The Specialisation of the Joint Pastoral

Extract

The Joint Pastoral on the Social Question from the Catholic Hierarchy was particularly noteworthy for what may be called its specialisation. We have long heard the complaint that the official pronouncements of the Church are ineffective because they are too general to move the wills of individuals. This is largely an excuse for shirking responsibility in regard to momentous Encyclicals like Rerum Novarum or Quadragesimo Anno. The Joint Pastoral leaves no room for such an excuse because of the detail in which it describes the minimum which a Christian should accept and for which therefore every Christian in this country is bound to strive. It remains to be seen whether we shall be jolted out of our apathy. If such detailed direction from authority fails to awaken a corporate attempt to right the injustices of the day it will be left to the blind force of world upheaval to alter the present system—and who can say whether the result of that will be more or less just?

The most important of the Pastoral’s special applications of Catholic Social teaching is the tenth point, which declares that the present distribution of wealth in this country is unjust. This is more than a general declaration that the industrial system tends to an unjust distribution of wealth; it is a special judgment on the results of that system in our own country. Reasons for such a judgment are also given. For it is not so much that the distribution is unequal as that it places the lives of most Englishmen under the control of a few irresponsible individuals, or worse still of an impersonal group or company.