There are four major and fundamental pillars upon which our lives revolve: nature, wealth, man, and God.

There is no way that anyone can avoid contact with nature once born into this life. There is no going back to non-existence. Even those who mistakenly seek to avoid some painful crisis by taking their own life solve nothing because they continue to exist in a state after the soul leaves the body.

As for wealth, even the poorest of the poor possess something _ even if it be a few rags.

Man is another entity of existence that cannot be avoided. There is always a relation of some kind between the individual and others _ regardless of how remote. At birth, we have our parents; perhaps even brothers or sisters; then, too, there are the relatives _ near and distant.

Finally, there is God. The existence of a Supreme Being is not a myth. God is real just as this universe is real. Only the fool says in his heart: "There is no God." All others are simply liars.

Whatever a person's free will imposes upon the intellect to believe or not to believe, there will always be a final examination by an impartial judge.

At this time, however, our thoughts are directed to that unavoidable condition of mankind: The first law of nature, that is, the law of self-preservation.

Since man is a spirit united to a physical body, his very nature requires that he be concerned about his material well-being. Consequently, everyone has a need to obtain at least the bare necessities of life. Either by begging or working, man satisfies his bodily need for food, clothing and shelter.

Of course, the normal way to fulfill our human needs is by working. We rightly resent and condemn any economic system that would reward the laziness of some with the labor of others.

In the early days of the Church, the Manicheans condemned ownership as being evil, as did the Cathari in the Middle Ages.

We tend to see this same erroneous attitude towards wealth among Christians today. Not a few Catholics _ clergy included _ seem to have jumped on the bandwagon to condemn those whose initiative, entrepreneurial efforts and perseverance have brought them material wealth.

There is a kind of hidden envy in those who condemn the successful for their success. This envy is often cloaked with the respectable veil of religion. Neither Christ nor the Church have ever condemned wealth as such.

Despite all this, there reigns a negative attitude towards the accumulation of material wealth, as if to say that anyone who uses his talents and acquires considerable wealth is offending God. These individuals, laity or clergy, fail to understand the essential difference between economic poverty and poverty embraced for the love of God. Economic poverty is not blessed; religious poverty is.

Unfortunately, this confusion has done much harm to the Church. Falling for the malicious propaganda of the enemies of the Church, many Churchmen actually embraced the lie, namely, that the Catholic Church is "too rich". We have witnessed the anti-Pope, Paul VI, giving the papal tiara to the atheistic United Nations ostensibly "to feed the poor." As far as I know, the tiara is still in a Jewish jewelry store in Chicago for sale to anyone wishing to buy it. How many "poor" will be fed from the proceeds of the papal tiara is anyone's guess.

Ever since the false Second Vatican Council, an equally false direction was taken by clergy and laity leading to the Great Apostasy.

And, to be sure, the four pillars of human existence began to totter. A paganish concern for Nature replaced the proper understanding of Nature as God's creation entrusted to man. Wealth itself was deemed evil and churchmen could not rush fast enough to show the corrupt world how "unworldly" they themselves had become.

The exaggerated cult of man replaced the cult of God. Yet, despite all this fanfare about the "rights of man" more and more human rights were being violated all over the world. It would seem that those who shouted the loudest about the "rights of man" were the ones most guilty of violating those rights!

Now, wealth also is a part of nature. Are not the wild birds of Australia not the same birds sold in pet shops? Is not the wild beast of the same nature as the beasts we keep in our barns? Is not the rock foundation of our homes not the same as the rock in the wild? Are not the plants growing in the wild not like those in our gardens?

Wherein lies the difference? What happens when a part of wild nature is taken by man and becomes his property? Would wild nature be holy and divine, and would become cultured if left in the clutches of the devil? But, then, what does St.Paul say of all of nature? He says: "For the eager longing of creation awaits the revelation of the sons of God. For creation was made subject to vanity _ not by its own will but by reason of him who made it subject _ in hope, because creation itself also will be delivered from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the sons of God. For we know that all creation groans and travails in pain until now."(Rom.8, 19-22).

Of all the saints in the Church, it was St. Francis of Assisi who made a positive and direct demand of his followers not to judge those who wore fine garments, ate fine foods and lived in fine homes.

