Chapter V
Elites, Natural Order, Family, and
Tradition—Aristocratic Institutions Within Democracies
The Teaching of Pius XII
The previous chapter considered the teachings of Pius XII
with respect to the mission of the nobility in our day.
We shall now analyze the Pontiff's doctrine concerning the
role of traditional elites—the most important being
the nobility—in preserving tradition and thereby contributing
to progress. We shall also analyze his thinking on the continuity
of these elites and their complete compatibility with true
democracy.
1. The Formation of Elites Even in Countries
Without a Monarchical or Aristocratic Past
The formation of traditional elites with
an aristocratic note is so profoundly natural that it occurs
even in countries without a monarchical or an aristocratic
past.
Even in democracies of recent date that
have no vestiges of a feudal past behind them, a kind
of new nobility or aristocracy has been forming by force
of circumstances. It consists of the community of families
that by tradition place all their energies at the service
of the State, its government, its administration, and
whose loyalty it can always count on.1
This splendid definition of the essence
of nobility reminds us of the great lineages of colonizers,
pioneers, and planters who for centuries contributed to
the progress of the Americas, and who, remaining faithful
to their traditions, constitute a precious moral resource
for their societies.
2. Heredity in
Traditional Elites
There is, before all else, a natural fact
linked to the existence of traditional elites that needs
to be remembered, namely heredity.
The nature of this great and mysterious
thing that is heredity—the passing on through a
bloodline, perpetuated from generation to generation,
of a rich ensemble of material and spiritual assets, the
continuity of a single physical and moral type from father
to son, the tradition that unites members of one same
family across the centuries—the true nature of this
heredity can undoubtably be distorted by materialistic
theories. But one can, and must also, consider this reality
enormously important in the fullness of its human and
supernatural truth.
One certainly cannot deny the existence
of a material substratum in the transmission of hereditary
characteristics; to be surprised at this one would have
to forget the intimate union of our soul with our body,
and in what great measure our most spiritual activities
are themselves dependent upon our physical temperament.
For this reason Christian morality never forgets to remind
parents of the great responsibilities resting on their
shoulders in this regard.
Yet of greater import still is spiritual
heredity, which is transmitted not so much through these
mysterious bonds of material generation as by the permanent
action of that privileged environment that is the family,
with the slow and profound formation of souls in the atmosphere
of a hearth rich in high intellectual, moral, and especially
Christian traditions, with the mutual influence of those
dwelling under one same roof, an influence whose beneficial
effects endure well beyond the years of childhood and
youth, all the way to the end of a long life, in those
elect souls who are able to meld within themselves the
treasures of a precious heredity with the addition of
their own merits and experiences.
Such is the most prized patrimony of
all, which, illuminated by a solid faith and enlivened
by a strong and loyal practice of Christian life in all
its demands, will raise, refine, and enrich the souls
of your children.2
3. Elites: Propelling
Forces of True Progress and Guardians of Tradition
There is a link between nobility and tradition.
The former is the natural guardian of the latter. In temporal
society, the nobility is par excellence the class entrusted
with keeping alive the link whereby the wisdom of the past
guides the present without, however, paralyzing it.
a. Are elites
enemies of progress?
Revolutionary spirits often raise the
following objection against the nobility and the traditional
elites: Being traditional, they are constantly turned toward
the past and have their backs to the future, where true
progress lies. They thus constitute an obstacle for any
society wishing to pursue progress.
Pius XII teaches us, however, that authentic
progress lies only in tradition. Progress is real only if
it constitutes a harmonious development of the past, and
not necessarily a return to it.3
Were progress to break with tradition, society would be
exposed to terrible risks.
