TWO: CHARACTERISTICS OF MEN HOLDING POWER IN A DEMOCRATIC STATE

35. The democratic state, whether it be monarchical or republican, should, like any other form of government, be entrusted with the power to command with real and effective authority.

36. The absolute order itself of beings and purposes, which shows that man is an independent person, namely the subject of inviolable duties and rights, who is the source and end of his own social life, comprises the state also as a necessary society endowed with authority, without which it could neither exist nor live.

37. And if men, using their personal liberty, were to deny all dependence on a superior Authority possessing coercive power, they could by this very fact cut the ground from under their own dignity and liberty -- by violating, that is, the absolute order of beings and purposes.

38. As they are established on this same foundation, the person, the state, the government, with their respective rights. are so bound together that they stand or fall together.

39. And since that absolute order, in the light of right reason, and in particular of the Christian Faith, cannot have any other origin than in a personal God, our Creator, it follows that the dignity of man is the dignity of the moral community willed by God, the dignity of political authority is the dignity deriving from its sharing in the authority of God.

40. No form of state can avoid taking cognizance of this intimate and indissoluble connection -- least of all a democracy. Accordingly, if those in power do not see it, or more or less discount it. their own authority is shaken, as is social morality, and that specious appearance of a purely formal democracy may often serve as a mark for all that is in reality least democratic.

41. Only a clear appreciation of the purposes assigned by God to every human society, joined to a deep sense of the exalted duties of social activity, can put those in power in a position to fulfill their own obligations in the legislative, judicial and executive order with that objectivity, impartiality, loyalty, generosity, and integrity without which a democratic government would find it hard to command the respect and the support of the better section of the people.

42. The deep sense of the principles underlying a political and social order that is sound and conforms to the norms of right and justice is of special importance in those who in any kind of democratic regime have, as the people's delegates, in whole or part, the power to legislate.

43. And since the center of gravity of a democracy normally set up resides in this popular assembly from which political currents radiate into every field of public life -- for good or ill -- the question of the high moral standards, practical ability and intellectual capacity of parliamentary deputies is for every people living under a democratic regime a question of life and death of prosperity and decadence, of soundness or perpetual unrest.

44. To secure effective action, to win esteem and trust, every legislative body should -- as experience shows beyond doubt -- gather within it a group of select men, spiritually eminent and of strong character, who shall look upon themselves as the representatives of the entire people and not the mandatories of a mob, whose interests are often unfortunately made to prevail over the true needs of the common good -- a select group of men not restricted to any profession or social standing but reflecting every phase of the people's life; men chosen for their solid Christian convictions, straight and steady judgment, with a sense of the practical and equitable, true to themselves in all circumstances; men of clear and sound principles, with sound and clear-cut proposals to make; men above all capable, in virtue of the authority that emanates from their untarnished consciences and radiates widely from them, to be leaders and heads especially in times when the pressing needs of the moment excite the people's impressionability unduly, and render it more liable to be led astray and get lost: men who -- in periods of transition, generally stormy and disturbed by passion, by divergent opinions and opposing programs -- feel themselves doubly under the obligation to send circulating through the veins of the people and of the state, burning with a thousand fevers, the spiritual antidote of clear views, kindly interest, a justice equally sympathetic to all, and a bias towards national unity and concord in a sincere spirit of brotherhood.

45. Peoples whose spiritual and moral temperament is sufficiently sound and fecund, find it themselves and can produce the heralds and implements of democracy, who live in such dispositions and know how effectively to put them into practice.

46. But where such men are lacking, others come to take their places in order to make politics serve their ambition, and be a quick road to profit for themselves, their caste and their class, while the race after private interests makes them lose sight of completely and jeopardize the true common good.