Introduction
In the middle of the nineteenth century no institution was more firmly opposed to the developments in the Modern World than the Roman Catholic Church. Its opposition to all things modern is capsulized in the 1864 Vatican document “The Syllabus of Errors,” which rejected the idea that the Pope “should be reconciled and agree with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.”(1) One hundred years later the Second Vatican Council wrote a document on the role of the Church in the Modern World; it began with these words: “The joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the people of our times, especially the poor or those afflicted in any way, are also the joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well”.(2)
My task in this paper is to explain what happened in the hundred years intervening between these two very different Vatican documents: the one closed off and hostile to the Modern World, the other embracing the world and discovering there the arena for its work of service and reconciliation. Obviously, that assignment is too large to be accomplished in the brief space of an essay. So, instead, I’ve selected the life and experience of Father Leo Dehon and I am going to present him as a case-study, an example in miniature, of the kinds of changes that have taken place in the church at large. I believe that he is representative not only of the church’s new approach to the Modern World, but also of the renewed motivation which inspired this involvement in the distinctive problems of modern times.
I. Father Dehon at Saint Quentin
When Father Dehon completed his studies for the priesthood he was twenty-eight years old. He had four doctorates, one in French civil law, and one each in philosophy, theology and canon law. In temperament, he was not shy, but introverted, reserved and inclined to asceticism. Before the Revolution his family had belonged to the aristocracy; afterwards, they remained prosperous land owners and were prominent in local politics. His privileged upbringing contributed to his isolation from the daily life of ordinary citizens. Furthermore, his seminary training had not included any courses in practical ministry or parochial experience; he never even had a course on preaching. He had spent six years in Rome, which he described as an extended monastic retreat, completely taken up in the rarefied atmosphere of advanced studies, lofty spirituality and the arcane subculture of Roman Catholicism.
He would like to have stayed on to pursue even further studies. But failing that, he aspired to a career in higher education, perhaps in a seminary training future priests or as a university professor. Just as these plans were about to be realized, practical considerations led him to withdraw from the project and he was forced temporarily to put his academic pursuits on hold. Instead, he placed his services at the disposition of his bishop. The bishop acted quickly, and on November 3, 1871, Father Leo Dehon was assigned as the seventh vicar at the Basilica in the town of Saint Quentin.
It’s hard to imagine an appointment and a location for which young Father Dehon could be less aptly suited. One of his former classmates wrote to him: “You, a parish priest? That’s ridiculous!”(3) The town itself was equally uncongenial. Situated in the industrial north of France, Saint Quentin was an unprepossessing town dominated by a variety of textile factories, as well as several foundries, distilleries and other light industries. There was no aristocracy, although there was a small professional class; there was little cultural or intellectual life. It was, what we might call today, a blue-collar town. Most of its 30,000 inhabitants were baptized Catholics who nominally belonged to the Basilica, which was the only parish in the city.
The priests took their turn at the regular schedule of religious services and, in addition, each of them was responsible for one particular aspect of parish life. For example, one was the choir master, another was a manager of the diocesan newspaper, others were chaplains at schools or convents. It was understood that each priest had certain families whose homes he visited, the rest of the town would rarely, if ever, see a priest.(4) The clergy provided services at the church and ministered to those who came to them; the rest of the people lived in paganism.(5)
Shortly after his arrival at the parish, Father Dehon noted, “I soon found myself in contact with the people.” He saw first-hand the impoverished and degrading conditions that industrialization brought down on the urban masses. He wrote: “Most of the 30,000 inhabitants of the city lived off their daily salary, which rose or fell according to the market, like the price of slaves. There were no institutions to protect the workers. Ninety percent of the factory owners and contractors had no idea of their duties as employers. Old age, sickness and the large number of children led to hunger and misery in the family. Some fortunate families prospered, but most were bogged down in pauperism...
