Contrition and Action

Extract

“The preaching of the truth,” said the Pope last year to the French bishops, “the preaching of the truth did not bring many victories to Christ: it brought Him to the cross. It is by charity that He won souls and drew them to follow Him. That is the only way in which we shall win them.” The importance of the question of means cannot be overstressed. Over and over again, great enterprises, Christian enterprises, have been brought to nought because evil, unchristian means have been adopted to achieve them. What is the business of the Christian, as a Christian, in regard to the temporal order? It is to work for the building of the temporal City of God: the remedying of injustice and hatred, the establishment of justice and charity. Temporal and spiritual meet and fuse in the structure of society inasmuch as this or that social structure preserves or destroys the eternal values; so that when a social structure destructive of Christian values obtains, it is part of the duty of the Christian to work to change it. What kind of means is he to adopt?

We shall certainly be misled if we allow ourselves to forget —as so often we do—that on the one hand catholic means universal; on the other, that to-day there is no existing Christian temporal order.

We shall certainly be misled if we think of the work of the Christian in the world in terms of making the world safe for the (existing) Christians.