French-Canadian Letters

LETTERS IN CANADA: 1944 275 Ill. FRENCH-CANADIAN LETTERS \V. E. COLLIN I A surge of doctrines offering themselves as remedies for the world's social and economic ills; the advent of ~ new "national" historian; the publication of-a remarkably good first novel depicting life in a workingclass community: these are the principal features of 1944. tt~ The Church in French Canada has for some years now taken an active interest in social and economic problems. From the two ,encyclicals on "the·condition of the workers>1 and "the restoration of social order" prominent writers, churchmen and laymen, have extracted a Catholic social doctrine, a body of '.'Christian principles,'" which they believe can solve our social problems. The -Abbe Clement Baribeau's book, Lefons sociales dans fa lumiere des encycliques pontijicales, Father E. Delaye's Elements de morale sociale, Professor P. E. Bolte's Staline et Pie XI, numerous· tracts published by Fides and the "Ecole Sociale Populaire," all speak a common language: the «priority of the spirit," "the dignity of the human person," "the Christian order," "justice" and "charity," "the rights of the family" i and they advocate one remedy: - a guild system such as obtained in the Middle Ages but adapted to the needs of the twentieth century, a corporative organization of professions supervised by the State in the in terests of the common good. The critical tone of this doctrinal literature is antiliberal , anti-communist, and authoritarian. '-'Authority," writes·M. Baribeau , "must be strengthened by the re-establishment of an organic social body Javouring order, fraternal charity, mutual aid and collaboration among men; human liberty must be directed by the return of religion to institutions so that hearts may be turned efficaciously towards God, the principle of all authority and all true liberty." His book is useful for the notes it gives on the history of the Church's interven tion in social questions, in Europe and in Quebec. M. Bolte's is particularly devoted to a defence of "the human person" against communism. It begins: "At the present time bolshevist communism constitutes not the most immediate but the principal danger for the human person and society. His Holiness Pope Pius XI, aware no doubt of the force of national socialism, in 1936 declared: 'The first peril) the greatest and most general, is certainly communism in . all its forms.'" This 1s the origin of the title M. Rene Bergeron gives to his book Le premier Peril. M. Jacques Maritain's role in these discussions is unique. In a radio talk included in Le Catholique devant fa guerre, he speaks of a "new Christianity" and identifies freedom and democracy with Christian ideals. Besides the usual language of "the sense of the dignity of the person and the·heroic ideal of fraternal love" we hear: "the Christian ought to be everywhere and remain everywhere free," "this name democracy 'is merely the secular name of the Ideal of Christianity." Father J. P. Archambault gives us a practical example of a "mediaeval corporation adapted to our times." In Silhouettes de rctraitanfs) designed 276 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY to propagate the idea of religious exercises as preparation for Catholic action and combat, he describeg the industrial establishment of Philibert Vrau, a Christian employer who saw in each of his workmen a man endowed with a soul and burdened with the responsibility of a family. No haughty attitude, no inhuman orders, but a respect for the human person, his dignity, his physical and moral well-being. Here was a man who had a revelation of a Christian society of workers sixty years before the publication of the encyclical §Guad1'agesimo anno: savings banks, mutual aid, maternity weI,fare , sickness, old age, workers' dwellings, etc. "A Christian employ~r is not content with giving his workmen what their labour as lnen and fathers demands. .He interests -himself in their life, associates himself ~ith their joys and so~rows, does not hesitate to help them in their moral or financial embarrassments; in short, he considers them as members of his family arid surrounds them with paternal affection." Altho'ugh, as M. Baribeau notes) the social encyclicals do hot say a wotd about co-operative...