“It could be said that no one from the working class went to church. These good people never heard an encouraging word either from their priests or their employers... Their situation was worse than that of the slaves in former times, who were often considered part of the family. There were solid reasons why the people harbored hatred in their hearts for contemporary society and bore hostility for their employers and dissatisfaction with the clergy who did not do enough for them.”
Most of these people lived in foul housing, especially in the neighborhood near the slaughterhouse. In these hovels there were “some rags, a straw mattress that served the entire family, two or three chairs with broken seats and a rickety table. There was a savings bank, but the workers had nothing to put in it. The only institutions that worked on their behalf were the two mutual insurance funds which provided support for workers who were ill. During the winter one-third of the city was living on charity.” He concluded that this society was “rotten” and that all the demands of the workers were legitimate.(6) If you read his “Sermon for Christmas Day (1871),” you know that he was capable of analyzing the causes of these injustices and of speaking out passionately against them. Yet despite his convictions and his concerns, he had no desire to needlessly provoke the situation, instead he set out to work within the existing systems and structures.
As low man on the rectory totem pole Father Dehon’s special assignment was to teach catechism twice a week at the local public grade schools. (I suppose his four doctorates recommended him for the task.) But it was from this humble and unpromising beginning that his genius for the apostolate first began to show itself. Looking back on this experience he believed that his vocation as a minister and spokesman for the cause of social justice originated there. He threw himself wholeheartedly into the work. He saw among the faces of the children some who seemed receptive and responsive. He heard their confessions regularly and encouraged them to come more often.(7) After a few months he began to bring about a half dozen of them to the rectory on Sundays after vespers. This was the beginning of the youth club.(8)
He realized that he needed to develop some means that would help the young people persevere, so that the good results achieved in the classroom and the confessional would not be undone in the streets and cafes. He said, “Logically I needed to found a youth club.” By the spring of his first year at the parish the rectory was no longer adequate to accommodate the growing number of young people who came. That summer he spent 20,000 franc of his own money to purchase a garden and another 8,000 to have a chapel and meeting room built.(9) He enlisted the help of some members of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society and other men of the town to assist in organizing and overseeing the youth club.(10)
The activities at the club included sports and games, calisthenics and marching, music and theatrical productions; there was a library and a savings bank; and every week there was a religious service and a talk by Father Dehon. He always chose a concrete topic or a story that would stir their imagination and engage their mind at the same time. He frequently brought in pictures or artifacts from his travels. By the end of the first year over 200 boys were attending the weekly meetings, and that number doubled over the following years. The youth club was for boys aged 12 to 16. In his second year at the parish Father Dehon founded another club for young workers, ages 17-25; he led them through a course on the Christian principles of economics. He also provided housing for the young workers who came from the countryside to find jobs in the city. Next he established a committee of patrons and benefactors, made up of thirty or forty civic and business leaders; he made them aware of the needs of young people and the conditions of the workers, and he solicited their support. He also founded a study club for students at the Lycée. They were the children of the well-to-do families who would assume positions of leadership in the future. Father Dehon gave them courses in religious and social studies, and formed a Saint Vincent de Paul Conference which would bring them into direct contact with the poor.
