Gustav Gundlach, S.J.: One Of The Architects Of Christian Social Thinking
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The Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes of the Second Vatican Council reminds us that the mission of the Church is not a political but a religious one.1 Yet this mission comprises the preaching of not only the gospel to the whole world but also Christian social teaching on God's creation, on man's call into being in the likeness of God as well as his basic rights and duties, and on the social nature of man and the personal character of social structures for building society. From its very beginning the Church has been concerned with the salvation of all human beings and with establishing just and social structures that will serve and help man to develop and to fulfill his calling.2
The encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891) is regarded as the starting point of modern Catholic social doctrine. Promulgated by Pope Leo XIII, it aimed to bridge the gap between modern society and the Church that had widened since the French Revolution (1789). European liberals were convinced that mankind stood at the beginning of a new age of freedom and happiness. There were great expectations that an industrial economy would defeat all the misery of the past. Instead the so-called "social question" (soziale Frage) emerged, first in Great Britain, then in northern France and Belgium, where industrialization was under way. The social question became the great challenge for the industrial society. Many workers who had moved from their villages into the expanding cities in search of work and income received wages that were too low to sustain them and their families. Misery among the workers increased, and society fragmented into hostile classes. Karl Marx saw this situation as the background for the revolutionary explanation of the history of mankind.
The Church, too, was confronted with the social question. Before he was elected pope, Leo XIII represented the Holy See as Nuncio in Belgium. Interested in the new industrial economy he visited the coal-mining and steel-producing factories where he saw first hand the misery of the working class. Later as archbishop of Perugia he published a pastoral letter in which he addressed social injustice. As pope he was convinced that the Church could not remain silent but had to defend the worker.
For centuries the Church had been familiar with the living conditions of the agrarian society, with its problems and risks, its shortcomings and weaknesses, its errors and failures. In many ways the Church was in the forefront of the struggle against poverty and its different faces. But the nineteenth century saw those conditions changed radically. Although many workers had to labor in factories ten or more hours a day, often under extreme conditions, they did not receive a family wage. The new industrial production of goods and services with its division of labor, within a competitive market economy, required a new insight into the wage system and the requirements of what could be called a "just wage."3 It was difficult for the Church to get a precise idea of the "industrial society" emerging between the family and the political power.
In preparing the encyclical Rerum Novarum, there were long discussions in Rome about the elements of the new economic and social life. The pope concentrated on the dignity of the worker and the necessity of a just wage and adequate working conditions, which corresponded to this dignity. He also stressed the need for workers themselves to establish associations to defend their interests and to influence the labor market. Finally, Leo XIII pleaded for the intervention of the state, responsible for the common good, in favor of the workers, to ensure that the working class would be successfully integrated into the new industrial society.
The Principle Of Subsidiarity In Quadragesimo Anno
Forty years after the first social encyclical, which contributed significantly to the formation of the Christian social movement in many European countries, the situation between the employers and the employees had worsened. The crash of the New York Stock Exchange in 1929 was the beginning of a worldwide economic crisis, leaving millions unemployed. What could the Church do in such a situation? There was more at stake than simply urging employers and governments to ensure greater justice for the workers. There was much more at stake; the economy had to be restored so that the production and distribution of goods and services were functioning again. Pius XI asked Father Wlademer Ledochowsky, the General of the Jesuits, if he knew of scholars who could reflect on the causes of the economic crisis and propose new ways to reform industrial society in the light of Christian ethics. Two young German Jesuits were entrusted to prepare a draft for the planned encyclical Quadragesimo Anno (1931): Oswald von Nell-Breuning and Gustav Gundlach.4
Born on April 3, 1892, in Geisenheim in the Rheingau of a Protestant father and a Catholic mother, Gundlach studied philosophy in Freiburg i. Breisgau.5 After five semesters he entered the Society of Jesus — at that time forbidden in Germany as a result of Bismarck's "Kulturkampf." Decisive for his future career was his philosophical and theological training at the famous Jesuit High School in Valkenburg in the Netherlands, where he became acquainted with the great traditions of Christian thought. After his ordination (1923) he had hoped for an appointment in ecumenical theology, perhaps because he had experienced the confessional difficulties in his own family. But the Jesuits were looking for someone who could continue the work of Fr. Heinrich Pesch, founder of "Solidarism" — an alternative explanation of society beyond individualism and collectivism.6 Individualism considers man as an independent individual and society as a sum of individuals without an inner unity. Collectivism looks at man as only a part of a collective entity and at society as a totality. The view of man and his relation to society have given rise to numerous ideologies; the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are marked by individualistic liberalism, dominating the free market economy, and collectivistic fascism, National Socialism, and communism.