Things of this earth flow like a river
in the course of time: Of necessity the past gives way
to the future, and the present is but a fleeting instant
joining the former with the latter. This is a fact, a
motion, a law; it is not in itself an evil. There would
be evil if this present, which should be a tranquil wave
in the continuity of the current, became a billow, upturning
everything in its path like a typhoon or hurricane and
furiously digging, by destruction and ravage, a gulf between
what has been and what must follow. Such chaotic leaps
as are made by history in its course constitute and mark
what is called a crisis, in other words, a dangerous passage,
which may lead to salvation, but whose solution is still
wrapped in mystery amid the smoke of the conflicting forces.4
Societies avoid stagnation, as well as
chaos and revolt, through tradition. The guardianship of
tradition, to which Pius XII alludes in this passage, is
a specific mission of the nobility and the analogous elites.
Some elites neglect this mission by distancing
themselves from contemporary life. Others sin by the opposite
excess, becoming absorbed in the present and renouncing
everything of the past.
Through heredity, the noble prolongs on
earth the existence of the great men of the past. "Remembering
your ancestors, [you] relive their lives in a way; and your
ancestors live again in your names and in the titles they
left you through their merits and their greatness."5
This confers a very particular moral mission
on the nobility and the traditional elites. It is up to
them to assure that progress has continuity with the past.
Is not human society, or at least should
it not be, like a finely tuned machine, in which all the
parts work together toward the harmonious functioning
of the whole? Each part has its own role, and each must
apply himself toward the best possible progress of the
social organism; each must seek to perfect it, according
to his strengths and virtues, if he truly loves his neighbor
and reasonably strives for the common good and welfare.
Now what part has been assigned in a
special way to you, beloved Sons and Daughters? What role
has been allotted particularly to you? Precisely that
of facilitating this natural development, the role that
in the machine is fulfilled by the regulator, the fly-wheel,
the rheostat, which take part in the common activity and
receive their part of the motive force so as to ensure
the operational movement of the apparatus. In other words,
Patriciate and Nobility, you represent and continue tradition.6
b. Significance
and value of true tradition
Respect for tradition is a very rare virtue
in our day. On the one hand, the Revolution7
turned the craving for novelties and the disdain for the
past into common attitudes. On the other hand, the defenders
of tradition sometimes understand it in an entirely false
manner. Tradition is not merely a historic value, nor is
it simply a theme for romantic yearnings for bygone days.
It must be understood as an indispensable factor for contemporary
life, and not in an exclusively archaeological way. The
word tradition, says the Pontiff,
resounds disagreeably in many ears, and
it is justifiably unpleasant when pronounced by certain
lips. Some misunderstand it, others make it the mendacious
label of their inactive egotism. Amid this dramatic dissent
and confusion, more than a few envious voices, often hostile
and in bad faith, more often ignorant or deluded, ask
you bluntly: What are you good for? To answer them, you
must first come to understand the true meaning and value
of this tradition, of which you must of necessity be the
principal representatives.
Many minds, even sincere ones, imagine
and believe that tradition is nothing more than memory,
the pale vestige of a past that no longer exists, that
can never return, and that at most is relegated to museums,
therein preserved with veneration, perhaps with gratitude,
and visited by a few enthusiasts and friends. If tradition
consisted only of this, if it were reduced to this, and
if it entailed rejection or disdain for the road to the
future, then one would be right to deny it respect and
honor, and one would have to look with compassion on those
who dream over the past and those left behind in face
of the present and future, and with greater severity on
those who, spurred by less pure and respectable motives,
are nothing but derelict in the duties of the now so very
mournful hour.
But tradition is something very different
from a simple attachment to a vanished past; it is the
very opposite of a reaction mistrustful of all healthy
progress. The word itself is etymologically synonymous
with advancement and forward movement—synonymous,
but not identical. Whereas, in fact, progress means only
a forward march, step by step, in search of an uncertain
future, tradition also signifies a forward march, but
a continuous march as well, a movement equally brisk and
tranquil, in accordance with life's laws, eluding the
distressing dilemma: "Si jeunesse
savait, si vieillesse pouvait!" [If youth knew,
if the aged could]; like that Lord of Turenne of whom
it was said: "Il a eu dans sa jeunesse toute
la prudence d'un âge avancé, et dans un âge
avancé toute la vigueur de la jeunesse"
[In his youth he had all the prudence of advanced age
and in his advanced age all the vigor of youth].8
By virtue of tradition, youth, enlightened and guided
by the experience of elders, moves forward with a surer
step, and old age can confidently pass on the plow to
stronger hands, to continue the furrow already begun.