In addition he founded a newspaper and was chaplain for a convent of nuns, whom he was instrumental in bringing to the city; he was coordinator of diocesan social programs, and he organized several diocesan-wide conferences on the social apostolate. After six years of priestly ministry he looked back over his experience and wrote: “Everything smiled on me in my secular life. I was loved by everyone. I succeeded in my works. I was an Honorary Canon at age thirty-three. It was said that I would become Vicar General at the first opening. However, I was not happy. It seemed to me that my intellectual and spiritual life were withering away. I had no time to read or study. I was overworked. My exercises of piety suffered from it. I did not believe that I was in my place and I longed for the religious life.”(11)
Ever since his days in the seminary Dehon had wanted to join a religious order. He had made a series of inquiries into several different congregations and on various occasions he was on the verge of joining either the Assumptionists or the Spiritans or the Jesuits. But, ironically, it was his success in ministry that prevented him from realizing this dream. As often as he looked for ways to free himself from the burdens of parish life, he always came up against the same self-imposed objection: there was no one to take over his works. Then, in the spring of 1877, he noted an idea that was gradually unfolding in his soul. Since he wanted to be a religious, but he couldn’t abandon his works, perhaps our Lord was asking him to begin a new congregation in Saint Quentin.(12)
In June he presented this proposal to the bishop. The bishop was not opposed to the idea, but he was more interested in seeing the establishment of a new Catholic high school in the diocese. So he offered Father Dehon a compromise: if he would begin the school, he would receive approval to start a new religious congregation. Thus Father Dehon’s religious family was founded under the cover of Saint John’s High School in Saint Quentin. Official permission was granted by a letter received on July 13. The following day he bought a property and work began at once to make the new school ready for the opening of the Fall Term. One week later he retired to the convent where he was chaplain and began his novitiate by making a retreat and writing the constitutions for his new religious order.
II. Father Dehon and Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Aware, as you are, of the swirl of activities and social involvement that characterized his life as a parish priest, it would be logical to assume that any religious community founded by this man would likewise be activist and socially concerned. In point of fact, nothing could be further from the truth. In the beginning his congregation was more monastic than apostolic. He told the first novices who joined him: “We are much more devoted to the contemplative life than to the active life; the active life will always be something accidental in our vocation.”(13) And he wrote in the original Constitutions that the members could engage in ministries like preaching or teaching catechism as long as these activities did not keep them away from their community residence.(14) The primary “work” of the congregation was to be the personal sanctification of the members by means of the prayers and spiritual practices associated with the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
This apparent inconsistency in Father Dehon’s personality becomes more understandable if we can appreciate the scope and depth of the influence that the Sacred Heart Devotion exercised in nineteenth century French Catholicism. This devotion had begun to gain popular acceptance two centuries earlier when a nun, named Margaret Mary Alacoque, reported seeing visions of Christ in which his heart was exposed as a burning furnace of love. The message of the visions was twofold. First, that Christ, who revealed himself under the aspect of his heart, was the essence of love. Everything he did revealed his boundless love for God and humanity. And, second, Christ’s love most often went unrequited because human beings treated it with indifference, coldness and contempt. Therefore it was the chief duty of Christ’s friends to make up for this neglect and to repair the injury it caused by saying prayers and performing religious practices designed to console his wounded heart and return their love for his love. That is the deceptively simple message of the Sacred Heart Devotion, and it captured the heart and imagination of the Catholic faithful as nothing else did at the time.
Its great popularity was due, in part, to the fact that it made its public appearance in the church at about the same time than the world was becoming “modern,” and it acted as an antidote to the excesses and prejudices of modernity. The term “Modern World” is a technical phrase; it is not merely a synonym for the contemporary world. The Modern World is characterized by certain values and a specific way of looking at things. The Modern World is a self-sufficient world, and its self-sufficiency rests on the twin pillars of Science and its practical application, Technology. The Modern World is built on Science and powered by Technology. Anything that cannot be verified by the Scientific Method, in other words, anything that cannot be weighed and measured, that cannot be counted and numbered, has no standing in the Modern World. Thus Science renders God and spiritual realities unthinkable. And its practical application through Technology, which has given human beings unprecedented power over the forces of nature, has made God and spiritual realities unnecessary.(15) So the Modern World is the world that works without God; it is a world that runs by reason and technique, and these are what it values and rewards. It is a world of the Head and the Hand, and only those who have knowledge and technical skill have any standing in the Modern World.
About the same time that Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque began propagating the Devotion to the Sacred Heart, the world of modern medicine began to produce findings on the purely mechanical nature of the human heart. According to the British physician Doctor William Harvey there was no scientific basis for considering the heart as the seat of affections or as the organizing center of a human being. Expressions like “I love you with all my heart” or “Your sorrow weighs heavy on my heart” are just figures of speech without foundation in science. By the standards of the Modern World the heart is just a pump in the machine.(16) In this materialistic environment Margaret Mary boldly proposed the image of a heart that had little in common with Doctor Harvey’s mechanical pump. She described the Sacred Heart of Jesus enthroned in flames, bathed in light, surmounted by a cross and surrounded by a crown of thorns. It was clearly a symbolic heart and in its stylized way it offered a window on the true identity of the person of Jesus.
