First let us see what Pope Pius XI has to say about the radical instability of human society. The best statement of his views is to be found in a discourse delivered on May 15, 1926, to a group which had been commemorating the thirty-fifth anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s Encyclical Rerum Novarum (“On the Condition of the Working Classes”). This discourse is in the direct line of Pope Pius XI’s own great Encyclical, Quadragesimo Anno, which was written just five years later, on the fortieth anniversary of Rerum Novarum. As a matter of fact, the discourse is quoted (at Paragraph 49) in Quadragesimo Anno, and the reference given; so that it is obvious that it should be studied with the latter document.
The importance of the Discourse is further emphasized by the Holy Father’s statement at the beginning that it resulted from some sort of divine inspiration. The Holy Father thinks himself in conscience bound to these dear sons who have come here in the expectation of some direction
relative to their role as leaders of Catholic Action. That is why he will tell them in all confidence what the Lord inspired him to say at the moment when, kneeling before Him, he had repeated the beautiful prayer of St. Thomas: Da mihi, Domine, sedium tuarum assistricem sapientiam….
The first reflection bears upon the instability of human affairs, and not only of the minor ones, but also of the great; not only of those which are contingent circumstances of social life, but also those which seem bound up with the very substance of things, and which we are not in the habit of conceiving in any other way than as unchangeable. There is an instability from which no single thing can escape, for that, precisely, is the essence of created things: they have not in themselves the reason for their own being. Thus it happens that even for the greatest things, for those that are closest to the substance of certain institutions, instability is possible, and sometimes inevitable and it is even, in fact, commonplace, especially if we do not stop at the consideration of each fact in particular, but extend our view to the great considerations of history and of the road traveled by the human race.
The fact is that precisely in those social elements which seem fundamental, and most exempt from change, such as property, capital, labor, a constant change…is not only possible, but is real, and an accomplished fact. It suffices to examine the course of history.
Of course, the fundamental principle: “Thou shalt not steal,” remains immutable, and in disregard of it there is only violation of the divine precept. But what divers concrete forms property has had, from that primitive form among rude and savage peoples, which may be observed in some places even in our own day, to the form of possessions in the Patriarchal Age, and so further to the various forms under Tyranny (We are using the word “Tyranny” in its classical sense); and then through the feudal and, later, monarchical forms, to the various types that are to be found in more recent times! How many and how different attitudes in what concerns not only the great collectivities, but even the family, and individuals!
Most of the last paragraph above is quoted in Quadragesimo Anno. It will be noticed that besides indicating profound changes in the concept and fact of property throughout the ages, this passage also indicates, as the Pope himself is careful to point out in the last sentence, equally fundamental changes in the forms and ideas of the State and of the family, as well as in the norms and limits of individual action. The quotation continues:
1. It is the same with labor. From the primitive work of the man of the stone age, to the great organization of production of our day, how many transitions, ascensions, complications, diversities!
2. What an enormous difference! It is therefore necessary totake such changes into account, and to prepare oneself, by an enlightened foresight and with complete resignation, to this instability of things and of human institutions, which are not all perfect, but necessarily imperfect and susceptible of changes.
The most pragmatical of the modern “Scientific Sociologists” could not surpass this statement of the radical instability “even of those great institutions which seem bound up with the very substance of things, and which we are not in the habit of conceiving in any other way than as unchangeable.” The Pope could venture so boldly into this “no-man’s-land” between the moralists and the sociologists because he knew that he had already found the answer to the unsolved problem of both sides: how to maintain the reign of unchanging law if it is once admitted that the “very substance of things” is subject to change.
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