source of Christian civilisation. »

« As long as the Christian religion has not regained its influence over the masses, there will be a labour question, and it will be, in the future, the most formidable of them all. Therefore, Catholics must be at the head of every work of social restoration, for they possess the doctrines and the means of action which, alone, can assure their success. While subordinating the interests of time to those of Eternity, the Church has never failed to bless and encourage the works that aim at improving the lot of her children. Only religion is capable of producing and conserving the union of hearts, by giving it faith as a foundation and charity as its mortar. »

Thus, during a session of the Chamber on 2 February 1884, when the republican deputies were discussing the bill authorising trade unions, Mgr Freppel did not hesitate to tell them: « You ban religion from schools, from poorhouses, from hospitals, from hospital boards and charitable agencies; I wonder if you are really on the path that leads to the resolution of the labour question. Atheism will turn this worker, educated in your schools henceforth without religion, into a malcontent, a rebel against the social order, a man powerless against suffering and adversity, a man who, having no hope of a better life, will centre all his desires and all his pleasures on this life, and, consequently, will see an enemy in every man who is more fortunate and wealthier than himself. This is the worker whom you are preparing, the worker of the future, the worker of social war. Instead of resolving the social question, you turn your back on it!

« No, do not hope to resolve the labour question without the Church, and especially not against her. You will raise salaries indefinitely; but if, for want of religious convictions, vices increase in the same proportion, together with the thirst for sensual pleasures, what result will you have obtained? You will spread education among the working class; but while education is useful for everything, it is not itself the whole answer. Education can serve evil as well as good; it all depends on how it is used. Education without morality is nothing more than a sophisticated weapon in the hands of crime. Education only improves men if it goes hand in hand with good sentiments, true beliefs, love of duty, dignity of life and of morals. Of all these things religion is the incorruptible guardian. Between the illiterate savage and the educated savage there is only one difference: the former only has a torch and an arrow in his hands, while the latter has the know-how to add gunpowder and petroleum to his arsenal. »

« You will use force, but force is incapable of resolving questions of a moral order. »

The labour question will only be truly resolved by rejection of the false dogmas of 1789.

It was with this thought that Mgr Freppel founded in December 1890 his Society of Political and Social Economy. Let us take note: political and social.

It is thus a veritable counter-revolutionary school of thought that the Bishop of Angers wanted to see develop. Here is the programme that he drew up for it: « We thought that it was of extreme importance to seek in the light of moral theology, law and the science of economics the scientific foundations on which Catholics must base themselves, with regard to the labour or social question; for as soon as it is a question of science or doctrine, I believe that the place of Catholics must be in the first row. The problems that divide the world of labour should not be resolved without their knowledge and participation. The Society of Political and Social Economy will therefore be a work of reconciliation and union ».

PATRONAGE AND LIBERTIES

« To every advantage of rank or fortune corresponds a responsibility; no superiority can fall to a man without creating duties for him, and it is thus with talent, riches, and power in all its forms. One does not receive these gifts of Providence only for oneself but still more, and above all, for others. A head of industry cannot, any more than the father of a family, the sovereign in the State, or the priest in the Church can, dissociate himself from the well-being and the morality of those who work under his supervision. He too exercises a sort of fatherhood; he carries out a duty of protection and oversight; he has responsibility for souls, in the true sense of the word. The ancient workers’ guilds were founded on the basis of this principle of social paternity; whence came their strength and their duration: restoring it in all its fullness is a first and powerful element of the solution to the great question of which I speak. »

Employers must therefore endeavour to rechristianise their workers, firstly by the example of a family and professional life based on the Gospel, then by word « so as to destroy calumny and prejudice »; finally, and above all, by love, for « in order to succeed with the working class, it is necessary to love it, love it despite its errors and its faults, love it even when it responds to love with indifference or hate ».

« We must place its heart on ours, he added, to raise it up to God. The more you prove to the working class that you love it, the more you will have worked towards its sanctification. »

To rectify what was too rigid in the guilds of the Ancien Régime, Mgr Freppel showed himself favourable to the freedom of labour that he defined as the right of everyone to chose his profession freely, to settle where he wishes, and to work according to the methods and manufacturing processes that he judges most advantageous.

