Crisis In Christendom, No. 6 of 17) (opening missing

The man that writes in the name of freedom, forgetting that as Lincoln once said, she and wolves never agree on the definition of freedom. The Christian solution is to get behind neither capital or labor exclusively, but to be behind capital when Marxian socialism would destroy private property and to be behind labor when monopolistic capitalism would claim the priority of profits over the rights of a just wage. If we are behind either capital or labor, at what point will either of them stop in their demands? Or is there a stopping point? Did capital ever decide for itself when it was in the saddle that it would take no more than 10 percent profits? The fact is capital took all the profits that traffic would bear. Now that capital is unseated and labor is riding the economic course, what limits does labor set itself? Is there a wage beyond which it will not ask? Are there certain minimum hours below which it will not seek to work? They too are trying to get all the traffic will bear. When self-interest and class-interest become the standard, then who shall say which is right and wrong? Because the old Chinese proverb put it, no good rat will injure the grain near its whole. This brings us to a consideration of the economic and political principle of the Christian order. The Christian order starts with man. Or other orders start with class. Capitalism and communism, for example, though they are opposite in their directions, like branches of a tree, are nevertheless rooted in the same economic principle namely that class takes all. Communism is really only rotted capitalism. Under capitalism the employer takes all. Under Marxian socialism the employee takes all. But the Christian economic orders, we set start with man. In the deathly next Sunday we will show the repercussions of this doctrine on the family. Now the basic principle of the Christian order is this. Economic activity is not the end of human life. But the servant of human life. Therefore the true primary end of economic production is not profit. What the satisfaction of human needs? In other words Christianity says, production exists primarily for consumption. And only secondarily for profits. Christianity demands a revolutionary change of the economic order because it affirms the primacy of the human over the economic. It is starting principle is that the right of a man to a living wage is prior to the right of a return on investments. Now from this basic principle of the Christian economic order, seven conclusions follow. And they constitute the Christian charter on economics. When an industry is unable to pay a wage sufficient not only for a moderately comfortable life but also for savings, the difference should be made up either by industry pooling a percentage of all wages paid or in default of this by the state. Second, neither the capitalist right to profits nor the labor right to organization are absolute and unlimited. They are both subject to the common good and both can be suspended for the common good. Both the right to profits and the right to organization are only means. And as means they are to be judged by the way they promote the true ends of life, namely religion, general posterity, peace and happy human relations. Third, the consumer must not be treated as the indispensable condition of unlimited demands by labor or unlimited profits by capital. But as the person whose interest is the true end of the whole economic process. Fourth, the distinction between capital and labor which has its basis presently in whether one buys or sells it must be broken down. And it must give way to a union of capital and labor on the basis of a common service which both of them render to the nation. To ask which is more important capital or labor is like asking which is the more important to a man, the right leg of the left. Since both of them have a common function, they should function together. Fifth, the wage contract should whenever possible be modified by a contract of partnership between employer and employee. So that wage earners are made sharers in some way in the profits or management or ownership of industry. Since both produce social wealth there is no reason why both should not share in the wealth which is produced. A worker in a factory has more rights to the profits of industry than a man who merely clips coupons. The only way to make labor responsible is to give it some capital to defend. The only way to make capital responsible is to make it labor for the right of possession. Did you ever hear of an artist agitating for a five-hour day? Why not? Because his work is his life. Today men do not work. They only have employment. There is a difference between work and employment. Work is a divine vocation. Employment is an economic necessity. A laborer will sit on someone else's tools, but no artist will sit down on his own paintbrushes. The reason is the artist work entails responsibility. That is why those who are getting behind either capitalists to defend them against labor-acqueteers or behind labor. To defend them against economic royals are delaying the day of economic peace and contributing to the present economic conflict. The Christian solution is to unite them both on the basis of a common task. From six. Democracy should be extended and not curtailed. For many decades political power was controlled to a great extent by organized capital by merchants and lords of finance and by industrialists. Today the stage is being prepared for the control of political power by labor. A class transmission of power by either capital or labor is opposed to the basic principle of democracy. The Christian concept of politics is that government exists for the common good of all. If democracy is to be made effective, the holders of economic power, whomever they be, whether they be capital or labor must be made responsible to the community. They are its servants, not its masters. In seventh and finally. Since the best of economic plans will fail unless selfishness is eradicated. And since this is impossible without religion. We ask the Jews and the Protestants and the Catholics to prepare for a new economic order by spending a whole hour a day in prayer and meditation. The Catholics including in this holy hour, daily mass and holy communion. A prayer book for wartime entitled The Shield of Faith to assist in making this hour will be gladly sent free to anyone who asks for