Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

when it is a question, not of a political, but of a social revolution. As it says in the encyclical
Populorum progressio: „Revolutionary uprisings - except where there is manifest, longstanding
tyranny which would do great damage to fundamental personal rights and dangerous
harm to the common good of the country - engender new injustices, introduce new inequities
and bring new disasters“ (n.31).
The use of violence should not result „from the private presumption of some, but from public
authority“ (Thomas Aquinas: non privata praesumptione aliquorum, sed auctoritate publica
procedendum, De Reg. Princ.). If the right to kill tyrants were bestowed on everyone, the nation,
as Thomas Aquinas says, would lose its good rulers through assassination more frequently
than it would be freed from tyranny. The use of violence must therefore proceed from
those who may legitimately act in the name of the community as a whole. In earlier centuries,
political ethicists referred here to the so-called indirect feudal powers. Today, one could think
of a parliament as long as it has not been eliminated or forced into conformity long ago by the
dictator. Powerful associations would perhaps have greater chances of success (e.g., general
strikes of labor unions). It would also be conceivable that a conspiracy would have the greater
part of the nation behind it and would act as an initial spark, as it were.
Finally, there must be a reasonable probability that an uprising would be successful. A failure
would increase the rage of the tyrant and worsen the oppression. In the case where a successful
overthrow is excluded, nothing remains but to endure the tyranny and „to take refuge in
God, the king of all“ (Thomas Aquinas, De Reg. Princ.). The Second Vatican Council expressed
itself with reservation: „Where public authority oversteps its competence and oppresses
the people, these people should nevertheless obey to the extent that the objective
common good demands. Still it is lawful for them to defend their own rights and those of their
fellow citizens against any abuse of this authority, provided that in so doing they observe the
limits imposed by natural law and the gospel“ (Gaudium et spes, 74). As one can see, the concern
that stands behind the modern catchword ‘theology of revolution’ is nothing new. It is
only regrettable that some representatives of the ‘theology of revolution’ and of the ‘theology
of liberation’ equate the changing of social conditions with evangelization and limit the salvation
bestowed upon us in Christ to purely this-worldly dimensions.
A strong barrier to the abuse of governmental power is the clear distinction between state and
society. If the boundaries are blurred and political or economic interest groups identify themselves
with the common good of the state, the state as the one ultimately responsible for the
common good will be dethroned and abused by these tyrannical special interest groups.
It has even more disastrous consequences, particularly for world peace, when innerworldly
promises of salvation are translated into political power and foment class struggle and revolution
everywhere. The affirmation of violence is a legacy of Lenin. He declared: „Whoever
accepts the class struggle cannot help accepting civil wars“, which are a“ natural development
and intensification of the class struggle... To deny or to forget civil wars would mean falling
into the most extreme opportunism.“ 69
Today, even Christian authors seem to overlook the fact that acts of revolutionary violence
foster the spirit of war and threaten peace. It is indeed „bad,“ thought Giulio Girardi, a former
professor of the Salesian University in Rome, that „having to kill out of love“ is sometimes
unavoidable; but „recourse to violence“ is allowed if „no other way“ is open. 70
At the conferral of the Peace Prize of the German Booktrade on Ernesto Cardenal, Johann
Baptist Metz also defended the fact that this priest took the „side of violent resistance“: the
unity of the love of God and of neighbor is indeed „unbreakable“; but „non-violence“ can also
69 Lenin, Ausgewählte Werke (Moscow, 1946), I:877.
70 Guilio Girardi, Revolutionäre Gewalt aus christlicher Verantwortung (Mainz, 1971), 66-67.
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