I suppose we can agree that the aim of Jesuit education may be described, partially at least, as mental awareness and moral strength. Catholic education in general proceeds from a very clear and definite doctrine of human nature, founded in revelation; and to such a doctrine it can never be false. But the institutions and techniques of Catholic education are subject to change. Thus, as the various fields of knowledge have been more fully explored, and as various branches of learning have been differentiated, curricula have been enlarged, enriched—some would say, overstuffed—in the attempt to place before the student a well-balanced, if admittedly incomplete, picture of the cosmos of which he is a part. Similarly, research and years of accumulated experience have improved and facilitated the work of both teacher and student. Surely the American Jesuit college of today is very different from its European prototype of a few centuries ago. I am not arguing that what is new is of necessity superior, and still less that our present system cannot be improved on, even with our present resources. The point is that our organization of today has evolved and developed, just as our whole world has evolved and developed; that as the social patterns of successive generations have changed, our educational system has been and must necessarily be responsive to the new intellectual and social developments. To do otherwise would be to fail in our main endeavor—the moral and intellectual preparation of men for a fruitful life in the actual world.
But with all the changes in curriculum and technique, the Jesuit ideal remains the same. The chapel is still the heart of the college. The doctrine of human nature is abiding, the spirit of our teaching is unchanged; and these things are what make our work meaningful. Fundamentally, the old and the new are the same, as are the acorn and the oak; and it can fairly be said that we have kept faith with the past and are keeping faith with [153] the present. Hence the serious view we must take of our professional responsibility in facing today's problems in the organization of society.
Now, if institutionalized education within the same philosophical system has changed in the sense described above, so too has government, and more particularly, democracy. Man has always had government, because he has always needed it. But the City-State of ancient Greece and the great national "Service-State" of today are as different as a trireme and a transatlantic clipper. Changes and developments in science, philosophy, law, technology, language, geographical discovery, mechanical invention, all have played a part in the growth of governmental institutions, and have necessarily affected political thought.
For political thought cannot be static. While at its best it is no mere rationalization of a temporary status quo, one of its most important functions is to explain a given political order to those who live under it and are parts of it. As new developments in science, say, or industry affect organized life in society, the political thinker must undertake new attempts at a synthesis which will harmonize the new forces and elements with those that preceded them, interpreting and providing for legitimate human needs and aspirations as they arise. For example, political parties and labor unions were developments quite unforeseen by the democratic theorists of the late eighteenth century, but both are highly important elements in contemporary society—so important, indeed, that their forcible extinction was thought to be necessary in totalitarian states, the several Master Parties being rather more like palace guards than parties in the conventional sense.
At the same time, political theory, if it is to be of any real significance, must repose on a theory of human nature. When you are planning a house, or studying a house already built, it makes all the difference to your conclusions about it whether the house is meant for a man or for a dog. As Professor Ross Hoffmann has finely said:[1] "First things come first, and back of all politics and sociology there lie philosophy and religion.” And so the Catholic political thinker, like the Catholic educator, is capable of deeper and more intelligent and more meaningful social criticism than any other.
It is a mistake, however, to be content merely with stating first principles, or simply to echo, with little commentary and no development, the ideas of St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Robert Bellarmine, Francisco Suarez. The men for whom and about whom they wrote are fundamentally the same as the men of today; but the social organizations, then and now, are, for better or worse, different. It should be noticed, too, that Bellarmine, for example, was not content with a mere repetition of St. Thomas. In the [154] given situation, he could not have been. The conception of the Emperor as temporal head of one undivided Christendom had largely passed in Bellarmine’s day; national states and kings were rising on every hand, each claiming complete sovereignty in his own domain. Bellarmine’s problem was to legitimize reasonable claims to secular authority, and at the same time reasonably to defend the indirect power of the Pope in temporal matters. True, man still had the same origin and destiny, in society and out of it; true, authority still came from God; but actual society—the means to the end—was different from what it had been in the thirteenth century and before; and authority, divine in origin though it was, now manifested itself in ways that would have seemed strange indeed to the men of the Middle Ages.