We do not wonder at the fact that Columbus, debarking from one of his ships on a Caribbean island, implanted the Spanish flag and declared this place the property of the king. The island belonged to no one; and so it became the property of the first person to take it.

Sociologically, this form of proprietorship is deemed to give title under the heading of abandoned property or belonging to no one.

Certainly, with time and with the expansion of the human race, such ownership became more rare. In cultured civilizations such ownership is practically unthinkable because property without an owner or abandoned is claimed by the State.

However, in the past, taking possession of land was a daily occurrence. When a man came to a place where there was no one, he simply said: "This is mine" and it became his. Or, if he captured a wild animal, he simply declared: "This is mine" and it became his.

When gathering mushrooms or berries in a forest, no one thinks otherwise than that the mushrooms and berries are his.

Pope Pius XI stated in his masterful Encyclical letter "Quadragesimo anno": "Truly, there is no injury done to anyone, even some may not agree, if a thing that belongs to no one is taken." (Quadragesimo anno no.27).

For, if a thing belongs to no one, is there any reason why it cannot be appropriated? Why can a man not proclaim that such a thing belongs to him from now on?

We might ask: What does this kind of taking possession indicate? What is the basis for taking something that belongs to no one and claiming it to my "mine"?

It is said that a person is able to get title to something he has appropriated because the object belonged to no one. The thing is either without an owner or the owner has abandoned the thing without intention of ever claiming it again. In such a case, the object reverts to wild nature from which it was once taken. In both examples, the object no longer belongs to anyone and for this reason anyone can claim it as his.

But the term "no one" is strongly ambiguous. As we have dealt with ownership here, we are only considering the juridical aspect without regard to any moral or ontological sense. We are only referring to objects here insofar as they do not belong to any human being" neither to an individual nor to a community from the point of view of distributive justice.

In other words, neither a concrete human being or a concrete community have expressed a right to the object, and thus, from a juridical point of view the thing is free and awaits an owner.

But this does not mean that things do not have any master and are, therefore, absolutely without an owner. In the light of Christian doctrine the world belongs to no one. "The earth is the Lord's" says the Psalmist (Ps.23,1).

God is its Lord and Master: "The Lord's are the earth and its fulness; the world and those who dwell in it. For he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers." (Ibid.23, 2).

The world belongs to the Lord because He is its Creator. But God does not rule the earth directly. He has entrusted it to man, who was created in the image and likeness of God. Man has received the earth from God as his place of existence and the field and object of his activity. The human race is the direct owner of the earth.

The earth has been given to mankind with all its parts and places. Nevertheless, mankind expresses itself through individuals and for this reason the general trust of the earth to mankind is constantly being divided.

The Lord does not divide the land directly. He entrusted this division to all mankind: The whole earth belongs to all mankind. This is a constant thought in Christianity and has been very clearly expressed by the Fathers of the Church: St.Cyril of Alexandria, St.Basil the Great, St.John Chrysostom, St.Ambrose and has been repeated by the Popes in recent times, expecially Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius XI. "God has left the division of the earth to people and the laws of nations" (Rerum novarum, no.4).

On this point it would be well to bear in mind that one nation has no right to give the territory of another nation to anyone. This is a violation of natural law and the accepted law of nations. For example, no nation or foreign government can give the territory of Palestine to a third party. What right did England have to give part of Palestine to foreign occupiers? And how can any civilized nation condone the forceful occupation of other peoples' land?

Taking ownership of a thing is an act of concrete division. When he says that this or that object is his, man executes the Lord's command to master the earth. However, a man is only able to do this because the earth belongs to mankind and as a member of the human race he is also a participant in this right to ownership which has been given by God.

Man can only take possession of a thing because God has truly given it to him. When a man says "This is mine," he is actually executing God's intention that the thing become his. Thus, man exercises his original lordship over the earth. In this way also, man expresses his superiority over all other created beings.

Ownership, arising from the taking possession of an object is a sign of man as lord of the land.

It is for this reason that any system of government that would deprive its members of private property either directly or indirectly is against natural law, and therefore, against God's law. This is one of the reasons why Communism and its twin, Socialism, are intrinsically evil. In both systems, man becomes nothing but an abject slave instead of the lord of his domain _ however small it may be. The Church has always supported the idea of private ownership and the rights essential to it. She could not do otherwise without violating Her essence and mission.