« To the idea of Christian patronage, Mgr Freppel wrote on 1 February 1880, corresponds that of Christian association, both of which complement and strengthen one another. »

This association of employers and workers can only come about under the eye of the Church contributing to the confraternities « all the power and efficacy that religion has for bringing about intellectual reform; given that it restrains passions with the authority of its precepts, transforms souls by the divine virtue of its sacraments, and lastly, consoles suffering by the promise of eternal happiness, would I not be right to conclude that it holds the solution to the problem? » At this price alone will « the revolutionary antagonism of capital and labour be quelled.

There, employers will find the sentiment of justice against the harshness and the coldness of egoism. There the workers will obtain the moderation of their desires. There, in both of them, the fever of material pleasures will subside in a Sursum corda This is why renascent corporations will form, following the example of their forerunners, on the foundation of the Gospel, around the Cross and under the banner of the saints.

“SAINT JOSEPH’S CIRCLE”

« The worker does not live on games and relaxation. He lives on his daily work. His work is his source of income; it is his great preoccupation of each day; he attaches to it his hopes for the future, his honour and his soul. Thus, the person who takes an interest in the labourer’s work in order to protect it does the labourer the true service that he needs and, as a result, will win his heart and become his friend. If he is a labourer he needs a well-paid job in a Christian milieu, and if he is an employer or a merchant, he needs clientele and credit. This matter of a job that is a daily source of income or that of clientele or credit, lacking which there is soon ruin, bankruptcy and dishonour, these are the harrowing questions. »

In order to answer it, Father Ludovic de Besse founded in March 1875 the Society for the Protection of Labour and Virtue. It was a placement office – today we would say an employment agency – for girls forced to work in workshops. Then this society organised itself to keep a watchful eye on the training of the youngest. A mutual assistance fund then opened thanks to which the ill worker would receive an allowance for the duration of her illness, free medical care and medicine, and if need be, a “woman to sit at the bedside” during the night. The society did not die out until around 1900 with the religious persecutions.

Despite the incomprehension and slander from certain representatives of Angers’ Œuvre des cercles catholiques, Mgr Freppel did not cease to support Fr. Ludovic with all his influence and authority. Fr. Ludovic published a list of openly Catholic employers, enterprises, stores, craftsmen and workers. Thus he hoped to re-form gradually the guilds of the past. Approving his work, Mgr Freppel wrote to him:

« The time has come to show Catholic workers in an effective and real way that they have our full sympathy. Besides, it would be to play the fool, and to take no account of the most sacred interests, to place on the same level those who practice our Faith and those who combat it. We owe charity to everyone, but not indiscriminately and without following the order that is indicated by the very nature of things. There is a gradation in our duties as there are degrees in our merits. Your lists of Christian workers are nothing other than the application of this ineluctable precept of the Apostle: Let us do good to all, but above all to the servants of the Faith. »

On 27 January 1878, Father Ludovic de Besse also founded the People’s Bank of Angers. It was a totally original work, unique in France. It was, in reality, much more a « Christian work », in Father Ludovic’s words, than a mere bank. « It aims at bringing closer together all classes. It joins in a single enterprise the labourer, the capitalist, and the priest. It is a work of Christian brotherhood and social peace. This is why we can firmly count on God’s blessings. »

This bank was only open to « Christian and virtuous » labourers. The only guarantee required was a good reputation for virtue and the penchant for saving. So, for example, to a worker who showed that he was capable of saving ten francs, the bank, considering this act of good will, would consent to a loan of 20, 50, 100 francs, or even more, which he needed to buy the raw materials or the machines necessary for the development of his business. In the first five months that it functioned, the People’s Bank of Angers loaned 52,935 francs to sixty associates belonging to thirty different professions.

In 1879, a national congress of labourers’ works, chaired by Mgr Freppel, took place in Angers; the setting for it was the Catholic University. There the bishop met for the first time Charles Périn, the great Belgian defender of integral Catholicism. A professor of social economics at the Catholic University of Louvain, he then became the friend and master of Ferdinand Hervé-Bazin and of René Bazin.