Suarez, too, was alive to new problems. For example, in a paragraph that is big with consequences for our own time, he writes:[2]
...Though any one state, republic or kingdom be in itself a perfect community ... nevertheless each of the states is also a member, in a certain sense, of the world.... For none of these communities are ever sufficient unto themselves to such a degree that they do not require some mutual help, society or communication, either to their greater advantage or from moral necessity and need.... For this reason therefore, they need some law whereby they may be directed and rightly ruled in this kind of communication and society.Such a statement might have almost mystified students a few centuries earlier, when there was but one Respublica Christiana, when a barter economy based on self-sufficient villages, the feudal system, and an international culture bestowed by the Church made quite superfluous a plea for international law of the kind Suarez here seems to demand.[3]
Adjustments of the foregoing type are the problem of the Catholic political thinker today. The rate of social change has been tremendously accelerated in the last century and a half. It requires a strong effort of the imagination to picture a world in which the smoke of modern industry did not blacken the sky, in which a voyage to Europe was a matter of weeks or months, and even a trip to the county seat was an adventure. Even those who have witnessed the coming of the automobile, the airplane, and the radio are now so accustomed to them that one is startled at seeing a photograph of a national highway of 1912, with all its ruts and mud, and [155] amused and alarmed by a snapshot of an early "airship”—a nightmare contraption of wings and bicycle wheels. Yet all these things and many more have changed the pattern and the matrix of our social lives. The Political Revolution did not come alone; the Industrial Revolution was superimposed on it. It was still true that the purpose of civil government was to provide for the peace and security of those who lived under it; but the content of these general concepts had to be analyzed anew, with reference to problems—the growth of an urban proletariat, for example—which earlier generations were not called upon to face, and in terms of new channels of authority, new governmental institutions and processes. The age of "Social Politics,” to use the happy phrase of Professor Carlton Hayes,[4] had arrived. For the Political Revolution cast off various old political ties, and various social disabilities; it was, if you will, a somewhat negative movement, emphasizing "freedom from.” Later in the process, in consequence of democratization and industrialism, a positive demand makes itself felt, emphasizing greater participation, not only in the governmental process but in economic advantages, calling for positive services from the state—benefits such as unemployment insurance, standards of wages and hours, old age pensions and the like. To describe the movement would be to tell, among other things, the history of de Mun and the Social Catholics in France and elsewhere on the Continent, of Manning and the pre-1914 Liberal Party in England, and—much later—of the New Deal in this country, not to mention, ex altera parte, socialism in its many forms.
Now all this may seem remote from the problem set before us at the outset, namely, what contribution our Jesuit educational system in this country can make to democracy. I do not think, however, that we have wandered too far afield. For our problem, as I see it, is two-fold: it is, first of all, to hand on to our students, in definite and vivid terms, such a doctrine of human nature as will provide them with something basic to all their political thought, and something partaking of the nature of an absolute to which they can refer democratic doctrine. And secondly, it is to play our part, as teachers, students, writers, in interpreting the needs of our time with the aid of our age-old and immutable philosophical concepts. For both tasks, understanding of the origins of our pressing social problems is absolutely vital.
Some contemporary writers and some university professors and presidents are experiencing an uncomfortable intellectual draft as they awake to find a large proportion of young men and women, well formed in scepticism and disillusionment by their very teachers, no longer actively believe in any values, and that if these young people cling with a certain [156] instinct to a belief in democracy, this belief, lacking a radical basis in logic and human nature, is not likely to survive sudden, violent shocks. The situation has been admirably though perhaps too pessimistically described by Professor Mortimer Adler.[5] There are plenty of people who base their belief in democracy, very sincerely and very completely, on a theory of natural rights. Theirs is a fair working theory so far as it goes, and it may provide them with a more or less permanent philosophical abode. But there are almost inevitable contradictions which will beat at its windows. And when you say, "yes, but on what do you base natural rights?” the discussion becomes viciously circular.
Catholic educators do not labor under such disabilities. Their doctrine of natural rights can be traced back to verities that are pre-political, that are bound up with ethics and with theology. They do not need to plead for "faith in the democratic process”; they do not view democracy as a particular set of mores, which, in a given cultural frame of reference (blessed phrase!) enjoy a temporary vogue and a somewhat dubious respectability. But they should endeavor to communicate to their students a reasoned, vital enthusiasm for responsible representative government according to just law and reasonable interpretation of the Constitution, as that form which is most in harmony with individual dignity and social responsibility in our historical setting.
Catholic educators will be realistic; yet they shall not betray themselves and their students by hard-boiled, disillusioned cynicism about political facts—which logically ends in the overthrow of democracy and perhaps in a "revolution of nihilism.” They cannot afford to shrug their shoulders at political corruption, because, forsooth, it has "always existed,” and anyway, doesn’t the "machine” give handouts to the poor and tear up the clergy’s traffic tickets? Mr. Charles Michelson, publicity director for the Democratic National Committee, has recently given us a splendid example both of a type of political mores and of the cynical attitude we must combat. In an article released to the daily press by the North American Newspaper Alliance agency, dated Washington, November 11, 1940, Mr. Michelson offers a "critique by a publicity engineer of the technique and strategy of ... the battle for Wendell Willkie.” Speaking of the choice of Mr. Willkie as candidate for the Presidency, he writes:
I do not know that anybody could have beaten such a popular idol as Franklin D. Roosevelt, but I have in mind the type which would have had a much better chance than Mr. Willkie. He should have been a bland person, with some wealth, inherited possibly, and a record of public service—governor of a state, perhaps, or a judge, or even the head of a conspicuous philanthropic [157] organization, with a war record to take away the taint of stuffed-shirtism. A human bromide? Certainly; that’s what the occasion demanded.[6]Whether or not Mr. Michelson is spoofing his foes, the same attitude is to be found in many political treatises by serious scholars, and I submit that the logical consequences of such statements are more dangerous to democracy than Mr. Earl Browder's noisiest rallies.