Gundlach, who was awarded his doctorate in economics at Humboldt University in Berlin in 1927, was convinced that to resist the current ideologies, the traditional Christian ideas on community had to be clarified. It was not enough to insist on the Christian concept of person and personal responsibility and on the traditional concept of the common good (bonum commune). Would "Solidarism" be the key to unveil the fundamental errors of both an individualistic and a collectivist interpretation of society? Gundlach's first writings in the 1930s analyzed not only the liberalism and socialism but also the Christian social order as defined by the famous bishop of Mainz, Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler, and by Heinrich Pesch.7
Grounding his thought in von Ketteler and Pesch, Gundlach went a step further. In preparing the first draft (1930) of Quadragesimo Anno and in analyzing the great disorders of the industrial society and threat of the expanding ideologies, he concluded that a complete reorganization of society was necessary. Taking into account the economic, social, and political situation of his day, Gundlach concluded that society was not adequately fostering individual social talents and abilities, the keys to building up society and culture. What had been neglected was the "principle of subsidiarity." Gundlach was able to formulate for the first time in history a principle that is today acknowledged worldwide.8
The principle of subsidiarity is based on the insight that all social life is not an end in itself but is ordered to individual self-perfection.9 It is not the mechanisms of the market, of "capital," which result in economic progress but individual motivation and activity. Christian thinking teaches that the human person is the center of all social activity and responsibility. Thus, the organization and structure of society and of the state must be in a subsidiary position, so that the entities that are closer to the human person, such as the family, take priority over those that are more remote. Every social entity has its own competence and responsibility to fulfill its purpose with its own forces. The larger entity is not entitled to say, "I have more money and trained people and therefore I can do it in a better and more efficient way." That would be a usurpation and would confound the social structure. Only when the smaller unit is unable to carry out its task is the larger unit obliged to help. If the help is no longer needed, it must be withdrawn. "Help" should not become a dominant factor but remain "Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe" (help for self-help). The principle of subsidiarity is, of course, incompatible with collectivist ideologies and systems. At the same time it gains in importance in modern mass society with its mega-cities and mega-production facilities, with the mass media and also mass-tourism. How can the individual avoid its impact and negative social consequence? How can economic life be organized so that consumers and workers as well as middle and small businesses are not dominated by large, global companies? Subsidiarity does not offer solutions but points the way to a solution. Subsidiarity and a well-functioning free market work well together; both limit the power of economic and social centers and institutions.
Gustav Gundlach was also responsible for the following statement in Quadragesimo Anno: "The Christian and the socialist view of society do not go together." After World War I in Germany, but also in other European countries, the political parties on the far left and on the far right were increasing rapidly. On the left were the communists and the socialists. Except for the Scandinavian countries, "democratic socialism" became a force only after World War II. Catholic workers opposed the atheistic basis of communism, but to solve the social question, some considered it possible to vote for the socialists. However, Pius XI declared in Quadragesimo Anno: "No one can be at the same time a sincere Catholic and a true Socialist."10 Without recourse to God, the creator of the world and of human nature with the social openness for cooperation, society will be reduced to usefulness, to a utilitarian scheme. It does not take much reflection to recognize the relationship between religion and society in our modern societies. It is impossible to build a culture on utilitarian principles. Only someone who is aware of the dangerous political developments in some European countries can appreciate this passage. Significantly, in Germany the social democrats renounced Marxist analysis in the Godesberger Program in 1959.
Gundlach And The Unpublished Encyclical Against Racism
Gundlach had experienced the growing threat of extreme political agitation on both the left and the right. He opposed both individualism and collectivism, the communists and the revolutionary socialists as well as the National Socialists. In his early writings (1928-1933) he sharply criticized Nazi ideology, noting its incompatibility with Christian social ideas. When Hitler came to power 1933, Gundlach intensified his opposition to the totalitarian regime.11 Together with Oswald von Nell-Breuning he gave lectures for theologians and for priests every Saturday at St. Georgen, the Jesuit formation center near Frankfurt. He was so outspoken that the Nazis declared him "unbearable."