As she presented it, the physical heart is a symbol of the spirituality or inner reality of the person. Thus the heart of Christ is the symbol of his love because, in essence, Christ is his love for his Father and for humanity. All his thoughts, desires and affections, all that directed and animated his life -- is revealed as love. Although William Harvey had demonstrated that the physical heart is not the principal organ of affection or the center of personal identity, nevertheless the heart still functions as a sign of affection and as a symbol of the person. At a time when medical science treated the heart as a pump and the human body as a machine, the Sacred Heart Devotion pointed to “one Heart which could continue to be called, without reservation, a burning furnace of love.”(17)
But if this devotion spoke primarily about God’s burning love for us, symbolized in the Heart of his Son, it also contained an important message about the worth of the human person and the role of the heart in our relation with God. If the Heart of Jesus reveals his true identity, then the human heart is a symbol of our identity, the place where we are most truly ourselves. Since human beings are created in the image and likeness of God and we are called to live our lives in union with God, then the heart is the place of encounter with God, where we can know ourselves as we are known and where we can know the love that God has for us. Within our heart we can be touched and changed by the Heart of Christ who moves us to take on his virtues and attitudes in a world where the love of God has grown cold. In a world where the achievements of the Head and Hand are the standards of human excellence, this devotion calls attention to the Heart as a superior way of knowing and experiencing the fullness of God’s life, for he is known properly only when he is known “by heart.”
By showing his physical heart as the symbol of himself and the sign of his love, Christ was inviting people to examine his intentions, his attitudes and his sentiments, just as he once invited the apostle Thomas to examine the wounds in his hands and side. Thus, by contemplating the mysteries of his heart, cold and insensitive human hearts can be touched and changed to become more like him.(18) Margaret Mary wrote that the purpose of this devotion “is to convert souls to the love of this divine Heart and to make him the master and ruler of our hearts, by returning love for love to him.”(19) In a Modern World increasingly dominated by the forces of impersonal laws and dehumanizing technology, it is easy to understand the attractiveness of this devotion which emphasized love, intimacy and affection symbolized by the heart.
It is important to keep in mind that the Devotion to the Sacred Heart was a “people’s” movement, what we would call today a “grass roots movement.” It did not come from the top down, it did not originate with popes, bishops or even theologians. Among the devotees of this movement it had always been regarded as a means of developing a personal relationship with Jesus.(20) This relationship was fostered by the religious practices recommended by Margaret Mary, viz., frequent reception of Communion, Communion on the first Friday of every month, a Holy Hour on Thursdays and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Not surprisingly, these are the same practices that Father Dehon prescribed for his congregation.(21)
These practices nurtured an attitude or a sensibility that is best described by the French word intimiste. Although related to the notion of intimacy or intimate, intimiste carries the further connotations of being introverted and withdrawn from social engagement. On the one hand, these devotional practices were a personal and affective response to the presence of Christ who was experienced as a friend and lover who was passionately concerned about the salvation and well-being of each individual soul. In this respect the devotion functioned not only as an antidote to the heartless impersonality of the Modern World, but it also provided a comforting alternative to the coldness of the official liturgy and the rigid regulations that governed the moral lives of Catholics. The Sacred Heart Devotion became the most popular expression of piety in the nineteenth century because it met the real needs of the people and it provided an outlet for their frustrated longings for personal affirmation in a world of impersonal forces.