In 1880, Ferdinand Hervé-Bazin, acting on Mgr Freppel’s orders, founded, with Father Ludovic, the Economic Union. The vocation of this new newspaper was to make known and to develop people’s banks on the model of the one at Angers. Nevertheless, articles on all that was being done in favour of workers in Europe could be found in it.

MIXED TRADE UNIONS

Trade unions as such could only be founded starting in 1884, when the Republic, under duress, at last recognised the right for workers to form associations.

At their bishop’s instigation and with his protection, in less than three years, eight trade unions were founded at Angers, grouping almost a thousand families.

Despite such dazzling success, Mgr Freppel’s realism made him understand very quickly that such a work of social renovation was beyond simple human capacities. Thus, from the beginning, he wanted to entrust it to the Virgin Mary under the name of Our Lady of Nazareth. Each affiliated workshop came in turn to make its novena in the chapel of the Sisters of Mercy in order to ask the Blessed Virgin to « revive the law of Jesus Christ Her Son among the faithful who work and among those who provide them with work ». This practice of a perpetual novena was maintained for more than twenty years without any interruption and the confraternity grouped together almost two thousand members.

“SOCIAL PACT”

Mgr Freppel indeed pursued his struggle for social harmony in the Chamber of Deputies, to help workers, but not against employers, by advocating measures against using children and women as labour, for assistance funds to help those injured at work and victims of unemployment, for old-age insurance… If the republicans and socialists truly had concern for the workers, Mgr Freppel and the other social Catholics like Albert de Mun could have established a complete body of legislation at that time. Alas! Blinded by its political bias, the left, allied with the capitalist right, sacrificed the workers to their anticlerical republic. The measures proposed by the social Catholics would have to wait ten, twenty, thirty years before reappearing.

A SCHOOL OF THOUGHT

We have already mentioned the creation of the Society of Political and Social Economy. What was to be called the School of Angers was a work of combat, no longer against external enemies, but against yesterday’s friends and their « Christian socialism ». The Bishop of Angers was undoubtedly the only one who understood that the official Church, under the pretext of dealing exclusively with the labourer’s rights was in the process of sliding down a slippery slope.

The Congress on labourers’ works held at Liège in 1890 marked the rupture. The participants declared themselves as a whole favourable to the intervention of the State. On 7 October 1890, at the Congress of Catholic attorneys, Mgr Freppel replied by a flat refusal. The intervention was so resounding that it was dubbed the Angers bomb.

« Our programme is known: to perform a work of reconciliation and union in order to determine the terrain on which all the Catholics of France can meet and unite in matters of social economy. Yet, in order to be genuine, the union must be based on principles and not on equivocations, reservations, or misunderstandings.

« At the risk of being placed among the “frivolous and impetuous” by a venerable English cardinal [an allusion to Cardinal Manning], we will carefully abstain from declaiming, following his example, against “the rich and the capitalists”, since we do not believe that such over emphatic language, which intensifies class hatred and gives rise to excessive ambitions, soon to be followed by bitter disappointments, is the most appropriate for promoting social peace. »

Alas, despite the Bishop of Angers’s objurgations, Pope Leo XIII inopportunely intervened in the debate.

IV. LEO XIII, A LIBERAL POPE? NO A REVOLUTIONARY POPE!

On 20 February 1878, Cardinal Joachim Pecci was chosen Pope and took the name of Leo XIII. He was then sixty-eight years old. If we are to believe an account reported by the Abbé Barbier, the dying Pius IX confided to one if his close collaborators: « To die is nothing; but what grieves me is the thought that I will have for successor Cardinal Pecci, who will bring down the Church, if such were possible, by his politics and his diplomacy. »

Three days after Pius IX’s death, Cardinal Pecci published a pastoral letter on The Church and Civilisation that attracted much attention. After having traced the history of labour throughout the centuries, the Archbishop of Perugia denounced « these modern schools of political economy infected with incredulity, which consider work the principal end of man, and man himself a machine more or less valued according to whether he is more or less productive ».

