Evening star., 1948-11-21
Partial Text of Statement by Catholic Bishops
SecuIurism Called
Most DeodIy Menace
To American Way


The statement Issued BY the
Catholic bishops OF the United
States yesterday on "The Chris
tidn in Action" is. in part, as
tolloUs.:
THE CHRISTIAN IN ACTION.
Human life centers in God The
failure to center life in God is secu-
larism-which, as we pointed out
last year, is the most deadly menace
to our Christian and American way
of living. Constructive effort is
called for to counteract this cor
rosive influence in every phase of
life where individual attitudes are
q determining factor-in the home,
in the school, at work, and in civil
polity.
To combat secularism, the indi-
vidual Christian must get the full
vision of Christian truth. The sorry
fact is that many. very many Chris
tians. see this vision only dimly and
vaguely and miss its impact on
reality.
Much Of the confusion and chaos
about us is attributable more di-
reetly to the inaction of Christians
than to the effectiveness of the few
erish efforts of the destroyers. The
destroyers are definitely a minority
and yet the work of destruction
goes on. The crisis is at hand. Today
every Christian must face the full
: Christian vision and with no
! thought of compromise must seek
vigorously to live it.
RELIGION IN THE HOME.
In the full Christian vision. there
Is the Divine ideal of the home
the basic social institution. 1t is
not enough to profess the Chris
tian truths of the stability and
sanctity Of the marriage bond and
to keep in min6 the purposes OF
marriage. The Christian must make
his home holy.
It remained for modern history
, to record the first experiment IN
secularizing the home, an expert
ment which is at the root OF so
many of our greatest social evils.
The whole atmosphere of the home
must be impregnated WITH genuine
Christian living. The domestic vir-
tues must be practiced, and family
PRAYER made a daily exercise.
We strongly commend organized
effort to make the home more truly
Christian. Our Catholic Family Life
Bureau plans and offers programs
which make for a veritable apostle
late of the Catholic home.
RELIGION IN EDUCATION.
We know the scrif1ces made by our
peop;e to educate their children In
SCHOOLS in which the "superabuno-
ant wisdom is the Gospel of Christ.
Year after year we are making wider
provisions for the education OF our
Catholic youth.
It behooves us to see that we en-
able bur schools to work out fully
the Christian educational ideal. The
field of higher education in partlc-
ular demands q wider and more
active interest. Our institutions OF
higher learning are the natural
training grounds for Christian
Leadership. The ranks OF Christian
leadership will draw recruits largely
from the undergraduate schools,
but these ranks will not be filled
without the Christian scholars who
are formed in graduate schools.
Perhaps much of the success OF
the secularist Is due to the fact that
the number of excellent Christian
scholars is inadequate for the needs
of our times. We ask deeper ap-
probation of the contribution our
institutions of higher learning are
making to a Christian reconstruc-
ton of society, and we urge more
generous support of their work.
RELIGION AND ECONOMIC LIFE
Christian principles should be put
into action in economic life. The
secularist solutions proposed by
eighteenth century individuallsm or
twentieth century statism issue
either In perpetual conflict or dead
ening repression. Christian social
principles, rooted in moral law, call
insistently for cooperation not con-
fict, for freedom not repression in
the development of economic activ-
ity.
Cooperation must be organized
organized for the common good !;
freedom must be ordered-ordered
for the common good. Today we
have labor partly organized, but
chiefly for its own interests. We
have capital or management or
ganized, possibly on a larger scale,
but again chiefly for its own inter-
ests. What we urgently need, in
the Christian view of social order,
is the free organization of capital
and labor in permanent agencies of
cooperation for thescommon good.
To insure that this organization
does not lose sight of the common
good, government as the responsible
custodian of the public interest
should have part in it. But. It's
part should be to stimulate. to guide.
to restrain, not to dominate.
Catholic social philosophy has a
constructive program for this Or
ganic development of economic life
In line with that constructive pro-
gram we advocate freely organized
cooperation between the accredited
representatives of capital and labor
in each industry and in the economy
ss a whole under the supervision
but not the control of government
The agencies of this freely organ
ized cooperation have been called
by various names: Occupational
groups, vocational groups. or more
recently, industry councils. Ameri-
can Catholic students of the Social
Encycicals have expressed their
preference for the name industry
councils" to designate the basic
organs of Christian and American
type of economic democracy into
which they would like to see oul
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