On the other hand, the devotion was seriously flawed and limiting. It was unable to break out of the narrow confines of the individual’s personal relationship with Jesus. The extent of its apostolic outreach was restricted to inviting other individual souls to take up its pious practices or, failing that, praying for the unconverted masses and offering Christ the compensation of love for the neglect and ingratitude of others. Father Dehon endorsed this attitude when he wrote in the original Constitutions that the members of his congregation “should strive with all possible fervor to satisfy the desires expressed by the Heart of Christ, [namely] to compensate him for the coldness and indifference of so many Christians who have abandoned him in a cowardly manner, and especially for the lack of love, the ingratitude and infidelity that he complained about to Blessed Margaret Mary.”(22)
In social and political matters the Devotion to the Sacred Heart was often associated with right wing and reactionary causes. Initially Father Dehon shared many of these aspirations, but over time his perspective on the social question greatly expanded. There was no single, dramatic event that marked the turning point in his thinking. There was no sudden conversion on the “Damascus Road.” His outlook evolved more slowly: some ideas were there from the beginning, others changed with time, still others emerged from a synthesis of old ideas in new circumstances. But if there was no magic moment of enlightenment, there was a single event that crystallized his thinking and galvanized his will for a new effort of social engagement.
III. Father Dehon and the Social Apostolate
In 1888, ten years after he had founded his congregation, Father Dehon received the first official approbation of his work from Rome. Called the “Decree of Praise,” it amounted to the Church’s approval of the spirit and goals of the new religious order. Later that year he went to Rome to thank the pope personally for this recognition. On September 6 at eleven o’clock in the morning he was ushered into the papal chambers where he was warmly welcomed by Pope Leo XIII. In the course of recounting the growth and success of the congregation, the pope seemed to depart from his prepared text and issued a series of direct orders to Father Dehon. He told him: Preach my encyclicals. Pray for priests. Establish houses of adoration. Go to the missions. “In this way you will be able to accomplish much good, and I am confident that your work will prosper.”(23)
The encyclicals the pope refers to are the instructions he periodically issued to the church regarding current affairs and the response that they call for. Over his long twenty-five year papacy Leo would write eighty-six encyclicals, more than any other pope in history. Increasingly, his teachings turned toward social issues: colonialism and slavery, working conditions and the principles of democracy, socialism and economic liberalism. Through these writings this pope came to be regarded as a friend of democracy, a champion of the working class and an advocate of sound learning. The pope’s words struck Dehon as a clarion call to action. To preach the pope’s encyclicals, to train priests, to promote the Eucharist and to go to foreign missions: this, he concluded, “is the mission that has been assigned to us by the pope.”(24)
He emerged from that papal audience with a new awareness of a crucial element which had been missing, or at least seriously undervalued, in his original project. The following years became a time of unprecedented apostolic activity. He sent priests throughout the diocese to preach missions, he expanded the chaplaincy in the factory at Val-des-Bois, where he also conducted seminars for priests and seminarians; the first foreign missionaries sailed for Ecuador and he began the publication of a monthly magazine under the title “The Reign of the Heart of Jesus in Individuals and in Societies.” He interpreted the Decree of Praise and his audience with Leo XIII as the church’s official stamp of approval for the new apostolic thrust of his work. He wrote: “The approbation of 1888 put us back on our feet again. It was like a Pentecost after which we began the apostolic life.”(25)
The title of his magazine is significant because it indicates the continuity in his work as well as a major new development. As “The Reign of the Heart of Jesus in Individuals” it reaffirmed his belief that everyone was called to have a personal relationship with Christ by welcoming him into their heart and allowing themselves to be touched by his love so that their hearts might become more like his. By coming to know and experience the love that God has for them, they will be moved to love him in return by taking on his attitudes and imitating his actions. But as “The Reign of the Heart of Jesus in Societies” he was indicating that it was no longer sufficient to withdraw from the world and offer prayers and sacrifices to Christ as compensation for his rejection by sinful humanity. He could no longer endorse a spirituality that retreated behind chapel walls and hoped to bring about the triumph of Christianity by praying for the conversion of a godless society. The pope’s rally cry “Go to the people” was not just a strategy, it was part of the dynamic of the gospel. Father Dehon’s charism as a Founder reached its full expression when he realized this and he finally understood that the social apostolate --- the ministry of social justice --- can repair a broken world by bringing to it the compassionate love of the heart of Christ.