A LIBERAL POPE

Straightaway, Leo XIII began to broach social questions in an incidental manner. Thus, on 28 December 1978, in his encyclical Quod apostolici in which he condemned Socialism, he mentioned these « societies of workers and craftsmen which, established under the patronage of religion, know how to make all their members content with their fate and resigned to work ». As though corporations were only made to reassure the middle class! In his encyclical Humanum Genus on 20 April 1884, alluding to the ancient « universities or labourers’ guilds », the Pope wrote: « It is not for us a mediocre consolation to learn that already in several places such associations have been re-formed, as well as societies of employers, whose common aim is to relieve the worthy class of workers. » As Rev. Fr Jarlot pointed out, it was to play with words since, « for Italian Catholics the content of the corporation concept remained fluid. The term trade unions, which had a Socialist flavour, was taboo. The terms mixed or simple corporations were used where today we would say mixed or simple trade unions. »

In 1885, Leo XIII confided to La Tour du Pin: « God has just used our humble good will to put the social question back on to the Church’s agenda. » He announced to him the imminent publication of an encyclical on the subject. In order to work out the text, the Pope had founded in October 1884, with the help of Mgr Mermillod, The Fribourg Union, bringing together every year in that city the social Catholics of all Europe. These intellectuals, who would almost all end up in the Christian Democracy movement, gathered together in order to conceive a European legislation; that it would have no legislative power goes without saying.

In full utopia, they took as their starting point an a priori – contrary to all the teaching of Mgr Freppel – an a priori according to which the political regime had no importance. In their eyes, since the difficulty was purely social, it should therefore find the same solution in France, England, Germany, Russia and finally in the entire world. Hence their idea of formulating a universal social doctrine of which the Pope would be the sole judge and guarantor.

In the light of St. Thomas’ philosophy, and under the influence of René de La Tour du Pin, they were anti-capitalists, or rather against what they declared « the alleged productivity of capital », always considered as « usury ». Furthermore, according to them, the State should interfere in all relations between employers and workers, in order to establish a minimum wage, for example, or the legal duration of work. The task of making the corporative regime obligatory also fell to the State. They showed themselves favourable towards separate trade unions, for want of mixed trade unions, and as a necessary preparation for the establishing of corporations! One could not be more opposed to both what the Bishop of Angers advocated… and to simple good sense!

On 2 February 1888, Mgr Mermillod, presented to the Pope a memorandum issued by the Fribourg Union containing reports on wages, credit and corporative organisation. This text would serve as the starting point for the writing of Rerum novarum that came out on 16 May 1891, at the end of a difficult preparation.

A REVOLUTIONARY ENCYCLICAL

Leo XIII began by describing the « formidable conflict » to which he claimed to bring « a solution that is in conformity with justice and equity », without even letting its cause be suspected, namely the Revolution, liberalism, and the resulting individualism: « For the ancient guilds were abolished in the last century, and no other protective organisation took their place. Every religious principle and sentiment disappeared from public institutions and laws. Hence, by degrees, it has come to pass that working men have been surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the hardheartedness of employers and the greed of unchecked competition. A devouring usury, although often condemned by the Church, but practiced nevertheless under another form by avaricious and grasping men, has increased the evil; and in addition the whole process of production as well as trade in every kind of goods has been brought almost entirely under the power of a few, so that a very few rich and exceedingly rich men have laid a yoke almost of slavery on the unnumbered masses of non-owning workers.

The Pope then denounced Socialism « that works on the poor man’s envy, and strives to do away with private property » In order to defend it, Leo XIII bases private property on « the natural law of man », « master of his own acts », who « is in some fashion his own law and providence. This is why he has the right to choose the things that he considers to be best adapted to provide not only for the present but also for the future. » The Pope based his reasoning on « each man taken individually », « children reflecting and in a sense continuing the person of the father »! Nevertheless, the right to property that is recognised to man « as man » must be transferred « to man as head of the family », « because this right acquires all the more force in proportion as the human person receives a wider extension ».