As the word itself implies, tradition is a gift handed
down from generation to generation, the torch that at
each relay one runner places in and entrusts to the hand
of the next, without the race slowing down or coming to
a halt. Tradition and progress complement each other so
harmoniously that, just as tradition without progress
would be a contradiction in terms, so progress without
tradition would be a foolhardy proposition, a leap into
darkness.
The point, then, is not
to go against the stream, to backstep toward lifestyles
and forms of activity already eclipsed, but rather to
take and follow the best of the past and go out to meet
the future with the vigor of unfailing youth.9
c. The traditional
elites: their importance and legitimacy
The demagogic breath of egalitarianism blowing on the contemporary
world creates an atmosphere of antipathy toward traditional
elites. This is due, in great measure, to their fidelity
to tradition. There is, therefore, a great injustice in
this antipathy, so long as these elites understand tradition
correctly.
In this manner, your vocation, grand
and laborious, is already radiantly defined, and should
win you the gratitude of all and raise you above the accusations
that might be leveled at you from either side.
As you prudently seek to help true progress
advance toward a saner, happier future, it would be unjust
and ungrateful to reproach you and dishonorably brand
you for the cult of the past, the study of history, the
love of sacred customs, and unshakeable loyalty to eternal
principles. The glorious or unhappy examples of those
who preceded the present age are a lesson and a light
to guide your steps; and it has already been rightly stated
that the teachings of history make humanity a man forever
moving but never growing old. You live in
modern society not like immigrants in a foreign country,
but rather as exemplary and illustrious citizens, who
want and intend to collaborate with their contemporaries
toward the recovery, restoration, and progress of the
world.10
4. God's Blessing
Illuminates, Protects, and Caresses All Cradles, but Does
Not Equalize Them
Another factor in the hostility toward
the traditional elites lies in the revolutionary preconception
that any inequality of origin is contrary to justice. It
is generally admitted that one may stand out due to personal
merit, but descent from an illustrious family is deemed
inadmissible as a special title to honor and influence.
In this respect the Holy Father Pius XII teaches us a precious
lesson.
Social inequalities, even those related
to birth, are inevitable: Benign nature and God's blessing
to humanity illuminate and protect all cradles, looking
on them with love, but do not make them equal. Look, for
example, at the most inexorably leveled societies. No
art has ever been able to work things so that the son
of a great chief, the son of a great leader of the masses,
should remain in the same condition as an obscure citizen
lost among the common people. Yet, although such ineluctable
disparities may appear, in a pagan light, to be the inflexible
consequence of the conflict between social forces and
the power acquired by some people over others, according
to the blind laws believed to rule human activity and
to make sense of the triumph of some and the sacrifice
of others, on the other hand, to a mind instructed and
educated in a Christian way these disparities can only
be considered a disposition willed by God with the same
wisdom as the inequalities within the family. Hence,
they are destined to bring men more closely together on
the present life's journey toward the Kingdom of Heaven,
with some helping others in the way a father helps the
mother and children.11
5. The Paternal
Notion of Social Superiority
The Christian glory of the traditional
elites lies in serving not only the Church but also the
common good. Pagan aristocracy boasted exclusively of its
illustrious lineage. Christian nobility adds to this title
another still higher: the exercise of a paternal mission
vis-à-vis the other classes.
The name "Roman Patriciate"
awakens in our mind even greater thoughts and visions
of history. If the term patrician in pagan Rome, patricius,
signified the fact of having ancestors and of belonging
not to stock of common rank but to a privileged and dominant
class, in a Christian light it takes on a more luminous
aspect and deeper resonance in that it associates the
idea of social superiority with that illustrious paternity.
