Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

INTRODUCTION
§ 1 The Concerns and the Concept of Christian Social Teaching
1. Christian social teaching is neither a bundle of practical instructions for the solution of social
questions nor a skilful selection of certain findings of modern sociology useful for Christian
social training, but „an integral component of the Christian doctrine of man“ (Mater et
magistra). Christian social teaching, which was proclaimed by the Church „from the very first
centuries“ (Pius XII, February 23, 1944, achieved a special importance in the age of industrialism,
which has been confirmed by the great social encyclicals, Rerum novarum (1891),
Quadragesimo anno (1931), Mater et magistra (1961), Pacem in terris (1963), Populorum
progressio (1976) and Laborem exercens (1981), as well as by the pastoral constitution of the
Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et spes, on the Church in the modern world.
Twenty years after „Populorum progressio” John Paul II once again expresses, in his encyclical
„Sollicitudo rei socialis“ (1987), „the social concern of the church, directed toward an
authentic development of man and society” in the light of changed conditions. Finally, the
centenary of „Rerum novarum“ was the occasion for „Centesimus annus“ (1991), no doubt
the most important social encyclical of the present Pope.
2.The theological importance of Christian social teaching is shown by five considerations:
a) Man is the likeness of God, redeemed by the blood of Christ, and called to eternal communion
with God. He may not be degraded to become the object and means of state, social or
economic processes. For „the social order...must...be subordinate to the personal realm and
not contrariwise“ (Gaudium et spes, 26). Love of God and neighbor is the great commandment
of the New Covenant.
b) Christ redeemed the whole man, even insofar as he is essentially related to the interpersonal
other and the community. It would be a suspect curtailment of the Christian doctrine of man
were one to see in him only the individual soul called by God.
c) Over against a widespread supranaturalism, Christian social teaching emphasizes that even
after the Fall there is an order of common social life grounded in the social nature of man and
thus divinely willed. This „social order, its restoration, and its perfection according to the saving
plan of the good news“ (Quadragesimo anno), the „formation of it in the light of Christian
teaching“ (Mater et magistra), is the object of Christian social teaching. God has not left the
fallen age to his adversary.
d) An unsettling importance with respect to our salvation attaches to social conditions as a
result of our humbling dependence on the given milieu because „men are often diverted from
doing good and spurred toward evil by the social circumstances in which they live and are
immersed from their birth“ (Gaudium et spes, 25). The perversion of the divinely willed order
„ is now such as to put in the way of vast numbers of mankind most serious obstacles which
prevent them from caring for the one thing necessary; namely, their eternal salvation“ (Quadragesimo
anno, 130). Conditions adverse to salvation, such as the levels of poverty in some
developing countries, are scandals that cry out for redress, and not only in the form of critique
and alms, but also in the form of a new social order that accords with the principles of Christian
social teaching. The hard and passionate struggle against poverty, hunger, disease, misery,
and need is a Christian duty. Premature resignation would not be a Christian surrender to
the will of God, but a fatalistic quietism that would bring the reproach of being „an opium for
the People“ upon the Christian faith.