So far, we have considered the foundation for property-land ownership.

There is still a more intimate relationship between man and the property he has founded on his labor.

God has given the earth to man not as a finished product but as a talent to be developed, that is, as a task which man must perform by his creative activity and in this manner make the earth his as it is the Lord's equally through creation.

If the earth is the Lord's because He created it, then the object belongs to the man who made it.

Human possession is but a reflection of God's possessiveness. Nonetheless, the foundation for both is the same, namely: the creation or manufacture of the object. In so far as the man is the author of the thing made, the thing is his. And this is an absolute ownership which no one can deny. Although appropriation can be limited and if today it is very rare in cultured nations, then the manufactured object is always and everywhere the property of the one who made it.

It is possible to take away the ownership or limit the right to use the object; but, it is not possible to make it so that it is not the product of its author.

The reason for this lies in the fact that this transformation of a part of nature is the result of a man's idea. Nature gives us the raw material, but we impose upon this material our wishes, thereby expressing our emotions and putting into them our ideas.

It is not only intellectual or artistic creations that carry man's creativeness, but also the products of craftsmen, farmers and workers. Every human activity, even the most common, if it bears some fruit is the incarnation of some idea in the object made.

Man realizes his ideas in the raw material which he transforms. The finished object carries the inner spirit of the person making it. The spirit of the author is revealed in the object made by him, just as God reveals Himself in His creation.

The person abides in the thing he makes in the form of an idea, and this creative process draws the object into the sphere of human existence and in this way makes it his.

The things we make are ours because they carry a part of us, albeit a spiritual part _ our idea.

From this point of view, ownership that arises from work is man's extension of himself in the world. Just as a man expresses his lordship by appropriating a portion of earth, so also he draws things into his being through his work and extends his person.

In so doing, man realizes God's original command to work the land and to subdue it; to have dominion over it. (See Genesis 1,28).

Again, let us draw attention to the fact that the Church has always defended and continues to defend the right of man to private ownership, to own something that he can call "his".

Pope Pius XII stated: "Man's personal dignity requires the right to personally use the goods of this earth as a normal and inalienable basis of life."

To deny private ownership is to deny man's lordship over nature in the world and his personal dignity within himself.

This is precisely what Communism has attempted to do and what is being done even in the euphemistic name of "Democracy." While merely changing the name, the same goal is sought: To reduce man to nothing more than an element of a massive collectivity like ants or bees devoid of personal independence or personal free will.

Over a hundred years ago, Pope Leo XIII wrote on the very subject that daily aggravates society: the relationship between employer and employee. We have seen unions go beyond their original purpose to the point of dictating to employers such things that good sense finds repugnant. We even find the State interfering in the means and methods of production to the point that employers are forced to find ways to make a reasonable profit.

Pope Leo XIII wrote:

"The great mistake that is made in the matter now under consideration, is to possess oneself of the idea that class is naturally hostile to class; that rich and poor are intended by nature to live at war with one another. So irrational and so false is this view, that the exact contrary is the truth. Just as the symmetry of the human body is the result of the disposition of the members of the body, so in a State it is ordained by nature that these two classes should exist in harmony and agreement, and should, as it were, fit into one another, so as to maintain the equilibrium of the body politic.

Each requires the other, capital cannot do without labor, and labor without capital. Mutual agreement results in pleasantness and good order; perpetual conflict necessarily produces confusion and outrage.

Now in preventing such strife as this, and in making it impossible, the efficacy of Christianity is marvelous and manifold. First of all, there is nothing more powerful than Religion (of which the Church is the interpreter and guardian) in drawing rich and poor together, by reminding each class of its duties to the other, and especially of the duties of justice.

Thus Religion teaches the laboring man and the workman to carry out honestly and well all equitable agreements freely made, never to injure capital, nor to outrage the person of an employer; never to employ violence in representing his own cause, nor to engage in riot and disorder; and to have nothing to do with men of evil principles, who work upon the people with artful promises, and raise foolish hopes which usually end in disaster and in repentance when too late.

Religion teaches the rich man and the employer that their work people are not their slaves; that they must respect in every man his dignity as a man and as a Christian; that labor is nothing to be ashamed of, if we listen to right reason and to Christian philosophy, but is an honorable employment, enabling a man to sustain his life in an upright and creditable way; and that it is shameful and inhuman to treat men like chattels to make money by, or to look upon them merely as so much muscle or physical power.