The high water mark of his career in the social apostolate spanned fifteen years of intense activity and writing during which he treated every topic from A to Z, literally, everything from agriculture and anarchy and arbitrage to Zionism, Zola and the papal Zouaves. I want to call attention to four aspects of his thinking that are not only characteristic and fundamental to his approach, but which also have a perennial value that recommends them to anyone who wants to continue the work for justice in the spirit of Leo Dehon. The first and the fourth reflect his desire for “The Reign of the Heart of Jesus in Individuals,” while the second and third strive to advance “The Reign of the Heart of Jesus in Societies.”
The first and underlying principle in his vision of a just society is his affirmation of the inalienable dignity of the human person, a dignity that entails both duties and rights. This has been, and remains today, the cornerstone of all Catholic social teaching. In keeping with that tradition Dehon developed this idea using the language of the natural law theory and the Bible, but he also gave it a distinctive nuance by founding human dignity on the love that God has for everyone of his creatures. This is the essential message of the Sacred Heart Devotion: “Behold this Heart that has loved men so much.” Every human being, no matter what his talents or abilities or social class, is the special object of divine affection and is destined for union with God in love. This is the inviolable source of human dignity which transcends the claims of every economic system or political party.
But human rights do not rest solely on religious principles. The wealth of a nation derives from the productivity of its workers. Therefore, as the source and the cause of the goods that bring prosperity, they are entitled to receive an appropriate share of those goods in the form housing, clothing and sufficient means to better their standard of living.(26) The production of wealth is a legitimate national goal only if it is accompanied by a program for the just distribution of wealth. This distribution does not require a classless society or absolute equality in wealth.(27) But equity demands that an appropriate portion of the temporal goods that society enjoys as a result of labor in the factory or the field must be returned to the workers who procured these benefits for the nation as a whole.(28)
Work is not a kind of merchandise, subject to the rule of impersonal economic laws. The purpose of life is not to increase the production of goods in the greatest quantity and at the lowest price.(29) The purpose of human labor is to allow the worker to live with his family in an honest and dignified way. To this end he contributes his life and his energy to the production of goods which will preserve the well-being of the nation into the next generation. Therefore he has the right, in strict justice, to the resources that are required to satisfy his physical needs, to raise a family in decent conditions, and to accumulate savings for contingencies of unemployment, illness and old age.(30) According to Father Dehon this belongs to the essential dignity of the human person, and it is grounded in the theological principle of God’s love for us, as well as the economic principles inherent in the nature of human work.
The second element in his social vision seems equally fundamental and self-evident. Human beings are essentially social; they live their lives and achieve their destiny in association with other human beings. Therefore society should be structured in such a way that it enhances human dignity and makes it easier for people to overcome the obstacles that threaten to diminish their ability to participate in life. In other words, society is made for man, not man for society. The two social-economic systems that posed the greatest danger to human dignity in the nineteenth century were socialism and liberal capitalism. Father Dehon considered socialism to be a false remedy, a mistake; while he considered economic liberalism to be a sin.(31) Socialism, which often correctly identified the sources of unequal distribution of wealth, made the mistake of suppressing intermediate social agencies and supplanting them with a single State system.(32) The sin of liberal capitalism consisted in making wealth the exclusive goal of the political economy,(33) and of subjecting individuals and all other social institutions to the consequences of a profit-driven marketplace.(34) He considered both socialism and economic liberalism as totalitarian systems because neither of them acknowledged any power or truth beyond its own principles, while each claimed to be fully adequate to resolve any problem.
