Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

e „veiled cowardice“ because it can bear „the features of opportunism.“ In this sense, „the
countenance of love“ is not unambiguously marked by nonviolence, but love can „assume the
sinister face of violence, never willingly, but always under pressure, as an expression of its
despair.“ 71
In l98l, the bishops of El Salvador spoke a Yes to peace and a No to violence in a moving
pastoral letter. They oppose an „atheism of the right“ which exploits people as well as the
ideological counterfeit of the gospel by leftist revolutionaries. Violence is the „poisoned fruit
of the bastard interests of domination and power.“ Its seed is „destruction and hunger.“ 72 It is
un-Christian to say that shooting people is good on the left and evil on the right or vice-versa.
CHAPTER THREE: MORAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE STATE
Christian social teaching sees in the state a divinely willed institution to which man is morally
obligated. In modern society, moral responsibility for the state must take effect in two ways:
positively in the fulfillment of civic duties and negatively in the rejection of that attitude
which would like to see in the state a plaything of interest groups.
§ 1 The Fulfillment of Civic Duties
l. It is not infrequently said today that modern man gives an emphatic affirmation to his family,
but that this heightened togetherness in the realm of personal family life has led to a conspicuous
lack of involvement with the claims of society as a whole. It is from this standpoint
that the general indifference towards the demands of the social whole can be explained as well
as the progressive depolitization of the German person. Even if one should not generalize this
judgment, it is nevertheless unmistakable that the readiness to feel responsible for the state
has atrophied among many.
2. In modern society, two kinds of civic duties are to be distinguished:
a) Man experiences the so-called duties of the ‘subject’ most frequently and most impressively
(e.g., liability to taxation, compulsory military service, and the like--see above. Unfortunately,
the state is more and more becoming an exacting and distributing state.
b) The modern citizen, however, is summoned not only to obedience, but also to share in political
direction. In a democracy, all are responsible for the common good on the municipal,
provincial, and federal levels. The „right and duty to vote freely“ (Gaudium et spes, 75) and
collaboration in self-government should be remembered here, but also the right to criticism
and control (through public opinion).
§ 2 Interest Groups and the Common Good
l. The Importance of Interest Groups
Interest groups in society have mushroomed. They are organized associations not provided for
by the constitution which unite the parallel economic interests of their members and seek to
exercise influence and pressure towards the realization of these interests upon public opinion,
political parties, parliaments, governments, and the administration and judiciary, as well as
upon opposing interest groups. Pressure groups therefore seek to gain and exercise power in
society, even if this sort of power is not provided for in the prevailing state and economic
71
Johann Baptist Metz, „Laudatio auf Ernesto Cardenal anläßlich der Verleihung des Friedenspreises des deutschen
Buchhandels, op. cit., 12.
72
The Spanish text in Docla 56 (January/February): 1981; the French text in La Documentation Catholique 5
(July, 1981):656-663.
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