Quote of the Day (Pius XI, on 'The Grave Financial Crisis' of His Time—And Ours)

“A new scourge threatens—indeed, it has already in large measure smitten—the flock entrusted to Us. It strikes most heavily at those who are the most tender and are Our most dearly beloved; upon the children, the proletariat, the artisans and the ‘have-nots.’ We are speaking of the grave financial crisis which weighs down the peoples and is accelerating in every land the frightful increase of Unemployment. We behold multitudes of honest workers condemned to idleness and want, when all they desire is opportunity to earn for themselves and their families that daily bread which the divine command bids them ask of their Father Who is in heaven. Their cry is in Our ears; and it moves Us to repeat, with the same tenderness and pity, those words which broke from the most loving Heart of the Divine Master when He beheld the crowd fainting with hunger: ‘I have compassion on the multitude’ (Mark viii, 2).”—Pope Pius XI, Nova Impendet ("On the Economic Crisis"), October 2, 1931

Last Sunday marked the 80th anniversary of Pope Pius XI’s encyclical on the Great Depression descending on both sides of the Atlantic. He had already commented earlier in the year, at greater length and with greater specificity, on the responsibility of government and the faithful to lift the downtrodden in Quadragesimo Anno (“On Reconstruction of the Social Order”), an encyclical marking the 40th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s landmark in Catholic social thought, Rerum Novarum.

But, with events taking on a life of their own, Pius felt obliged to reiterate his themes. Events—notably, the rise of Fascism and the world war that followed--would bear out just how correct he was to feel concern.

A year or so ago, a colleague of mine wondered about how quiescent Americans seemed about the Great Recession: “In Europe, they’d be in the streets by now.” It took awhile, but now, with the rise of the Occupy Wall Street movement, that day may be here.

Nobody should be under any illusions about just how dangerous the current moment is. The Depression made masses vulnerable to simple—and wrong—explanations for “the frightful increase of Unemployment” that alarmed the pontiff. A failure to investigate responsibility for the multinational collapse of the economy this time—not to mention a rebuilding of the regulatory framework frayed here in the United States—is an absolute necessity.

Above all, blind adherence to laissez-faire capitalism, as Pius—the son of a silk manufacturer—understood deeply, is no way to show “tenderness and pity” for the least among us.