To reorder society in favor of the human person he advocated the establishment of independent organizations that would stand between the individual and the State or between individuals and employers. These organizations would include professional associations, labor unions, guilds, fraternal societies, credit unions, federations, farming collectives and any other sort of occupational association of people in similar social circumstances who come together to pool their resources and coordinate their interrelated interests. He encouraged these organizations as a natural method whereby workers could organize their own defense against all forms of oppression and through which they could provide mutual assistance in times of need. He saw that unfettered competition results in monopolies which drive smaller companies out of business.(35) These various associations could provide a buffer to protect the weak from the abuses of power and wealth.
His emphasis on the role of these associations also throws light on the title of his magazine, “The Reign of the Heart of Jesus in Individuals and in Societies.” One would expect the singular noun “Society.” The use of the plural “Societies” indicated that Father Dehon did not expect that the whole of society would return to the Christian faith and that Christian principles would reign supreme as they did in Medieval times. He was resigned to the fact that society will be secular and pluralistic for the foreseeable future. But in this new and unwelcome circumstance the church does not need to retreat to the private world of the individual and the family. Through the creation of intermediate organizations and public associations Christians can have a voice and can be a force in shaping the direction and giving content to the substance of social life.(36) “The Reign of the Heart of Jesus in Societies” would not depend on the political power of the church imposed from on high, but would result from the concerted efforts of popular forces organizing and coming together to realize a Christian program of moral and social renewal.(37) Society could be influenced by its societies.
The third aspect of his social project is closely aligned to the second. Although he was far from being a socialist, he strongly endorsed the intervention of the State to protect the rights of workers and ensure the welfare of the poor. Citing Pope Leo XIII, he wrote that the wealthy classes use their wealth like a rampart to protect themselves and so they have less need for the assistance of the State. The poorer classes, without wealth to safeguard them from injustices, rely on the protection of the State, which should explicitly take up the cause of the workers who generally belong to the poorer classes.(38) Among the benefits that the State should guarantee he mentions: Sunday rest, tax reform, reduction in the length of the work-day, minimum wage, pension benefits and health insurance, change in female and child labor laws, legal status for unions, labor contracts, factory safety and hygiene, and international agreements against the importation of goods made by exploited workers(39) -- in other words, the kinds of protections and guarantees that workers have come to expect in the past hundred years, but which are still lacking in some industries and in many nations. Thus individuals and associations should take up the constitutional and political means at their disposal -- such as elections, the press and publicity -- to see to it that the State fulfills its obligations to protect the rights of each individual and promote the general welfare of all its citizens.(40)
The fourth and final aspect of Father Dehon’s social project concerns a subject about which his own thinking went through considerable change. When he first became interested in social issues, like many others of his time and class, he felt moved to do something for the underprivileged; it was an example of what the French call noblesse oblige, a rather paternalistic sentiment on the part of the upper class to act on behalf of those who are less fortunate. With time, however, as he became more convinced of the principles of democracy and imbued with its spirit, he would maintain that it was not enough to support social action for the worker, but it further required action with and by the worker.(41) He took up the slogan “Go to the People,” not only to do some good for them and establish Christ’s reign in their hearts, but because he saw that it was from the people that the reign of Christ could and should come about in societies through regulations and organizations patterned on the social order of Christian charity and justice.(42) By making them aware of Christ’s love for them and of their own personal dignity, he would empower them to act on their own behalf and create a social order where everyone could more easily find the means to live according to the basic standards of human decency. As much as he encouraged priests to become involved in social issues, he also recognized that the laity have roles to play which are not only useful but are even “indispensable” in bringing about the reign of Christ in society.(43)
Conclusion
It is common nowadays to talk about the “Two Feet” of social ministry: one, the work of direct service; the other, work for social change. Looking back over the life of Father Dehon it is easy to see that his ministry at Saint Quentin was largely devoted to direct service, while his later work as an organizer, editor and writer was concerned with social change. But in between these two steps he deepened his relationship and commitment to Christ. He went to the school of love where he learned the habits of the Heart that burned with unquenchable love for all people and in the process his own heart was inflamed to bring that love to a cold and heartless world. So, in the end, the steps he took with the “Two Feet” of social ministry enabled him to bring “The World of the Heart into the Heart of the World.”
