35. The Papacy and Liberalism

Nothing could have inflicted deeper wounds on the Roman Catholic Church than the rigidity with which Pope Pius IX opposed any understanding with the currents of our time. The light that had come upon the nations was to be extinguished by all means; the head of the Church considered it possible to impose the beliefs of the darkest Middle Ages on modern mankind. The teachings of the modern age were not to be refuted, but the curse alone was the means that Pius IX used against them. Leo XIII recognized that this was a grave error, even from the pope's point of view. That is why his attitude towards the achievements of the time was essentially different. In his view, the spirit should beat the spirit. The teachers of the Gospel should not stubbornly reject what modern science and modern life hold against them, but rather take it into themselves, on the one hand to utilize it, as far as possible, in the spirit of Catholicism, and on the other hand to be able to refute it effectively from the standpoint of the Church. This is why the Pope recommended that his priesthood study Christian philosophy in order to turn it into a weapon against modern science. He does not dislike it when Darwinian and similar theories are presented at theological faculties and illuminated from the point of view of Catholic science, something that his predecessor would have condemned in the strongest terms.

The calm tone of objective debate that characterizes Leo XIII's encyclicals also stems from this attitude of the Pope. He not only condemned modern beliefs, he examined them and sought to refute them objectively. For Catholicism, this changed method of struggle is a great advantage, but for modern culture it is an equally significant disadvantage. The voluntary rejection of all modern cultural achievements and the closure to the trends of the time would have enabled the latter to progress more quickly. If there had been nothing at all of the ideas of the present in the church and only narrow-minded dogmatism, then everything that is called spirit would have had to be expelled from it of its own accord.

These are the points of view on which the government of Leo XIII is based. His latest encyclical is further proof of this. He seeks to counter liberalism in a factual manner and the liberalism of the whole trend of the time. For those who are still in the bonds of faith, the sentences of the circular letter, presented with sophistical acumen, will not remain without a profound impression. This should be openly admitted. Nor should it be denied that with the liberal principle the central point of modern culture has been correctly struck. The barometer of progress in the development of mankind is, in fact, the conception one has of freedom and the practical realization of this conception. We are convinced that recent times have seen a progress in this concept that is just as significant as that brought about by the teachings of Christ: "Let there be neither Jew, nor Greek, nor Barbarian, nor Scythian, but let all be brothers in Christ". Just as at that time the equality of all men before God and their equals was recognized, so in the last century the conviction increasingly took hold of people that our task could not consist in submission to the commandments of an external authority, that everything we believe, that the guiding principle of our actions should only come from the light of reason within ourselves. To consider as true only that which our own thinking compels us to, to move only within those social and state forms which we give ourselves, that is the great principle of the time.

Like any principle that is correct in itself, this one can of course also be interpreted incorrectly and thus cause untold harm. Indeed, not much can be said about the introduction of the true form of this principle into practical life. For it is easy to make the mistake that by establishing the maxim of following only one's own inner self, any assertion of subjective arbitrariness, of purely individual striving, is justified. But this necessarily leads to arbitrariness standing against arbitrariness, subjective interests against subjective interests, and finally to a struggle of all against all, a "struggle for existence", in which not only the stronger wins against the weaker, but the dishonest against the honest, the dishonest against the friend of truth. This is what the principle of freedom has really come to in recent decades, and what is commonly referred to today as liberalism is this distorted image of the modern spirit. It is sad, but unfortunately only too true, that here an originally correct view has led to the hideous system of exploitation of the individual by the individual. It is only a pity that this stock market liberalism has been so long at large, for it is only because it has blinded the minds to everything that truly bears the name of freedom that many otherwise not insignificant men have turned away from the liberal movement and thrown themselves into the arms of reaction. Now, fortunately, the death knell of that pseudo-liberalism no longer seems far away.

Man is not just an individual being, but belongs to a larger whole, a nation. What is otherwise called a species is the nation for man. And just as what is of equal value also proves to be similar in its expressions, so too the voice of reason, if man really listens to it objectively, will not speak one way in this individual and differently in that one. And even if reason is numerically different in many people, it is nevertheless the same in content; if the individual truly places himself under its spell and not under that of subjective arbitrariness and egoism, the will of one cannot exclude that of the other, but will meet with it, complement it and support it. Thus the aspirations of a number of individuals who belong together as a state will form a reasonably ordered system within which the individual can really move freely. In this system each will fulfill his task without being restricted, opposed or exploited by the others; he will be restricted in his freedom neither by an authority, as in the Catholic world view, nor by the egoism of others, as in the modern pseudo-liberal state. This is a state order that corresponds to true liberalism and at the same time can be described as truly state socialist.

Events are showing ever more clearly that this view of our way of life is working its way up into reality. It represents true progress compared to the old ecclesiastical order. It is what will establish a new era; papal circulars will be powerless against it. It is a historical necessity, just as Christianity once was. Pseudo-liberalism is not, and therefore the apparent truth of the sentences of the encyclical. It is fighting against a stillborn child.