In 1934 Gundlach received a call from Father General Ledochowsky, who wanted him to organize a Catholic center in Rome against international communism. Gundlach refused, saying that such a center could be misunderstood to imply that National Socialism is less dangerous than communism. Although he wished to return to Germany, his superior instead appointed him Professor for Social Philosophy and Christian-Social Thinking at the papal Gregorian University in Rome. In 1937, Pope Pius XI condemned both atheistic ideologies in two encyclicals: Mit brennender Sorge (against National Socialism in Germany), and Divini Redemptoris (against Communism in the Soviet Union).
When the Nazis occupied Austria and the archbishop of Vienna greeted the conqueror with "Heil Hitler," Gundlach was so annoyed that he proposed a text for Radio Vatican to Cardinal Pacelli, then Secretary of State. Under the title "Was ist politischer Katholizismus?" (April 1, 1938, What Is Political Catholicism?), he repudiated the position of the Austrian bishops: "They do not, as it would be their duty, discern the wolf in sheep's clothing and represent a false political Catholicism contrary to the moral order the Christians have received from God." The report provoked a massive diplomatic protest from Hitler, and Gundlach was put on the Nazi black list.
Gundlach's work was very important to Pius XI as he prepared an encyclical against racism. The pope had condemned anti-Semitism early on in his "Syllabus against Racism" (April 13, 1938),12 a pastoral letter that was directed to the rectors and professors of all Catholic universities in the world. They were asked to refute the errors of racism and to defend the truth.
Nazi persecution of the Jews led Pius XI to prepare another encyclical against racism. He entrusted the draft to the American Jesuit John LaFarge (1880-1963), who had founded the "Catholic Interracial Council" in New York in 1934. In his book Interracial Justice, (1937), La Farge pleaded for the equality of the races and for cooperation between whites and blacks in the United States. Fr. General Ledochowsky asked two Jesuits to assist LaFarge; Fr. Gundlach was to draft the encyclical, and the French Fr. Desbuquois was to contribute practical insight from his experience as director of "L' Action populaire" in France.
The original text for the encyclical is in German and was found after Fr. Gundlach's death in his literary bequest. The encyclical, Societatis Unio (The Unity of Society), was intended to have two major parts: (1) an analysis of the disintegration of society in the modern times, and (2) an explanation of the principles and conditions necessary for unity in society. Within the second part Gundlach examines the constitution of a nation and the concept of race. Racism denies the unity of mankind in flagrant contradiction to Christian faith, to natural and human sciences, and to cultural experience. Racism especially denies the human personality and the reality of personal bonds. Implicitly it denies the universal and objective values and aims of humanity, especially the one moral order and the one religion. It denies humanity as unity in plurality and claims a totalitarian competence. With regard to the different races Gundlach is convinced that all human beings are in the same way able to develop culture; the differences are the result of "environmental factors" (e.g., the family, schools, learning, etc.). There are no superior and inferior races or ethnic groups. Gundlach speaks of great failures and neglects not only in the colonies but also in countries with racial problems.
The final chapter picks up the problem of anti-Semitism. Gundlach stresses the religious calling of the people of Israel. But there is no difference between the Jews and other people in the moral order. The Jews have the same fundamental rights and duties as all human beings, and the state must protect these rights.
The original German text for the encyclical against racism has been translated into French and English. There is a major difference from the original only in the last part in the French version, probably inspired by Fr. Desbuquois. The Gundlach text ends with the chapter on the Jews; the French version also contains a consideration: "Position de l'Eglise envers le Judaisme," yet it is written with an "anti-Judaistic" sense that can be found not only in the protestant theology in Germany of the nineteenth century on but also in the Catholic theology of that time, especially in France, Italy, and Spain. The Gundlach text relies heavily on the natural law tradition, revived in nineteenth-century Germany. Certainly, anti-Judaism was not anti-Semitism, but it was thought of as such in the Catholic Church until the Second Vatican Council. The French version also contains a third part, concerning the mission of the Church with regard to the unity of human life. The so-called "Catholic Action" movement, endorsed by Fr. Desbuquois, was thought to be a unifying force. Fr. LaFarge brought the texts he had been drafting from Paris to Rome and gave them to Father General of the Jesuits. The texts were not given immediately to Pius XI, probably because his health was already very weak. For him it would have been difficult to make a reasonable choice between the last part of the Gundlach and the Desbuquois version. Moreover, the political situation in Europe had deteriorated, and a sense of impending war was in the air.
