1. Defending, thus, the right of property, the Church would abandon the struggle against misery and hunger.

This objection furnishes us with an occasion to consider the catastrophic effects caused, from the point of view of temporal welfare, in a Communist State by the silence of the Church about the matter of property.

Having previously analyzed the principal objec­tions that could be made to such silence from the point of view of the teaching mission of the Church, and from the point of view of her sanctifying mis­sion, let us now consider a secondary, but interest­ing, effect of the same silence: it would be for the Church to become an accomplice to the progressive dissemination of misery in a world situation marked by the progress of collectivization.

Every man tries by an instinctive movement which is continuous, powerful, and fecund to pro­vide first of all for his personal necessities. When it's a matter of one's own preservation, the human intelligence struggles more sharply against its limi­tations and grows in sharpness and agility. The will conquers sloth more easily, and faces obstacles and struggles with greater vigor.

This instinct, when held within proper bounds, should not be thwarted but, on the contrary, sup­ported and taken advantage of as a precious factor of enrichment and progress. It should by no means be pejoratively classified as egoism. It is the love for one's self which, according to the natural order of things, ought to be below the love for the Creator and above the love for one's neighbor.

If these truths were denied, the principle of subsidiarity, presented by the Encyclical "Mater et Magistra" as a fundamental element of Catho­lic social doctrine, would be destroyed (cf. AAS, Vol. LIII pp. 414‑415).

Indeed, it is by virtue of this hierarchy in char­ity that every man should provide for himself to the extent possible from his personal resources, only receiving the help of superior groups ‑ family, corporation, State ‑ to the extent that it is impos­sible for him to act for himself. And it is by virtue of the same principles that the family and corpora­tion (collective entities of whom also it must be said that "onme ens appetit suum esse") look out, first of all, directly for themselves, reporting to the State only when it is indispensable. And the same thing holds in connectionwith the relations between the State and international society.

In conclusion, everything in each man's nature, either by the dictates of his reason or by his own instinct, calls for him to appropriate goods to assure his subsistence and to make it full, decorous, and tranquil. And the desire to have possessions, and to multiply them, is a great stimulus for work, and therefore an essential factor of abundance in pro­duction.

As we see, the institution of private property, which is the necessary corollary of this desire, can­not be considered to be merely the basis of person­al privileges. It is an indispensable and most effica­cious condition for the prosperity of the whole social body.

Socialism and Communism affirim that the indi­vidual exists primarily for society and that he must produce directly, not for his own welfare, but for the welfare of the whole social body.

With this, the best encouragement for work ceases, production necessarily falls, and indolence and misery become generalized throughout society. And the only means ‑ obviously insufficient ‑ that the Public Power can use to stimulate production is the whip . . .

We do not deny that in a regime of private prop­erty it can happen ‑ and frequently has happened ‑that the goods produced in abundance circulate defectively in the various parts of the social body, accumulating here, and growing scarce there. This fact leads us to do everything in favor of a propor­tional diffusion of riches in the various social classes. But it is not a reason for us to renounce private property, and the riches which spring from it, to re­sign ourselves to socialist pauperism.