It is a patriciate of Christian Rome, which had its highest
and most ancient splendors not in blood but in the honor
of protecting Rome and the Church: patricius Romanorum,
a title carried over from the time of the Exarchs of Ravenna
to Charlemagne and Henry III. Through the
centuries, successive Popes also had armed defenders of
the Church, drawn from the families of the Roman Patriciate;
and Lepanto marked and eternalized a great name in the
annals of history.12
This body of concepts certainly conveys
an impression of the paternality permeating the relations
between the highest and lowest classes.
Two objections against such an impression
readily arise in "modern" minds. First, someone
can always be counted on to affirm that frequent oppressive
acts committed in the past by the nobility or the analogous
elites invalidate this whole doctrine. Others hold that
any affirmation of superiority eliminates Christian gentleness,
sweetness, and amenity from social relationships. They argue
that superiority normally arouses feelings of humiliation,
sadness, and sorrow in those over whom it is exercised,
and that to arouse such feelings in one's neighbor is opposed
to evangelical sweetness.
If this paternal conception of social
superiority has sometimes, in the clash of human passions,
driven souls to deviations in the relations between persons
of higher rank and those of humbler station, it is no
surprise to the history of fallen humanity. Such deviations
in no way serve to diminish or obscure the fundamental
truth that, for the Christian, social inequalities merge
in the great human family; that therefore relations between
unequal classes and ranks have to remain regulated by
a fair and righteous justice and at the same time be informed
by mutual respect and affection, which, while not abolishing
the disparities, should diminish the distance
and temper the contrasts between them.13
Typical examples of this aristocratic
gentleness are found in many noble families who know how
to be extraordinarily kind toward their subordinates without
consenting in any way that their natural superiority be
denied or abased.
In truly Christian families, do we not
see perhaps the greatest of patricians being careful and
solicitous to maintain toward their domestics and all
those around them a comportment which, while surely in
keeping with their rank, is always free of haughtiness
and expressive of kindness and courtesy in words and actions
that demonstrate the nobility of hearts that see these
men as brothers and Christians and united to them in Christ
by the bonds of charity, of that charity which, even
in their ancestral palaces, between the great and humble,
always comforts, sustains, gladdens, and sweetens life.14
6. Our Lord Jesus
Christ Consecrated the Condition of a Noble as well as That
of a Laborer
Considering the condition
of a noble or a member of the traditional elites in this
manner, it is understandable that Our Lord Jesus Christ
hallowed it, as was already said,15 by becoming
incarnate in a princely family.
Although it is true that Christ Our Lord
chose, for the comfort of the poor, to come into the world
bereft of everything and to grow up in a family of simple
laborers, He nevertheless wished to honor with His birth
the noblest, most illustrious of the lines of Israel,
the House of David itself.
Therefore, loyal to the spirit of Him
whose Vicars they are, the Supreme Pontiffs have always
held in high consideration the Patriciate and the Roman
Nobility, whose sentiments of unalterable devotion to
this Apostolic See are the most precious
part of the heritage they have received from their forebears
and will pass on to their children.16
7. The Perennial
Character of the Nobility and the Traditional Elites
The dead elements of the past are bound
to be blown away by the winds of the Revolution, just like
dead leaves caught by the wind. Nevertheless, the nobility,
as a species within the genus "elites," can and
should survive because it has a permanent reason for being.
The furious currents of a new age envelop
the traditions of the past in their whirlwinds. Yet, more
than this, these winds show what is destined to die like
withered leaves, and what instead tends with the genuine
force of its interior life to stand firm and live on.
A nobility and a patriciate that would,
as it were, grow stiff and decrepit by regretting times
gone by, would consign themselves to an inevitable decline.
Today more than ever, you are called
upon to be an elite, not only by blood and by stock, but
even more by your works and sacrifices, by creative actions
in the service of the entire social community.
And this is not just a duty of man and
citizen that none may shirk with impunity. It is also
a sacred commandment of the faith that you have inherited
from your fathers and that you must, in their wake, leave
whole and unaltered to your descendants.