it. Returning now to our theme instead of the present order which says, what do I get out of this? Men will ask in the Christian order what service can I render to my country? Freedom, fellowship and service. These are the principles of a Christian social order derived from the basic principle that man is a creature of God destined after a life of free service to enjoy eternal fellowship with divine love. In order to build up this new world, we must begin thinking in a new way. Just as totalitarianism will not and cannot be defeated by thinking in the same grooves which led to it. So neither can the self-liveness, the agotism and the class conflicts of our social order be conquered by patching up the principles which produced it. Why is it so important to start with an entirely new set of principles and a new standard of values? Because if we do not, we will end only by shifting power and booty and loot from one class to another instead of working for the good of all. So this war, like heavens, is the end of the economic man. And by the economic man, I mean the man whose basic principle was the primacy of prophets. But unless we accept Christian principles based on the primacy of person and the common good, we will see a new kind of man, the enthronements of the political man. This is where irreligious revolutions such as Marxian socialism and Naziism end. In the substitution of the acquisitiveness of power for the acquisitiveness of money. And a political man whose God is power can be just as lustful, just as aberacious as the economic man whose God is money. The decent human person has a little bit of choose between the two. And either we will restore this Christian order based on the dignity of the human person, or we will shift from a regime dictated by economics to a regime dictated by politics. This war, and let us not mistake it, is and expression of a world as he used. It will avail us not to give this old order in which we live artificial respiration, or we are giving it to a corpse. Let us wear no widows' weeds of mourning because our superstitions are being carried to the grave. Rather should we be putting on our wedding garments to cut a new world and a new order in a renewed divine justice. If the old order of politicians who promise to the electorate everything it wants, from pitiating the treasury to new tires and more sugar is dead, then caught be sent. Let it perish. If the old world of capitalism, which thinks that property rights means the right to accumulate profits uncontrolled by the common goods and the rights of organized labor, if this order is dead, caught be sent. Let it perish. If the old order of labor organizations, which thinks that there is no minimum to hours of work, and no maximum to salary demands, and which would paralyze a national industry for five days, because it refused to pay a five cent transportation fee, if that kind of world is dead, then it will be a huge loss. Let it perish. If the old world where the college education was a social necessity instead of being what it ought to be and intellectual privilege is dead, caught be sent. Let it perish. For when our boys come home from the battlefronts of the world, they will share none of these old ideas. Every one of these boys will want a job, and they will have a right to that job whether they belong to a union or not. And there is not a single one of these boys who will admit that the indispensable condition of working is the evil longs to a union. Every one of them will want to just wage, and the right to raise a family in competent decency. And they will not admit that these personal and family rights are subject to and conditioned upon bondholders receiving six percent interest on their investments. Every one of the boys that are in the armed forces today will have lived through a day when capital rules and also when labor rules. And because they are fighting for neither while they are at war, they will not stand for the domination of either in peace. They will fill up a great vacuum in our economic and political life, for they will fight for the common goods in which the uncommon man of capital. And the common man of organized labor will both be subject to the resurrection of justice under God, and with God on the side of these boys who shall stand against him. All are Jesus Christ, the wind I mercy here of the prayers of sinners. For us we besiege the all grace and blessing upon our country and the citizens. We pray in particular for the president, for our Congress, for all our soldiers, for all who depend us in ships, whether on the seas or in the skies. For all who are suffering the hardships of war, we pray for all who are in peril or in danger. Bring us all up to the troubles of this life into the haven of peace and reunite us all together forever O dear Lord, in thy glorious heavenly kingdom. The address you have just heard was entitled the Christian social order and was delivered by the right reverend Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen of the Catholic University of America. This was the sixth in Monsignor Sheen series of seventeen addresses on the crisis in Christendom. A copy of today's talk, as well as the booklet referred to by Monsignor Sheen, The Shield of Faith may be obtained by writing to the National Council of Catholic Men, Washington DC, or to the station to which you are now listening. It has been a delay in the distribution of the booklets, The Shield of Faith, but we are happy to say that the copies will begin to go into the mail during the coming week. The Catholic hour will close with the hymn, O Mother Deer, Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit will be the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will be the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit. O Mother Deer, Jerusalem, when shall I come to thee? When shall my sorrow save on thee? O Mother Deer, Jerusalem, when shall I come to thee? The Holy Spirit will be the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Next Sunday at this time, Monsignor Sheen will deliver another address in this series entitled, The Christian Order and the Family. Your announcer is John Patrick Costello. The Catholic hour has been presented by the National Broadcasting Company and the independent radio stations associated with the NBC network in cooperation with the National Council of Catholic Men. The program came to you from New York. This is the National Broadcasting Company.