Thus, again, Religion teaches that, as among the workmen's concerns are Religion herself, and things spiritual and mental, the employer is bound to see that he has time for the duties of piety; that he be not exposed to corrupting influences and dangerous occasions; and that he be not led away to neglect his home and family or to squander his wages. Then, again, the employer must never tax his work-people beyond their strength, nor employ them in work unsuited to their sex or age. His great obligation is to give to every one that which is just.

Doubtless before we can decide whether wages are adequate many things have to be considered; but rich men and masters should remember this -_that to exercise pressure for the sake of gain, upon the indigent and destitute, and to make one's profit out of the need of another, is condemned by all laws, human and divine. To defraud any one of wages that are his due is a crime which cries to the avenging anger of Heaven. `Behold, the hire of the laborers…which by fraud has been kept back by you, crieth; and the cry of them hath entered the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.'

Finally, the rich must religiously refrain from cutting down the workman's earnings, either by force, fraud, or by usurious dealing; and with the more reason because the poor man is weak and unprotected, and his slender means should be sacred in proportion to their scantiness.

Were these precepts carefully obeyed and followed would not strife die out and cease?" (The Condition of Labor, Pope Leo XIII, 1891).

We observe a phenomenon that did not exist until a number of years ago. The moving of manufacturing from one country to another to the detriment of the laborers of the country from which the work was taken. The obvious reason for this kind of action is based on the idea that a product can be manufactured more cheaply abroad than in the home country. Thus, products are made in Mexico and China and other countries where the cost of labor is miniscule. The product is then shipped back to the United States and sold on the American market.

The result, of course, is that jobs are lost to Americans and the standard of living is gradually lowered. Instead of the State protecting the workers, the workers are forced to labor for less or become unemployed.

We come to the basic question regarding any economy: What is it's primary purpose? Where the profit motive is lauded as the most important aspect of an economy, we face the terrible conclusion so evident throughout the world: The most expendable element in the production of goods is the human element. This means that man is become the least important element in the process of production.

Rather than extend aid to other countries so that the people of those countries might benefit from the progress in technology and be able to enjoy the benefits of science, they are forced to work for slave wages or not work at all.

European markets have been forced to abandon their workers and to seek cheap labor in China and similar countries where Communism exists and the people are reduced to virtual slavery. More and more companies have closed their doors in Europe and now maintain manufacturing plants in China. And what of all those governments of the "free world"? What do they have to say regarding these matters that are detrimental to the people whom they are bound to serve? One can only conclude that their willingness to obey the dictates of small international cliques renders them next to useless in the defense of the workers who pay their salaries through taxation.

A government's only reason for existence is to safeguard the commonwealth. Note: The common wealth. And what is the "common wealth" of any nation?

The common wealth of any nation are these: that peace and good order should be maintained; that the family life should be carried on in accordance with God's laws and those of nature; that Religion should be reverenced and obeyed; that a high standard of morality should prevail in public and private life; that the sanctity of justice should be respected, and that no one should injure another with impunity: that the members of the commonwealth should grow up to man's estate strong and robust, and capable, if need be, of guarding and defending their country.

The Christian education of youth is, practically speaking, non-existent; and as for the sanctity of Christian marriage and the Christian family, these are likewise in grave peril. When the Christian family becomes a minority in a once-predominately Christian nation, it is time to give serious thought to one's environment.

The fruit does not fall far from the tree. In religious circles there is a similar saying: "Qualis frater, talis pater" _ as one is as a student, so he will be as a priest.

Values do not change drastically. If sound Christian values are not taught to the young, it would be futile to expect them to grow up having such values. What kind of values will they have? They can only have the values which they received in their schools and in their homes.

Since Religion is the foundation for all sound morality in public and private, the lack of Religion can only produce informed immoral individuals. Every aspect of human life is influenced by moral values. There can never be any peace or justice where right order does not exist. And, only the Church is able to teach right order both natural and divine.

Virtue and vice are moral issues. When vice dominates a society, virtue shrivels and dies. But, when virtue is respected and promoted, vice disappears.

Return to Contents

Return to Homepage.