The Pope then presented the solution for all conflicts: « Man must suffer his condition patiently… accept inequalities… Resign himself to suffering… The poor must fully and faithfully perform the work that he has agreed upon…The rich must respect in every man his dignity by not treating the poor man as a slave and by giving each one his due salary. »

The Pope concluded by appealing for « union in the bonds of true brotherly love » because « all men have God for Father » and « another life that is immortal » as their goal.

It is an understatement to say that this discourse, addressed to labourers who, although working fifteen hours per day, saw their children starving to death for want of being able to give them their daily bread, was somewhat lacking. Could the Church not do anything further?

It would seem not. Leo XIII explained in the last part that, in the end, the State alone could do something concrete. « The State must strive for public and private prosperity… The State must serve the common good… The State can greatly improve the condition of the working class, and do so in all the rigour of its law and without having to fear the reproach of interference… The more the advantages that result from this general action are multiplied, the less it will be necessary to resort to other expedients for remedying labourers’ conditions. » Are not he poor the « greater part of the citizens » and « the living part of the nation »? It is « thus obvious that public authorities must take the required measures in order to safeguard the welfare and interests of the working class » and to do so in the name « of the justice that requires that each must be given his due. » The Pope then concluded: « May the State be, in a very special way, the providence of the workers. »

The State is responsible for combating Socialism in order to defend « the right of private property », and to « keep the masses in their duty » by curbing strikes that « impede commerce and harm general interests ». It belongs to the State to help the working class acquire property « by a more equitable sharing of goods ». The State must also limit the number of work hours « that must not exceed the strength of the labourers »; regulate the work of women and children; establish a minimum wage « sufficient enough to support a sober and honest worker », etc.

Suddenly remembering the associations advocated by social Catholics, the Pope continued: « Lastly (!) mutual assistance societies, patronages, labourers’ corporations can especially help in the solution by all works aimed at relieving indigence efficiently and bringing about a reconciliation between classes ».

In principle, Leo XIII rejected the class struggle: « The major error in the present matter is to believe that the two classes are born enemies of each other, as though nature had armed the rich and the poor so that they would fight a stubborn duel with each other. » Unfortunately, he happened to introduce at the last minute an apparently insignificant interpolated clause fraught with consequences. While the planned text only referred to « mixed » professional associations, the Pope added on his own initiative that they could also be « composed only of workers », thus opening the door to class struggle, and compelling Catholic trade unions down the road to Christian democracy. This is the only thing that the liberal Catholics would retain from Leo XIII’s encyclical and that they would impose as the « social dogma of the Church » covered by pontifical infallibility.

Leo XIII had been under the influence of Cardinal Gibbons who had come to Rome to defend the Knights of Labour (1887-1888). Under the leadership of an Irish Catholic, Terence Powderly, these men took up a working class trade unionism bringing together « men from the whole of society, from every party, from every religion, from every nation in a crusade against tyranny and monopolies ». In the Pope’s presence, Mgr Gibbons had fought against the idea of the « corporation », which in the United States designated big industry and powerful limited liability companies. He also rejected the « confraternity », for « among us, he explained, the presence and direct influence of the priest would not be advisable where citizens, without distinction of religious belief, gather together for all that concerns their industrial interests. »

After deploring « the great multiplicity of labour associations that are just as hostile to the Christian name as they are to the security of nations », Leo XIII concluded by especially congratulating « Catholics who, so to speak, became voluntary companions of the workers », in order finally to exalt « the Christian workers who, united in societies, will easily arrive by reasoning at » the solution to the social question. These professional organisations, the Pope finally explained, should « furnish to each of their members the best and most suitable means for attaining what is aimed at, that is to say, for helping each individual member to better his condition to the utmost in body, soul, and property. »

We are far from the spirit of our guilds of the Middle Ages that defended above all the interests and the knowledge of the trade! Undoubtedly realising the too prosaic nature of this wish, the Pope completed it, but subsequently and as though to rectify an oversight: « It is clear that they must pay special and chief attention to the duties of religion and morality, and that social betterment should have this chiefly in view. » The solution advocated by Leo XIII is thus in the end the Christian labour union for the material improvement of working conditions! This moreover is how it was understood.