Banish, therefore, from your ranks all
despondency and faint-heartedness; all despondency in
the face of the age's evolution, which is bearing away
many things that other epochs had built; and all faint-heartedness
at the sight of the grave events accompanying the novelties
of our age.
Being Roman means being strong in action,
but also in support.
Being Christian means confronting the
sufferings, the trials, the tasks, and the needs of the
age with that courage, strength, and serenity of spirit
that draws the antidote to all human fear from the wellsprings
of eternal hope.
How humanly great is Horace's proud
dictum: Si fractus illabatur orbis, impavidum ferient
ruinae [Even if the world crumbles to pieces, its
ruins would strike him without, however, unsettling him]
(Odes, III, 3).
Yet how much greater still,
how much more confident and exalting is the victorious
cry that rises from Christian lips and hearts brimming
with faith: Non confundar in aeternum! [Let me
not be confounded eternally—from the Te Deum].17
8. The Law Cannot
Abolish the Past
Thus we understand why, despite the proclamation
of the republic in Italy in 1946, the Holy Father Pius XII
upheld the Roman Patriciate and Nobility as a noteworthy
remembrance of a past of which the present should conserve
elements to assure the continuity of a beneficial and illustrious
tradition.
It is quite true that in the new Italian
Constitution "titles of nobility are not recognized"
(except, of course, in accordance with Article
42 of the Concordat, as pertains to the Holy See, those
titles granted or to be granted by the Supreme Pontiffs);18
yet not even the Constitution can annul
the past, nor the history of your families.19
There is no moral judgment in Pius XII's
explicit and direct reference to the abolition of nobiliary
titles by the Italian Republic. The Pope simply acknowledges
the fact. But pari passu he affirms with noble
agility that, far from following the example of republican
Italy, the Church vindicates the validity of the titles
of nobility She has hitherto granted or may come to grant
in the future. These titles continued to be
valid even in the Republic of Italy in virtue of Article
42 of the Lateran Treaty.20 This is evident,
since an article of the Italian Constitution cannot unilaterally
suspend the validity of pontifical titles recognized by
a bilateral act such as the Concordat of 1929.21
So, the Roman Patriciate and Nobility
still have a momentous and magnificent duty, resulting from
the prestige that friends and foes alike must acknowledge.
Therefore even now the people—whether
they are favorable toward you or not, whether they feel
respectfully loyal or hostile toward you—look at
you and see what sort of example you set in life. It is
thus up to you to respond to such expectations and show
how your conduct and actions are in keeping with truth
and virtue, especially in the matters We
have just discussed in Our recommendations.22
Considering the past of the Roman Nobility
and finding therein not something dead but an "impetus
for the future," Pius XII, "moved by feelings
of honor and loyalty," reserved for it a treatment
of special distinction and invited his contemporaries to
do likewise.
In you We hail the descendants and representatives
of families long in the service of the Holy See and the
Vicar of Christ, who remained faithful to the Roman Pontificate
even when it was exposed to outrages and persecutions.
Without doubt, over the course of time the social order
has been able to evolve, and its center has shifted. Public
offices, which once were reserved for your class, may
now be conferred and exercised on a basis of equality;
nevertheless, such a testimonial of grateful remembrance—which
must also serve as an impetus for the future—must
also command respect and understanding in modern man as
well if he wishes to possess just and fair sentiments.23
9. Democracy According
to the Doctrine of the Church— Archaeologism and False
Restoration: Two Extremes to Be Avoided
One might ask if Pius XII with these teachings,
uttered in an epoch of overwhelming desire for equality,
was attempting to react against this egalitarian tendency
by condemning democracy.
In this respect, further considerations
may be useful.
The social doctrine of the Church always
affirmed the legitimacy of the three forms of government:
monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. It always refused
to accept that democracy is the only form of government
compatible with justice and charity.
Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches that, in
principle, monarchy is a form of government superior to
the rest. But this does not mean that particular circumstances
may not render aristocracy or democracy more appropriate
in one state or another.
