The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-08-16


 ARCHBISHOP JOHN G. MURRAY process of education for personal character and social relationship should be developed. And yet in our day and generation the family has repudi1ted its responsibilities for this most essential type of education on the plea that either the state or the church is dis charging the function of education. Now the state is concerned with education only in so far as its own existence may be safeguarded by the dissemination of knowledge necessary to enable the citizens of the state to fulfill their responsi- bilities to the state. Thus in ab- dicating its own function of educa- tion the family repudiates its sense of responsibility for the perpetua- tion of its own existence and the protection of its own welfare. The result will be the ultimate dis appearance of the state through the cessation of the essential unit of the state which is the family. While the fahiily may look to the state for guidance in the principles and doctrines essential to the de- velopment of citizenship in time and in eternity, yet the application of those principles must be made in the life of the home which was es- tablished by God as the sourse of all life and elevated by sacramental grace to sphere in which the sense of social responsibility might be fostered to perfection in the ob- servance of the twofold command ment of the love of God and neighbor. If the family declines to perform its duties in the field of education itn ot only brings ca- tastrophe upon itself but upon both church and state whose life can never be stronger or more en- during than the life of the family which is the essential unit of both church and stake.
 Home Responsibility
 From the home must spring whatever elements are essential to the left of the individual and of society. But the home can give only what 1t has received. If there is lack of culture, lack of char acter and lack of social responsi- bility in the home, ways and means must be discovered and applied to effect the reconstruction of the home. The worldwide vision of the Shepherd of Christendom revealed an appalling deficiency of the qualification required for the ade- quate discharge of cultural and so- cial responsibilities within the home. In our day the home fails to develop society conscious of its ultimate destiny and equipped with the economic and social apparatus essential to the attainment of its destiny. AS preliminary to the Christian re- newal of human society the Holy Father demands standardization in the reorganization of social economy which will reconstruct the home as the essential unit in hu- man society and make possible the new social order leading to a ref- ormation of morals and a Chris tionization of the entire social structure.
 Such program is possible only if social units such as those com posing the Catholic Central Verein of America and the National Cath olic Women's Union are multiplied throughout the world until every adult man and woman is educated to the realization of the social re- responsibilities of every member of society. Such education must lead to the all-pervading conviction in the soul of every member of the human race tha. each is born not to hiInslf alone but to God and to society, that each is to live not to himself alone but to God and for his fellow-man, that each is called vocationally to the discharge of duty that is essential to the per- petuity and perfection of the entire social structure, that each holds place of honor and dignity in the development of the kingdom of God among the children of men and that by the faithful discharge of his duties in his own particular sphere each qualities himself for esteemed citizenship among men and angels.
 Good Win Among Men
 A mere philosophical apprecla- ton of the opportunities and re- responsibilities of each in the field of human existence and human so- ciety will not suffice to stimulate each to sustained effort to adjust his relations to all men on the basis of social justice. There Is need of the goodwill of which the angels sang at the birth of Christ. Only through the goodwill of men begot- ten of the goodwill o. God to men will man find the Incentive to un- dertake the discharge of his social responsibilities in serving his fel- bowman as the obvious and tangible process of service to God.
 Even when man has undertaken the task that Is his by virture of his social nature he will encounter such overwhelming odds in the in- cessant conflict of interests in- volved in the economic, education al, social and even religious world, that he may falter and be tempted to surrender to the blind drift of society away from its moorings and away from the only haven in which 1t can find security.
 Man may be rnaneuvered into a position where he will be strongly tempted to substitute competition for cooperation, envy for liberality, greed for generosity, hatred for goodwill, war for peace. In fact the inheritance which h. has received from the traditions of many gen- erations in sociology a in com merce, in economies as in industry, in as in religion, dispcses him to