Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

oad“ (2 Pet 2:15), give up the „first love“ (Rev 2:4), and „become more and more godless“)2
Tim 2:16).
Technical and economic progress do not directly and immediately prepare „new heavens and
a new earth“ (Rev 21:1). True progress, which is sanctified by the mystery of the cross and
resurrection, takes place rather through the increase of faith, hope, and love. Correctly understood,
progressing and preserving (tradition) are not antitheses, but two fundamental attitudes
vitally important to man. Not everything prior is worthy of preservation. In many realms there
is a justified progression away from what has been. What is valid irrespective of the passage
of time, that is worthy of preservation. Here a constant „return to the beginnings“ is necessary.
When you drink, think of the source,“ says the proverb. „Whoever seeks the source must
swim against the stream,“ writes the Polish poet, Jercy Lec. The Christian should not swim as
a conformist, but should be a breakwater instead.
In the meantime the two ideologies of progress, which captivated numerous people and nations
in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, have been seriously shaken. Neither the technocratically
accelerated progress of the economy and of material prosperity nor the revolutionary
construction of a socialist order of society is able to bring people happiness and freedom.
John Paul II. sees the „true cause” of the „collapse of Marxism” leaving aside the „inefficiency
of the economic system”, in the „spiritual void brought about by atheism.“ He says
that it left „the younger generations without orientation” („Centesimus annus“24,2), But he
also argues that the „alienation“ to be found in „western societies“ is also ultimately based
in theology. If, he says, man’s innate „capacity for transcendence“ is blocked out then a „reversal
of means and ends“ may occur. People „use one another“ as tools for the „satisfaction
of their individual and secondary needs“ and thus become incapable of „voluntary selfgiving“
(Cf.41). This would lead not only to the destruction of the family but to the undermining
of the „democratic ideal”. If there were no ultimate transcendent rationale for human
dignity, „democratic systems“ could be in danger of destroying themselves through the antagonism
of „particular interests” and thus of losing the strength to achieve consensus for the
good of all (Cf.46/47).
The goal of Christian social teaching - especially in its socio-political, socio-ethical, and
socio-pedagogical orientation - is neither an earthly paradise nor a neo-triumphalistic glorification
of the ‘mundane world’, but that social order in which man is able to fulfill the will of
God and to lead a Christian life. Consequently, both social utopianism and a spiritualist
ghetto-Christianity, which would grant the Christian faith no power to order the social realm
and would leave the world to its fate, are to be rejected. Hope in what is to come does not
make us escapist, but inwardly free, so that we are able to shape earthly realities from the
power of the faith.
4. Even if the most important task of Christian social teaching is to investigate the sociometaphysical,
socio-ethical, and socio- theological foundations, it must nevertheless always
be concerned to understand „the signs of the times“ (Mat 16:3). Otherwise, it would fall into
the danger of succumbing to an abstraction that remains foreign to the present, however true
to principles it may be. From this it follows that Christian social teaching must carefully consider
and utilize the assured findings of empirical and systematic sociology, social history,
social psychology, demography, and so on, especially in the present age in which tempestuous
social, technical, and economic developments are radically transforming people’s modes of
existence and ways of life. Christian social teaching struggles with the tension between the
divine and the historically variable in the Church, between what is given as a fact and what is
given as a task, between necessity and freedom.
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