The final text, corrected personally by the Pope, is sufficiently vague so as not to displease anyone, in order to bring to a successful conclusion the real project on which his heart was set: rallying the French Catholics to the Republic. By thoroughly expounding – without adopting all of them – the corporative ideas defended by La Tour du Pin and Albert de Mun, Leo XIII was able in advance to win the approval of French Catholics as a whole.

In the opposite camp, the encyclical was received with no less goodwill and Leo XIII was more than a little flattered by it. Jean Jaurès discerned a « Socialist manifesto », the Pope’s criticism of Socialism being nothing more in his eyes than a « misunderstanding ». The anticlerical deputy Yves Guyot reckoned that, by means of Rerum novarum, the Church was adopting as her own a « Socialist politics » that would lead her « to Marxism » since Leo XIII had stated, following Karl Marx, « that the work of the labourer is the unique source from which comes the wealth of nations ».

Within the Church, this encyclical would be considered « infallible »; the Catholic liberal Georges Goyau even dared to speak of a « social dogma of the Church ». Cardinal Lecot drew from it a « Catechism on social matters ». Rerum novarum thus became the « Magna Carta », « the immortal encyclical », etc. Mgr Tissier, Bishop of Châlons, saw in it « Christ’s kiss to His poor »… As for the Abbé Felix Klein, he rejoiced over this « wind of Pentecost announcing for the coming century the reconciliation between the Church and the modern world, between democracy and the papacy. » Even the Abbé Emmanuel Barbier, who later on fought against the Sillonists, saw nothing amiss: « Rerum novarum towers like a luminous beacon, the lights of which must be consulted in order to know if the navigators who are sailing through these waters full of reefs have taken the right direction », he wrote. More perceptive, the Catholic liberal Emmanuel Desgrées du Lou announced that before being able to implement « the fruitful pontifical word » « an interior reform » of the Church would be required in order « to liquidate the Catholic conservative spirit ».

Mgr Freppel was one of the rare opponents, not to say the only one, but in any case the only one to go and say so at Rome. Honour to him! He was not followed, except by a small number of persons: Charles Périn, Paul Baugas, professor of social economics at the Catholic University of Angers and, to a certain extent, more discreetly René Bazin (Ferdinand having died in 1889), and a few others. The greater number preferred the easy way of obedience to the Pope.

Fr. Jobin, S. J., understood perfectly the import of the encyclical: « Rerum novarum has engaged the Church on a path of dialogue and pluralism. It began a reversal of perspective by showing that it is legitimate to deal with social demands for themselves, from the sole viewpoint of man and the requirement of the dignity that he bears in himself. It made possible another mode of relationships between the Church and the world. The latter would gradually impose itself on the Catholic conscience. The reversal carried out by Rerum novarum promoted a concept of man that put his destiny at the centre of the Church’s reflection and made it the final reason for the particular options that she recommended be taken. »

As for René de La Tour du Pin, he understood nothing:

« The first phase, the doctrinal one, was closed by the encyclical. Now shall open the organic phase, that in which the ideas take shape », he wrote. To begin with, the Œuvre des cercles and the Fribourg Union, having played their role, had had their day. Leo XIII would let them die a natural death. This is how « the ideas » of Leo XIII « take shape »…

SOCIAL DEMOCRACY

Mgr Freppel died on 21 December 1891, leaving the way free for the Pope to impose his chimera. Rerum novarum would serve as a springboard for him to force the French to rally to the Republic. As the historian Bruno Dumons observes, by accepting « the State as the providence of the workers », Leo XIII could launch the Church of France into cooperation with the republican state.

Leo XIII had nothing more to do than to chose a henchman and find some mercenaries in order to make the anticlerical French Republic evolve towards the Christian republic of his dreams. He turned towards Léon Harmel, the Third-Order Franciscan, the young priests who made up the democratic clergy, and finally towards Marc Sagnier’s Sillon.