Working For Pius XII
The election of Eugenio Pacelli as Pope Pius XII (March 2, 1939) began a new phase for Gundlach in his work for the Church. From 1939 to 1958 he was one of this pope's closest advisers. Although Pius XII had spoken on many occasions on economic, social, cultural, political, and international problems, he never published a social encyclical, but he became known as the "social pope." Gundlach was the source of many proposals, and to him fell the task of preparing documents for the speeches, messages, and statements. That was no easy assignment because, unlike today, few documents and books on social questions from a Christian point of view existed. On the other hand, it was an opportunity for Gundlach to develop his contribution to Christian social thinking and specifically to the social teaching of the Church. The three large volumes of the "Social Summary" of Pius XII13 bear witness to Gundlach's efforts. His most important contributions to Christian social thinking was his emphasis on the human person. For him, "The human person is the origin, pillar and aim of all social activity and life" (,,Die menschliche Person ist Ursprung, Trager und Ziel allen gesellschaftlichen Lebens"). This idea was adopted not only by Pius XII but also by John XXIII in Mater et Magistra by the Second Vatican Council (Gaudium et Spes), and by John Paul II. The human person is the focus of all Christian thinking.
One of Gundlach's special contributions lies in his attempt to deepen our understanding of "society." Society, he maintains, is not a sum of individuals or a collective unity. Gundlach stressed that the human person is open to communicate and to act with other human persons. Along with Johannes Messner and other "Solidarists," Gundlach finds unity possible because all human persons have common values and aims, which can be realized only through common participation and cooperation. Unity is not possible when each person simply pursues only his own interests, without recognizing community. In this direction lies the idea of society as a great marketplace formulated by the liberal movement in the nineteenth century. But is society just an agglomeration of individuals exchanging ideas, goods and services? Gundlach believed that only if people are united through common values and aims are their social contacts more than an exchange of views, more than a marketplace for sellers and buyers.
If the inner unity of the persons is lacking — moral integrity, if you will — a much stronger power is needed to unite "individuals." Thus, liberals tend to expect unity from the power of the state but not from common values and aims. Gundlach was fighting vigorously for his personalist view of society. Fr. Pesch has pointed out that we have to distinguish necessary institutions from desirable structures according to nature and free associations. Again and again Gundlach stressed, from the point of natural law, the necessity of three institutions indispensable to society: the family based on marriage, private property, and the state.
Although a man and woman are free to decide to establish a family, once the decision is made, they cannot say: "I will live the family life according to my own idea," because the family is essentially related to the well being of society, especially to its future. Only the family can give life to the next generation and prepare children to enter society and assume the duties and obligations guaranteeing the common good, obligations that provide essential goods and social services, including care of the sick and aged. Since Plato there have been many experiments to replace the family based on marriage between man and woman, but they have failed. According to a recent survey done in Germany, 85 per cent of all children until the age of 18 live in families; only 15 per cent live in one-parent families or in other arrangements. Obviously marriage and family are matters of pivotal interest to society and the state.
The second necessary institution is private property. Gundlach argued that the human person has an original relation not only to his work but also to the yield of work, so that he who works has a natural right to own it. He defended private property against socialism and communism as well as against a centralized state that disregards private property rights. He also did not accept the position of simple legal recognition of private property. On the other hand, Gundlach saw property not as an individual category but one with social obligations because man lives in society. This idea influenced the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno and the social teaching of Pius XII. It is a question of personal responsibility to use private property in a socially responsible way. Of equal importance is the distribution of private property in the modern industrial society and in the state. How can workers share the wealth and the means of production to reach a just balance in the society?
The third institution is the state, which is obligated to care for the common good. Gundlach stresses the principle of subsidiarity the state has to observe. When Gundlach had to prepare the Christmas message of 1944 for Pius XII, he proposed the theme of democracy. In the United States, democracy was considered from the founding as the best way to organize political life. This was in contrast to continental Europe where democracy was connected to the French Revolution and the repudiation of the old order in society. For Leo XIII democracy was not preferred but merely "tolerable."
Gundlach, who was fighting against totalitarian regimes, had a different approach to democracy. He was convinced, that a democratic structure of the constitutional state is the better way to govern people because it is based on the ability of the citizens to take part in politics and be ultimately responsible for political decisions. These ideas corresponded to his philosophy of human nature and were consonant with subsidiarity. All community power has to serve the development of the person; the state has to serve and not to dominate. Pius XII accepted the draft Gundlach had prepared, including the idea that democracy is the best form to govern people. This represented a change from former Christian positions, as well as classical theories of the state. As political theorists, Gundlach and John Courtney Murray were of similar mind.
