Official Charity [pp. 407-413]

Official Charity.
out, rejecting this and choosing that.
The first that is ready, if it happens
to be good, good; if not, so much
the worse. They have already
knocked one government on the
head; why should they stop at a
second, or a third, or any number?
And so step in cruelty and oppression on the one side, lawlessness in
every form on the other. It is better
to cure than to kill; better to reform
than to overthrow; and if we must
overthrow, let us do it like men and
not like fiends. If the joint is rotten
ere you displace it, see that you can
replace it. The monarch is the keystone of the constitution in lands
where monarchy prevails. Remove
that, and the whole fabric is shattered.
You must build anew. You may build
better; at all events, time is lost; most
likely you will build worse; strengthen, reform the old-beware how you
destroy it.
OFFI C IAL CHARITY.
FROM REVUE DU lIONDE CATHOLIQUE.
IN these times, all is laical-that is
to say, in accordance with modern
language, everything is bound to
bear the stamp of the state. No contract is possible without the intervention of the state; no marriage exists
without the ratification of the state;
no school can be opened without the
sanction of the state. In short, the
state puts its iron clasp on all that
man possesses, even his personal liberty and right. Henceforth, then, in
the name of those immortal principles which consecrated the absolute
and illimitable liberty of the human
family, are abolished the most sacred
rights of man-liberty in the bosom
of the family and individual rights.
In the name of liberty, the state confiscates all; it proclaims itself, without
ceremony, the original author of all
its laws. It is the god-state.
It is astonishing that, following a
parallel exaggeration, the state has
come to proclaim itself alone capable
of exercising charity, as it is alone
capable of teaching it! Logic ought
to forcibly bring about this result.
The state which adjudicates to itself
the monopoly of direction, can it not
also adjudge to itself the monopoly
of the charity?
Yes, charity has become a monopoly of the state. What is it, then,
other than official charity? Give
alms if so be, but do not forget to
pass them through the hands of the
state. It is it alone that can distribute your generous gifts. Found
hospitals if you will, but on the express condition that you are to abandon them to the hands of the state,
who will administer them as masters.
Such is in substance the idea of official charity, centralizing in the hands
of the state, and administering
through its functionaries, the benefits
and alms given in a spirit of self-sacrific~.
Very well! The church has
never exercised a similar tyranny.
She has crushed the heathenish proposition of the Syllabus, "39. The
state, from being the source of all
good, enjoys a right which is not circumscribed by any limits," and,
always free from the errors which!
she points out, the church has never
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