Character of the Secular Order Now Demanded by the Liturgy

THIS EXCERPT is taken from F. Hasting's Smyth: Discerning the Lord's Body; the rationale of a Catholic democracy. Louisille, The Closter Pr.,1946. Smyth was the Superior of an Anglo-Catholic Religious Order for Men at Cambridge, Mass called "The Society of the Catholic Commonwealth. But the most significant work of 'The SCC' were the cells of layfolk or "Members Secular" who met regularly, eating and drinking together "usque ad hilaritatem," following Thomas Aquinas's precept, and working out among themselves the theological and political issues of the moment. These lay-people in the 1940s and 50s were active in Trade Unions, in progressive Education , in anti-War action, in projects assisting the CPC. They were a precursor of the "Base Communities" of the Latin American Liberation Theology movement of the 1970s and ff. There was a very active group in Montreal who lived as a Co-op. Dan Heap when a young Anglican Seminarian and Priest, and his wife, were members of "the coop"
by: Andrew W Taylor
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"...Among the organized economic movements which hold desirable potentialities for Christians are those of organized labor, because labor organizations, whatever their very human corruptions and disunities, can be seen objectively as forces tending towards a greater economic justice within our present capitalist system. They are also potential bu!warks of popular democratic authority within some future radical change of this system in the direction of a socialist reorganization of the economic order.

The progressive economic advantages of the wage-earning class of people lie in the direction of socialist change. The great organized power of this class, when directed to take action for its own material advantage is at the same time taking concurrent steps toward radical reconstitution of society upon this kind of cooperative basis. Therefore, this class moves historically, even when it does not consciously recognize the fact, in a Christian direction. That labor organizations are often motivated by considerations of immediate "self-interest" does not vitiate the objective fact that this same self-interest fortunately corresponds to a step in the direction of socialism. This is why members of Christian Sacramental groups ought to fight on the side of secular labor organizations, and not be put off at this time by their supposed selfishness or by their present corruptions. These latter vices are not peculiar to wage-workers. They are found even more firmly entrenched among the forces of secular reaction. Christians must make their choice of allegiance in this situation. Let it be that of the interests of labor, because in the hands of labor rests the future welfare of the vast majority of mankind. At this present moment the workers may not be sought for in public counsel; not sit in the judges' seat; they may not declare justice and judgment; and they may not be found where men speak indirectly in complicated analogies. Yet without these cannot a city be inhabited, nor can men either dwell or go up and down in their towns. It is the workers who will maintain the fabric of the world. 3

Among the corresponding political movements of our time, Christians should select without fear the secular political groupings of the left. For, as the late Archbishop of Canterbury has pointed out, the extreme left of the Communists has social objectives which are basically Christian in their constitution. 4 They are those of a vastly greater economic justice than we now possess in the capitalist democracies of the west. Potentially they allow for a more deeply penetrating and equably distributed democratic control.