The Popes and Democracy - Part III. On the Effects of Modern Ideas 34. Parliament, Suffrage and Power

In another allocution, the Pope mentioned: " ... the objectivity, impartiality, loyalty, generosity and integrity (of those in power), without which a democratic government would find it hard to command the respect, and the support, of the better section of the people." (Pius XII - December 1944) Since any-one can be a candidate, and since the unscrupulous are always at an advantage, a Parliament can hardly be made up of men possessing the qualities named by Pius XII. This reason, in fact, was given in "Urbi Arcano Dei", and again in "Quadragesimo Anno". Further, governing a nation is a difficult art and a responsible one. Whereas a medical practitioner has to spend many years of arduous study, followed by a period of practical work in a hospital, a politician who is responsible, not only to a few hundred patients, but to a whole nation, is not required to produce any qualifications at all! It is realities like these that make parliamentary democracy a huge and sinister farce. Human beings are persons; for power to be humane, therefore, it must be personal. True, personal power can also be inhuman, for man is a fallen creature and he easily becomes sub-human without the grace of God. Yet, power can not be humane without being personal, as a pear can not be such if it does not come from a pear-tree. But in democracy, far more than in an hierarchical society, an elaborate legislation is necessary. This is so because a body of men cannot issue decisions all at once, and their considered judgment (or what they believe to be their considered judgment), must be embodied in advance in a code of laws to cover all the possible cases which they are able to visualise. Such laws cannot easily be waived, and their enforcement is entrusted to a bureaucracy. In specific cases, therefore, the Bureaucracy simply, blindly and unfeelingly, applies the letter of the law. That is why impersonal power cannot but be inhuman. Quite a different matter is it when regulations are made by Ministers or their officers: at any time they can feel free to waive them to fit a specific case. Democracy is inseparable from the mass concept (or community concept). Persons matter less than the community. This most grievous error is further aggravated in a Socialist society. From being unfeeling, the ruling Bureaucracy grows to be brutal. Democracy, Socialism (or Fascism) and Communism, are but milestones along the same road. Being impersonal, a Democracy has no memory, no imagination, no will, no courage, no vitality, and no responsibility; for these are human attributes, that is, personal attributes. This explains why a democratic government makes the same mistakes over and over again, (it cannot learn from history, having no memory). Such a government is incapable of devising imaginative, forwardlooking policies. It has not the will to impose necessary measures. It has not the courage to face up to unpleasant realities; it conceals what might cause alarm. It avoids responsibility like the plague; it cannot take swift, clear-cut and positive decisions. Its decisions are those of a Commission or a Committee, that is, the outcome of a compromise or the will of the majority within the Committee. In the first case (i.e. compromise) the decision has been watered down, and it no longer represents the exact view of anyone in particular; in the second case (majority), the wisdom of the decision is deemed to be quantitative. It is tragic that the western powers should be unable to perceive the real cause of their weakness and decay before we are actually engulfed in the most terrible disaster of all history