Saint Thomas views with
singular satisfaction those forms of government in which
elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy are harmoniously
combined.24
Leo XIII, in turn, when explaining the
Church's social doctrine on the forms of government, declares:
"By giving oneself up to abstractions,
one could at length conclude which is the best of these
forms, considered in themselves."25
However, the Pontiff does not affirm which form it is.
Nonetheless, we must note the categorical
nature of his affirmation, although it seems at first glance
to be conditional: "one could conclude."
In fact, the Pontiff affirms that it is
possible to determine which form of government
is intrinsically better so long as the thinker remains in
the realm of abstractions. And so he adds:
And in all truth it may
be affirmed that each of them is good, provided it lead
straight to its end—that is to say, to the common
good for which social authority is constituted; and finally,
it may be added that, from a relative point of view, such
and such a form of government may be preferable because
of being better adapted to the character and customs of
such and such a nation.26
One question remains. According to the
Pontiff's reasoning, which form of government would be considered
better in the realm of mere abstraction?
To answer this we must recall the encyclical
Aeterni Patris of August 4, 1879, concerning the
restoration of Scholasticism according to the doctrine of
Saint Thomas Aquinas. Among many other tributes to the work
of this great Doctor of the Church we find the following:
It is well known that almost all the
founders and lawgivers of religious orders enjoined upon
their members to study and adhere religiously to the doctrines
of St. Thomas, warning them that no one of them should
with impunity recede, even in the slightest degree, from
the teachings of so great a master....
But what is of more importance, the Roman
Pontiffs, Our predecessors, extolled St. Thomas with the
highest encomiums and distinguished praise....
To the opinions of the greatest Pontiffs,
Innocent VI, as if raising a monument to St. Thomas's
memory, adds the declaration: "His teaching above
all others, the canonical writings excepted, has such
an accuracy of expression, such an arrangement of subjects,
such a correctness of conclusions, that those who held
to it have never been found to depart from the path of
truth, and those who opposed it have always been suspected
of unsoundness" (Sermon on Saint Thomas).
And it was an honor reserved
to St. Thomas alone...that the Fathers of Trent in their
Hall of Assembly decided to place upon the altar, side
by side with Holy Scripture and the Decrees of the Roman
Pontiffs, the Summa of St. Thomas, to seek in it counsel,
arguments, and decisions for their purpose.27
We must not suppose that in this matter
the thinking of Leo XIII would differ from that of Saint
Thomas. In this regard, the following sentence of the same
Pontiff is worthy of special attention:
We never intended to add
anything either to the opinions of the great scholars
on the value of different forms of government, or to Catholic
doctrine and the traditions of this Apostolic See on the
degree of obedience due to the constituted powers.28
Democracy being the government of the
people, and the Church's concept of people being
profoundly different from the current neopagan concept—which
equates people with mass—it
follows that the Catholic concept of democracy differs profoundly
from what democracy is generally understood to be.29
In view of the egalitarian avalanche,
and refraining from political preferences, Pius XII seeks
to consider the democratic tendency as it exists and to
guide it in order to prevent damage to the sociopolitical
body.
He discloses this design when, during
the reorganization of post-war Italy, he gave the Roman
Nobility the following counsel:
Everyone generally admits that this reorganization
cannot be conceived as a pure and simple return to the
past. Such a step backward is not possible. The world,
despite its often disorderly, disconnected, fragmented,
and incoherent movements, has continued to move ahead;
history does not stop, it cannot stop; it
is forever advancing, following its course, whether straight
and orderly or twisted and confused, toward progress or
toward an illusion of progress.30
When reconstructing a society, as when
reconstructing a building, there are two extremes to avoid:
one, merely archaeological reconstruction; the other, construction
of an entirely different edifice, in which case it would
not really be a reconstruction. The Pontiff says:
Just as one could not conceive of reconstructing
a building required to serve modern-day needs in the same
manner as one would conceive of an archaeological reconstruction,
likewise such rebuilding would not be possible following
arbitrary designs, even if these were theoretically the
best and most desirable. One must always
bear in mind inescapable reality, the entire sweep and
scope of reality.31
10. Highly Aristocratic
Institutions Are Also Necessary in Democracies
Now, if the Church does not intend to
destroy democracy, she certainly does desire that it be
well understood and that the distinction between the Christian
and revolutionary concepts of democracy be clear. It is
timely to remember, in this vein, what Pius XII teaches
about the traditional character and the aristocratic tone
of a true Christian democracy.