Reflection Questions
On “The World of the Heart in the Heart of the World”
1. Is the description of the Modern World as “the society that values and rewards the achievements of the Head and Hand” still valid today? In support of your response, give examples from your own knowledge or experience.
2. Initially the Sacred Heart Devotion turned away from the Modern World to provide the faithful with a “safe haven” apart from the harshness of the “real world.” Is this a failure on the part of religion, or is this the primary purpose of religion?
3. Father Dehon thought that Christians should exert their influence so that society would accept their values and their vision of the human person. Is this a violation of the separation of church and state? What is the basis for justifying this sort of action?
4. Father Dehon recommended the creation of associations (“societies”) to bring Christian values into Society. Are there such “societies” in your area? In your work do you network with any of these “societies?”
5. It was said that Father Dehon went from social action for people to social action with and by the people. Do you know of instances where this has been done in your own area? Do you see a need, or do you have suggestions for, this sort of work in your area?
NOTES
1. Denzinger-Schönmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum, n. 2980.
2. Documents of the Second Vatican Council, “Gaudium et Spes,” n. 1.
3. Cf., Yves Ledure, “Father Dehon in Rome at Saint Quentin,” Dehoniana 64 (1986): 61.
4. Leo Dehon, Notes sur L’Histoire de ma Vie. Rome: Centro Generale Studi, 1983, IX, 89. [Hereafter, NHV]
5. NHV, IX, 94.
6. NHV, IX, 90-92.
7. NHV, IX, 96.
8. NHV, IX, 128.
9. NHV, IX, 134.
10. NHV, IX, 81.
11. NHV, XII, 116.
12. NHV, XII, 163-164.
13. Cahiers Falleur. Studia Dehoniana v. 10. (ed., G. Manzoni). Rome: Centro Generale Studi, I, 74.
14. Constitutions (1885), Studia Dehoniana, v. 2. Rome: Centro Generale Studi, n. 21. [Hereafter, Cst. (1885)]
15. Peter Berger, A Far Glory. New York: Doubleday. Anchor Books, 1992, p. 26.
16. Franz Jozef van Beeck, Christ Proclaimed. New York: Paulist Press, 1979, pp. 523-547.
17. Van Beeck, p. 544.
18. Leo Dehon, Oeuvres Spirituelles v. IV. Andria: Edizione Cedas, p. 319, 325. [Hereafter, OSp]
19. OSp, III, 54.
20. Annice Callahan, “Heart of Christ,” The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality, (ed., Michael Downey). Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1993, p. 470.
21. Cst. (1885), n. 7.
22. Cst. (1885), n. 5.
23. NHV, XV, 82.
24. NHV, XV, 83.
25. “Notes sur le fondements divines de l’oeuvre,” Dehon Archives, Rome: B 36/4.
26. Leo Dehon, Social Works, v. II. (English), p. 373. [Hereafter, SW]
27. SW, II, 442. (English)
28. SW, II, 423. (English)
29. SW, II, 63. (English)
30. SW, II, 431. (English)
31. Albert Bourgeois, Le Père Dehon et “Le Règne du Coeur de Jésus” Studia Dehoniana, v. 25/2. Rome: Centre Général d’Études, 1990, p. 127. [Hereafter, Règne 25/1 or 25/2]
32. Leo Dehon, Oeuvres Sociales, v. III. Andria: Edizioni Dehoniane, 1976, p. 33. [Hereafter, OS]
33. Règne 25/2, 116.
34. OS, III, 199-200.
35. SW, II, 425. (English)
36. Règne, 25/2, 285.
37. Règne, 25/1, 186.
38. SW, II, 373. (English)
39. SW, II, 111-126. (English)
40. SW, II, 423. (English); Règne, 25/1, 187.
41. Règne, 25/2, 283.
42. Règne, 25/1, 184.
43. SW, II, 150. (English)