Roots of the Catholic Worker Movement: Saints and Philosophers who Influenced Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin

Pure Means--Ethical Choices

by Jacques Maritain (A free translation by Peter Maurin from a chapter in the untranslated volume of Maritain--The Temporal Regime and Liberty. (Later published in English as Freedom in the Modern World.)

1. GOING TO THE ROOTS
In trying to bring
the spirit of the Gospel,
the spirit of integral humanism
into the cultural
and temporal order,
people fail to realize
the absolute necessity
of going to the roots.
2. THE TWO ORDERS
1. It is not a question
of changing the system;
it is a question
of changing the man
who makes the system.
2. It is not the temporal
that creates the spiritual
it is the spiritual
that creates temporal
environment.
3. TRUE RADICALISM
1. There is no social revolution
without a spiritual revolution.
2. The trouble with radicals
is not that they are too radical
but not radical enough.
3. External radicalism
is not radical enough
because it is external.
4. Inner radicalism
is true radicalism.
4. A RADICAL CHANGE
1. That there must be a change
and a radical change
is realized today
not only by radicals,
but by most conservatives.
2. And the change will come
not from the masses
but from a few individuals
that will make up their minds
to give up old habits
and start to contract new habits.
5. NO COMPLETE FAILURE
1. This radical change
will not be a perfect change.
2. While it will not be a perfect change,
it will be a change
in the right direction.
3. While it may fail
it will not be
a complete failure,
but it will be precedent
for future generations.
6. ENGAGED AND DETACHED
1. A radical change
requires human personalities,
devoted to the cause,
thinking about the cause,
not the success of the cause.
2. It requires detached personalities,
not indifferent personalities,
generous personalities,
not self-seeking personalities,
engaged and detached,
not engaged and attached.
7. BETRAYING CHRISTIANITY
1. To be detached
from visible success
makes a life of action
a crucified life.
2. But to be engaged
in Christian reconstruction
and not to do it
in a Christian manner
would misrepresent it
for the sake
of making it prevail.
3. To so misrepresent it
would be
the most treacherous way
to betray Christianity.
8. PURE MEANS
1. People trying to bring about a Christian reconstruction
of the social order,
must be made aware
of the great temptation
to use unchristian means.
3. As Emile Zola says:
"The pure means
are the strongest means."
9. WORK OF THE FEW
1. It is not true to say
that all men must be changed
before the social system
can be changed.
2. Revolutions are the work
of a group of men
generally few
Who throw all their energies
in the work of revolution
10. RIGOROUS DISCIPLINE
1. Russian Bolshevists
saw it clearly.
2. They made of their Party
a kind of brotherhood
imposing on their members
a rigorous discipline.
3. They tried in their way
to renew the basis
of the moral life
of the people.
11. APPEALING APPEAL
1. What impresses us most
in the Russian Revolution
is not the appeal
to pride and violence.
2. It is the appeal
to poverty and suffering
willingly accepted
for the sake of an ideal.
12. FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY
1. The general tendency
of dialectic materialism
is to conceive matter
as the source from which
flow such qualities
as freedom and spontaneity.
2. Freedom and spontaneity
we recognized
as necessary concepts
in the building up
of the revolutionary spirit.
13. AN HEROIC IDEAL
1. The weakness of such a
conception
is to destroy
in the souls of men
the notion of truth.
2. While they try to present it
as a scientific conception
it is an admission
that no social transformation
can be brought about
without the fostering
of an heroic ideal.
14. CHRISTIAN HEROISMS
1. But the greatest heroism
is the heroism of love.
2. The heroism of the cross
must be expressed
in the social field
besides the heroism
of Bolshevism and Fascism.
3. But Christian heroism
must remain Christian
heroism
even when expressed
in the social field.
15. FROM THE HEART OF
GOD
1. Christian heroism
must be exercised
not only in private life
but also in social life.
2. Christian heroism
comes from the heart
of a God made man,
scorned by men,
crucified by men.
16. TRANSFORMING
SOCIETY
1. As during the Middle Age
Christians must again
transform society.
2. But the strength and
greatness
of this transformation
must spring from elsewhere.
3. Great social undertakings
must not be the monopoly
of Fascists and Bolshevists.
17. PROTECTING SOULS
1. The protection of souls
is the work of the Church.
2. To assure this protection
the Church is sometimes
obliged to deal
with temporal powers
which are far from being
as they should be.
3. Blind is the one
who blames the Church
for doing so.
4. Christ was not asked
to change water into wine
or multiply the loaves
when nailed to the Cross.
18. BELIEVING BEFORE
SEEING
1. Greater things than miracles
are happening
on this occasion.
2. Resurrection will come
but after three days.
3. Asking for miracles
on those occasions
is to reverse
the order of things.
4. One cannot see before
believing
but one must believe
before one can see.
19. CHRISTIAN TRANSFORMATION
1. Will a Christian
transformation
of the social order
come to realization
in this century?
2. A Christian transformation
cannot come about
in the same way
that other transformations
come about.
3. A Christian transformation
will be the product
of Christian heroism.

Houston Catholic Worker, Vol. XV, No. 7, November 1995; reprinted from The Catholic Worker, January, 1935