II. No False Spirituality

If We mention this subject it is not that We believe that you personally need to be put on your guard. We can have, thank God, full confidence in you on that score.

But under the pretense of saving the Church from the risk of being led astray in the "temporal" sphere, a slogan launched some ten years ago, continues to gam acceptance: return to the purely "spiritual." And by that is understood that the Church should confine her activities to a purely dogmatic teaching, to the offering of the Holy Sacrifice, the administration of the sacraments, and that all incursion into, or even the right of examination in the domain of public life, all intervention in the civil or social order, should be denied her. As if dogma did not have a bearing upon every aspect of human life, as if the mysteries of the faith with their supernatural wealth, were not to maintain and invigorate the lives of individuals and, as a logical consequence, to harmonize public life with the law of God, to impregnate it with the spirit of Christ! Such vivisection is nothing short of being anti-Catholic.

The slogan should be the very opposite: be present everywhere for the faith, for Christ, in every way and to the utmost possible limit, wherever vital interests are at stake, wherever laws bearing on the worship of God, marriage, the family, the school, the social order are proposed and discussed. Be there, on guard and in action, whenever through education the soul of a people is being forged. Unfortunately, too often in such crises Catholic organizations are conspicuous only by their absence. Consequently, there is a heavy responsibility on everyone, man or woman, who has the right to vote, especially when the interests of religion are at stake; abstention in this case is in itself, it should be thoroughly understood, a grave and a fatal sin of omission. On the contrary, to exercise, and exercise well, one's right to vote is to work effectively for the true good of the people, as loyal defenders of the cause of God and of the Church.