On another occasion, We spoke of the
conditions necessary for a people to be ripe for a healthy
democracy. Yet who can raise and nurture this state of
ripeness? No doubt the Church could draw many lessons
in this regard from the treasury of its experiences and
its own civilizing activities. Yet your presence here
today brings to mind one particular observation. As history
will testify, wherever true democracy reigns, the life
of the people is permeated with sound traditions, which
it is not legitimate to destroy. The primary representatives
of these traditions are the ruling classes, or rather,
the groups of men and women, or the associations, which
set the tone, as we say, for the village or the city,
for the region or the entire country.
Whence the existence and influence, among
all civilized peoples, of aristocratic institutions, aristocratic
in the highest sense of the word, like certain academies
of widespread and well-deserved renown. And the nobility
is in that number too. Without claiming any privilege
or monopoly, it is, or ought to be, one of these institutions.
It is a traditional institution, founded on the continuity
of an ancient education. Of course, in a
democratic society, which our own wishes to be, the mere
title of birth no longer suffices to command authority
or esteem; therefore, in order to preserve in worthy fashion
your elevated station and social rank, indeed to increase
it and raise it, you must truly be an elite, you must
meet the conditions and fulfill the indispensable demands
of the epoch wherein we live.32
The milieu of a true nobility or traditional
elite is as it were a breeding ground where elevated qualities
of intelligence, will, and sensibility are formed, thereby
increasing its prestige with the merit of each successive
generation. For Pius XII, this type of nobility or traditional
elite is not a heterogeneous and contradictory element within
a truly Christian democracy, but rather a precious element
of it. Thus we perceive how different an authentically Christian
democracy is from the egalitarian democracy proclaimed by
the Revolution. For the latter, the destruction
of all elites—and especially the nobility—is
deemed an essential condition for democratic authenticity.33
_________________________
1 RPN
1947, pp. 370-371.
2
RPN 1941, p. 364.
3 See
Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites, Documents
VI.
4 RPN
1944, pp. 177-178.
5 RPN
1942, p. 345. In this regard, Rivarol, the brilliant French
polemicist who opposed the Revolution of 1789, of which
he was a contemporary, affirmed, "nobles are like ancient
coins that time made into medals" (in M. Berville,
Mémoires de Rivarol [Paris: Baudouin Frères,
1824], p. 212).
6 RPN
1944, p. 178.
7 The
term Revolution is used in this book in the sense
attributed it in the study Revolution
and Counter-Revolution, by the present author.
It designates a movement initiated in the fifteenth century
which aimed to destroy Christian civilization and to implant
a state of things diametrically opposed to it. The Pseudo-Reformation,
the French Revolution, and Communism—in its many variations
and in its current subtle metamorphosis—are the stages
of this process.
8 Fléchier,
Oraison funebre, 1676. The Pope refers to Henri
de la Tour d'Auvergne, Viscount de Turenne, Marshall of
France (1611-1675).
9 RPN
1944, pp. 178-180; see Nobility and Analogous Traditional
Elites, Documents VI.
10 Ibid.,
p. 180. The reader should not imagine that with this wise
counsel Pius XII overlooks the grave dangers stemming from
overrating modern technology. Consider what he has to teach
in this respect:
"It seems undeniable that technology
itself, which has attained its apogee of splendor and fruitfulness
in our century, is in actual circumstances being transformed
into a grave spiritual danger. It seems to communicate to
modern man, who bows before its altar, a sense of self-sufficiency
and satisfaction of his boundless thirst for knowledge and
power. With its manifold uses, the absolute confidence it
inspires, the inexhaustible possibilities it promises, modern
technology unfolds before men of today a vision so vast
that it is taken by many to be infinity itself. It is consequently
believed to possess an inadmissible autonomy that in turn
is transformed, in the mind of some, into an erroneous conception
of life and the world that is called the 'spirit of technology.'