On the other hand, and at the opposite extreme, we will carefully refrain from identifying any form of governmental institutions with "Catholism,” bearing in mind the precisions of every pope since Leo XIII as to the compatibility of the Church with any form of civil society which recognizes the rights of God and the Church. Nor will we be deluded into thinking that Christianity is, to quote Mr. Christopher Dawson,[7] "like a patent medicine that is warranted to cure all diseases." The same author continues:[8]
Christianity offers no short cuts to economic prosperity or social stability. A century ago there was a tendency to treat Christianity as a kind of social sedative that kept the lower classes obedient and industrious, and the consequence was the Marxian denunciation of religion as the opium of the poor. And if today we treat Christianity as a social tonic that will cure economic depression and social unrest and make everybody happy, we shall only ensure disillusionment and reaction. It is impossible to create a Christian social order ab extra by the application of a few ready-made principles or by introducing legislative reforms.Furthermore, just because we are by second nature so conscious and respectful of order and hierarchy in truth, we shall be very careful not to withdraw prematurely to the higher ground of abstract principle, and content ourselves with being philosophers, leaving what are called the social sciences to stew in their own thin intellectual juices. Those sciences—politics, economics, sociology—need precisely what we have to give them: an ethical bearing; but the trick can’t be done without studious application to political, economic, and sociological facts, as they actually occur in our social setting. Some day, some of our graduates may make important contributions to social theory, to law, to public life, precisely because they are Catholic scholars. Let us remember that, as educators, we have a duty to society of preparing not just good citizens, but really capable leaders, in public life as well as in the Church and other vocations.
One last word. Our concern with democracy and its problems at home [158] should not distract our attention as Catholic educators from the larger problem of world organization. In this field perhaps more than elsewhere, Catholic scholarship in America faces a challenge. Is it not fair to say that Catholics, who ought to be universalists by habit of mind, and hence better qualified to apprehend the issues at stake, have been somewhat slow to contribute anything very substantial to the raging debates about international organization and law, the concept of neutrality, intervention, national self-determination, that fill the air about us? Here the ground is shaky indeed; ethical principles have still to be formulated and developed. But perhaps in this very domain, American Catholics may make their best contribution. The vigorous Catholic social thinkers of France, the Low Countries, the Germanics, have now been silenced;[9] perhaps we can try to fill their place.
Catholic—and Jesuit—education, then, has a contribution to make to democracy, and to the American way of life. It has its Christian-humanist tradition and philosophy of man with which to give true meaning and value to our democratic institutions. But it cannot confine itself solely to abstract statement, as though the social order were static. In a changing, growing world, ever more complex, it must continually enlarge and refine its doctrine to reach and to penetrate new human problems and situations created by external forces—"omnia probate, quod honum est tenete.” In proclaiming what ought to be, Catholic education should never overlook what is: to do so would be to create an inadequate picture of the world, and risk untrue conclusions. But its view of what is will never obscure the beckoning summons of duty to that which ought to be, to those things which will create a better world for free yet responsible men.
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Footnotes:
1. The Will to Freedom, London, 1936, p. 68.
2. De Legibus ac de Deo Legislatore, lib. II, cap. 19, par. 9. Italics inserted.
3. I do not mean obviously, that the Middle Ages were not conscious of what we might call international law. St. Thomas is full of meaty reflections on peace and war; the notion of "Jus Gentium" was inherited from Roman times. But in the passage quoted, Suarez seems to be thinking about law as between equal and independent states—a concept unknown to the Middle Ages. And "Jus Gentium" seems to mean "a body of rights belonging to all peoples, whatever the accidents of their birth, which should be respected, in their mutual relations." Cf. Eppstein, The Catholic Tradition of the Law of Nations, London, 1935, p. 259.
4. Cf. British Social Politics, New York, 1913.
5. "This Pre-War Generation," Harper's Magazine, October 1940.
6. Italics inserted.—One may doubt whether this is a very good analysis even on Mr. Michelson's own premisses [sic]. After all, Mr. Willkie ran an excellent race; most commentators considered him the strongest possible candidate, and he attracted five million new votes to the ticket, while President Roosevelt lost half a million from his 1936 total.
7. Religion and the Modern State, London, 1938, p. 121.
8. Ibid., pp. 121-22. Italics inserted.
9. Everyone must know about such movements as the J. O. C., Action Populaire, etc. But Catholic thinkers in Europe were also greatly concerned about international problems. See, for example, the Semaine Sociale de France of 1926, the subject of which was "La Vie Internationale" (Compte Rendu: La Chronique Sociale, Lyon, 1926); also, the excellent "Code de Morale Internationale," published by the Union Internationale d'Etudes Sociales of Malines, Paris, 1937, which was compiled by Father Albert Muller, S. J., of the faculty of the Institut St-Ignace of Antwerp, and later translated by the Catholic Social Guild, Oxford, 1938.
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Source: Gerard F. Yates, S.J., "Jesuit Education and Democracy," Jesuit Educational Quarterly 3, no. 3 (December 1940): 152–158.