Very quickly, under the protection of Cardinal Langénieux and with the support of Léon Harmel, labour congresses were organised in this spirit with the aim of « tending to constitute a democracy in which one would have the right to work while praying and in which the humble could make their grievances heard in another way other than through barricades and revolutions », with the principle of « the apostolate of the worker by the worker ». This launched the trade unions into a policy of outdoing the socialists. Beginning with the first congress Leclerc, a worker who founded the circle of Lille, supported by the Abbé Pottier, campaigned against mixed trade unions

THE NEW FRANCISCANS

Leo XIII also encouraged Léon Harmel to support the social action recently undertaken by the Franciscans. « My own reform is the rule of the Third Order of St. Francis », he was fond of saying. A member of the third order since 1872, the Pope had honoured it with a special encyclical and presented it as a « true school of freedom, equality and fraternity » in opposition to Freemasonry.

The Abbé Charles Maignen, the nephew of Maurice, attempted to oppose the movement. Œuvre des cercles catholiques d’ouvriers, he declared, is the Counter-Revolution, that is to say, the invocation of the principles and practices contrary to those of the Revolution, by a return to the spirit, the traditions and the constitutions of the Christian centuries of our history. If we want to establish the legitimate rights of the workers, we can only do it by trade registers that give a single voice to the body and not to each member. » Alas, his advice was not followed!

Other opposition came from the Catholic Association of Northern Employers meeting in a congress at Notre-Dame du Haut-Mont in Mouvaux. In 1893, they had refused the principle of separate trade unions and demanded concord between employers and labourers by the action of mixed trade unions. In the Moniteur de Rome, the Abbé Boeglin accused them of being unfaithful to the teachings of Leo XIII.

Since the controversy grew more acrimonious, Leo XIII intervened once again by a reply that avoided taking a position. The Pope, repeating the teaching of Rerum novarum, affirmed that if it was good to establish mixed trade unions; the workers remained free to establish independent ones. The employers from the North wanted to see in it approval for their action.

“GRAVES DE COMMUNI”

Leo XIII then judged it necessary to publish on 18 January 1901 a new encyclical in which he made it a rule « to employ the term Christian democrat only by removing from it all political connotations ». He then ordered the faithful « never to prefer the democratic form of government over another ». He also wanted « Christian democracy » to be distinguished from « social democracy » with which « it has nothing in common, for it is based on the principles of the divine Faith: justice, property rights, distinction of classes ». Finally, the Pope deplored « that, under the pretence of democracy, certain people despised hierarchical superiors » when « on the contrary, those who have authority in the State must be respected ». In conclusion, the Pope « hoped, after having recalled these principles, to see the disappearance of all the differences of opinion relative to the term of Christian democracy and to see vanish all the suspicions of danger regarding the reality expressed by this word. »

Christian Democrats enthusiastically welcomed the encyclical. The Abbés Dabry, and Naudet exulted: « The Pope has spoken. He endorses the term and the substance of Christian Democracy. The Church resumes today the true spirit of the Revolution. » In fact his reservations were ineffective; as Henri Bazire, the President of the acjf, said: « The Pope swallowed the word; he will swallow the reality. »

Contrary to the commonly held opinion, the encyclical Graves de communi was not a condemnation of democracy but a step on the brakes, given to curb the too enthusiastic exaltations of the democratic clergy in order to bring to an end the opposition of the employers from the North and a few others, with a view to better negotiating the turn towards a veritable « Christian democracy » according to the heart of the Pope.

Leo XIII proved it himself in his address to the cardinals who came to present him their wishes in January 1902:

« The action of Christian democracy today is, as you well understand, not of slight importance. This action is entirely in conformity with the character of the time and the needs that gave rise to it. Those who have dedicated themselves to this work put all their energies into it with zeal and notable fruits. As the Church intends, the democratic concept is marvellously in keeping with revealed dogmas and religious beliefs. It is even necessary to say more: it is born from Christianity and it is through Christianity that it has developed; it is the preaching of the Gospel that propagated it among the nations. Athens and Rome did not know it, save after having heard the divine voice that said to men: You are all brothers and your common Father is in Heaven » (to be continued)

Brother Pascal of the Blessed Sacrement