But of what, precisely, does this consist? It consists in
considering that what is of the highest value for humanity
and life is the most advantageous exploitation of nature's
forces and elements; in setting all the technically possible
methods of mechanical production as a goal above all other
human activities; and in seeing in these the perfection
of earthly culture and happiness" (Christmas message
of 1953, Discorsi e radiomessaggi di Sua Santit…
Pio XII, Vol. 15, p. 522).
11 RPM
1942, p. 347.
12 Ibid.,
pp. 346-347. The Pope refers at the end of this passage
to Marcantonio Colonna, the Younger, Duke of Paliano (1535-1584).
Saint Pius V entrusted him with the command of twelve pontifical
ships that participated in the battle. He fought with such
heroism and ability that he was received triumphantly in
Rome.
13 Ibid.,
pp. 347-348. By "fallen humanity," the Pontiff
alludes to mankind's decadence due to Original Sin.
14 Ibid.,
p. 348.
15 Chapter
IV, 8.
16
RPN 1941, pp. 363-364; see Nobility and Analogous Traditional
Elites, Documents IV.
17 RPM
1951, pp.423-424.
18 See
Chapter II, 1.
19 RPN
1949, p. 346.
20 See
Chapter II, 1.
21 Regarding
the summary abolition of institutions as old and meritorious
as the nobility under the impact of the radical egalitarianism
that spread throughout many countries after the two world
wars, it is lamentable that Saint Thomas Aquinas' wise teachings
were not taken into account. In the Summa Theologica
(I-II, q. 97, a. 2) under the title "Whether human
law should always be changed, whenever something better
occurs?" he wrote:
"It is stated in the Decretals:
It is absurd, and a detestable shame, that we should
suffer those traditions to be changed which we have received
from the fathers of old.
"As stated above, human law
is rightly changed, in so far as such change is conducive
to the common weal. But, to a certain extent, the mere change
of law is of itself prejudicial to the common good: because
custom avails much for the observance of laws, seeing that
what is done contrary to general custom, even in slight
matters, is looked upon as grave. Consequently, when a law
is changed, the binding power of the law is diminished,
in so far as custom is abolished. Wherefore human law should
never be changed, unless, in some way or other, the common
weal be compensated according to the extent of the harm
done in this respect. Such compensation may arise either
from some very great and very evident benefit conferred
by the new enactment; or from the extreme urgency of the
case, due to the fact that either the existing law is clearly
unjust, or its observance extremely harmful. Wherefore the
Jurist says that in establishing new laws, there should
be evidence of the benefit to be derived, before departing
from a law which has long been considered just."
22 RPN
1949, p. 346.
23 RPN
1950, p. 357.
24 For
a better understanding of the Church's doctrine and Saint
Thomas's thinking on the various forms of government, it
is of capital importance to read the pontifical texts and
the texts of the Angelic Doctor transcribed in Nobility
and Analogous Traditional Elites, Appendix IV along
with the author's commentaries.
25 Encyclical
Au milieu des sollicitudes, in Wynne, Great
Encyclical Letters, p. 255.
26 Ibid.
27
American Catholic Quarterly Review, Vol. 4, (October
1879), pp. 753-755 passim.
28 Letter
to Cardinal Mathieu, March 28, 1897, in La paix intérieure
des Nations (Desclée & Cie., 1952), p. 220.
29 See
Chapter III.
30 RPN
1945, p. 274.
31 Ibid.
32 RPN
1946, pp. 340-341.
33 On
the legitimacy and necessity of the nobility's existence
in an authentically Catholic society, see the substantial
outline published under the title "Aristocracy"
in an important homiletic work elaborated under the direction
of Angel Cardinal Herrera Oria. It is transcribed and analyzed
in Appendix V of Nobility and Analogous Traditional
Elites . |
