In last month's issue of "Fortune," the editor takes the Church severely to task for lack of leadership, The editor, under the caption "War and Peace." of course, does not distin-guise in the use of the term "The Church." For him the church is that conglomeration of hundreds of independent denominations, often at variance on fundamental Christian principles, often acrimoniously upholding contradictory doctrines, and seldom in agreement on any subject except that nothing good can come from Rome. Against this manifest disorganization "Fortune" hurls a blanket charge of incompetency. In a footnote, the editor timidly exempts the Catholic Church from the charge of failure of absolutes governing the principles of war, but he specifically includes the' Catholic Church in the charge of failure of leadership in the realms of economi With many of the conclusions drawn by the able editor of "Fortune" we heartily agree, but in view of the overwhelming ' evidence as manifested in the encyclicals of the Popes during the past fifty years we must raise our voice in protest against the charge that the Catholic Church has failed in her God-given task of pointing out to alla true and just solution of the economic maladies of our times,—a solution based upon the absolutes, and drawn from the primary principles of Christianity from which our civilization takes its roots.
If we are to make economic life a means of worshipping God, then economic life must be inspired by Christian principles, for it is the prerogative of Christ to teach the world how God wills to be worshipped. And behind Christian principles there must be that driving force of the brotherhood pf the whole human race in God and in Christ. The Brotherhood of which we speak is not a mass unity that clots all moh into one mold, into one uniformi: It is founded in the imperishable, equal and holy dignity of every individual in God and before God. "Catholic social teaching neither deifies mankind while persecuting men. nor daffies individuals to let them persecute mankind.
There is something radically wrong with our present social adjustment of human relationships. All right-minded men seek a remedy for the evil, The Catholic Church, assents to the commonly expressed opinion that "the specific means to be used in a proper reconstruction of our social order must be left to those who have a knowledge, both theoretical and practical, of politics, sociology and economics," But she insists that in the endeavour to establish social harmony, peace and prosperity, these specialists in the field of social endeavour must be guided by right-reason and zeal for the common good of human beings. Right reason and the common good demand that primary importance be given to religion and morality.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.