As promised, today we begin posting the relevant portions of
Archbishop Michael Corrigan’s 1886 pastoral letter as published Saturday,
November 27, 1886, in the New York
Freeman’s Journal and Catholic Register.
One or two spellings and punctuation marks were changed to reflect
modern usage. We do have the whole
thing, and are planning on putting it in as an appendix to a book we’re working
on now, but most of it doesn’t directly address the question of private
property.
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| Faith? |
In light of yesterday’s discussion concerning the respective
roles of faith and reason, we need to point out something that some readers
might otherwise pass by without noticing it.
Corrigan put the discussion of the natural right to private property
under a section titled “Faith.” Does
this mean that he believed that the natural law is based on our private
understanding of something we accept as God’s Will?
By no means. Reading
carefully, we realize that, although the section is titled “Faith,” the
discussion on private property is based on reason.
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| . . . or Reason? |
Corrigan was obviously using faith to illuminate and
reinforce people’s understanding of what their reason should tell them. He was not replacing reason with faith. In this he was anticipating Pius XII who
wrote a little over half a century later,
“[D]ivine
revelation must be considered morally
necessary so that those religious and
moral truths which are not of their
nature beyond the reach of reason in the present condition of the human
race, may be known by all mean readily with a firm certainty and with freedom
from all error.” (Humani Generis, § 3.) [Emphasis added.]
 |
| Why not both? |
In other words, as Pius XII explained in the previous
section of his encyclical, people’s intellects have become confused to the
point where many of them cannot reason properly, so they must supplement the
certainty that true knowledge gives with the certainty of faith. Again, this is not a replacement of reason
with faith, but (as Aquinas maintained) a fallback position for those who, not
having the time or the training to reason things out for themselves, still need
a practicable certainty to be able to implement moral and ethical teachings.
I. Faith
No
virtue is more necessary, dear Brethren, than the virtue of divine faith. “It
is the foundation of all that is good,” writes St. Augustine; “the beginning of
man’s salvation.” “It is the root of all virtues,” says St. Bonaventure,
“without which the other virtues wither and die.” “Where it is found whole and
entire,” continues St. Ambrose, “there our Savior teacheth, keepeth watch and
ward, exulteth; there is rest, and peace, and a universal remedy.” “Without
faith,” says the Holy Spirit, “it is impossible to please God.”
While it
is not the office of Diocesan Synods, not even of Provincial Councils, to make
definitions of Faith, or decide authoritatively controverted questions on which
the Holy See has not spoken, yet it is the right and duty of the Bishop, under
the supreme leadership of the Sovereign Pontiff, to guard the deposit of Faith,
and, especially when the Holy Father has pointed out the way, to lead his flock
to wholesome pastures and guard them from poison. Like the sentinel on the
ramparts of a city under siege, a highly important duty of a Bishop’s office is
to be quick in discerning dangerous movements and prompt in sounding timely
alarm. Therefore we commend you, Brethren, to be zealously on your guard
against certain unsound principles and theories which assail the rights of
property. They are loudly proclaimed in our day, and are espoused by many who
would not willfully advocate what is wrong. It is the fair-seeming of those
theories which captivates the minds of many, inasmuch as they abound in promise
of large benefit to those who are in sorest need. The distress of the poor is
to be relieved, and the burden of the toiler lightened — results which the
Church, with a true mother’s love, would most gladly see accomplished wherever
and whenever just means are used to reach the desired end. But the Church is
not the fickle creature of a day, apt to be caught with specious theories, or
ready to change her course with capricious unsteadiness. She is the guardian of
God’s unchanging truth, and the dispenser of the treasures of His wisdom; and
her office, in her long and glorious march down the ages, has always been, in
spite of fierce attack from without or base treachery from within, to save the
true from all alliance with the false — gathering the one to her loving embrace
and smiting the other with her malediction. Here is the noble task not only of
directing the actions of mankind, but also of guiding their very thoughts;
because she never is unmindful that thought is the parent of action, and that
sound principles are the only foundation for pure morality. Hence, when any
thought finds a welcome abode in the mind, and becomes so clear to him who
harbors it as to shape itself into a principle, it is a duty to scan closely
its character and its bearing, and to trace its possible course from the quiet
haven of the mind to the open main of public fact. However fair or shapely or
attractive it may seem to the unwary, it should not be accepted by the prudent
unless it is formed of elements that are altogether sound and pure. A flaw in a
foundation represents a proportionate insecurity in the building raised upon
it.
We will continue with Corrigan’s defense of private property
tomorrow.