The teaching of Pius XII had a great impact on the Christian social movement. One can say that Gundlach's personalism deepened the social teaching of the Church, clarifying its differences with individualism and collectivism, and giving the Church a new consciousness of the message of the Gospels, but it also inspired insights into the meaning of a just social order. He also revived an interest in natural law theory. After Pius XII there were attempts to say the Church did not have a "doctrine" of her own but had to take her orientation from other ideas or "ideologies," especially "Marxism." The popes never accepted this position, but it endured until the fall of Communism in East and middle Europe, when Pope John Paul II affirmed unmistakably the social teaching of the Church. This teaching is not so much a theory or a system but knowledge derived from the Church's own traditions about man and society.
After the death of Pius XII in 1958, Gundlach remained in Rome, but his time came to an end. The German bishops had tried in 1950 and 1952 to get him back to Germany to help in the moral rebuilding of the country, but Pius XII needed him in Rome. Only in 1962, when he reached the age of retirement from the Gregorian University, could he return and take over the newly founded Catholic Social Science Center in Monchengladbach. Half a year later he died. On the day of his burial the bishop of Munster, the late Cardinal of Cologne, Joseph Hoffner, asked this writer to continue the work of the Katholische Sozialwissenschaftliche Zentralstelle. The first publication under my direction was the two-volume work, Die Ordnung der menschlichen Gesellschaft" (1964), a collection of the writings of Gustav Gundlach.14
Notes
1 Gaudium et Spes, No. 42.
2 Gaudium et Spes, No. 76.
3 To the genesis of "Rerum Novarum," cf. Arthur F. Utz, "Die geistesgeschichtlichen Grundlagen der Enzyklika Rerum novarum," in Ders. Ethische und soziale Existenz. Gesammelte Aufsatze aus Ethik und Sozialphilosophie, 1970-1983, ed. by Heinrich B. Streithofen, Siegburg, 1983, pp. 330-342.
4 Oswald von Nell-Breuning, S.J., "Der Konigswinterer Kreis und sein Anteil an Quadragesimo Annom Soziale Verantwortung. Festschrift fur Goetz Briefs, Berlin, 1968, pp. 571-585.
5 Cf. Anton Rauscher, "Gustav Gundlach (1892-1963)," in Zeitgeschichte in Lebensbildern. Aus dem deutschen Katholizismus des 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. by Rudolf Morsey, vol. 2, Mainz, 1975-159-176.
6 Pesch developed the idea of "Solidarism" in his famous work, Lehrbuch der Nationalokonomie, vol. 1. Breiburg i. Br. 1924, pp. 408-455.
7 Cf. Lothar Roos, "Kapitalismus, Sozialreform, Sozialpolitik," in Der soziale und politische Katholizismus. Entwicklungslinien in Deutschland, 1803-1963, ed. by Anton Rauscher, vol. 2, Munchen, 1982, pp. 52-158.
8 Pius XI, encyclical Quadragesimo Anno No. 79 ff.
9 Cf. Anton Rauscher, "Personalitat, Solidaritat, Subsidiaritat, in Kirche in der Welt, vol. 1, Wurzburg, 1988, pp. 253-295.
10 Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno No. 118-120.
11 To this chapter compare the newly published book, Wider den Rassismus; Entwurf einer nicht erschienenen Enzyklika (1938). Texte aus dem Nachlass von Gustav Gundlach, S.J., ed. and commented on by Anton Rauscher, Paderborn, 2001.
12 Konrad Repgen, "Judenpogrom, Rassenideologie und katholische Kirche, 1938," Kirche und Gesellschaft, No. 152/153, Koln, 1988, 28ff.
13 Arthur F. Utz and Joseph-FuIko Groner, Aufbau und Entfaltung des gesellschaftlichen Lebens: Soziale Summe Pius XII, 3 vols., Fribourg, 1954-1961.
14 Gustav Gundlach, Die Ordnung der menschlichen Gesellschaft, 2 vols,. Koln, 1964.
Prof. Dr. Anton Rauscher, S.J., is the Director of the Catholic Center of Social Sciences (Katholische Sozialwissenschaftliche Zentralstelle) in Monchengladbach, Germany. The text printed here was presented at The Catholic University of America in November 2001. It was made available to HPR by Jude P. Doughtery, Dean Emeritus of the School of Philosophy at the university.
© Ignatius Press 2002.
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