THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL-REFORM MOVEMENT 4 1
and all the persons of every degree connected in any way with the same business establishment constitute an economic house- hold. In a normal state of society, all the members of the same economic family are bound together in intimate relations of fraternity and mutual cooperation for the good of their craft and their own spiritual, moral, intellectual, social, aesthetic, and material welfare. The constitution of the economic household is similar to that of the domestic household, and the employer is bound in conscience to consider the interests of all his employes, almost as much as of his own children, while he is entitled in his turn to their filial obedience and respect.
Just as many domestic households may be united in an economic household, so may many economic households be united in a political household or local community. The local community, like other sociological organisms, has natural rights of its own, and may, to an indefinite extent, acquire other rights which can- not be justly infringed upon by any higher political division, even the general government itself, though they may lapse in cases of the greatest emergency, where vital interests of the whole nation are at stake, and there may also be cases in which they are justly forfeited, at least for a time, by official crime.
A mistaken notion is widely prevalent that the Catholic church has a highly centralized organization, and is in favor of centralization. Nothing could be farther from the truth. On the contrary, while in theory the sovereign pontiff has an unlim- ited authority over the whole church — otherwise the a ostolic see would not have secure appellate jurisdiction — yet the church of each nation, each ecclesiastical province, and each diocese is supposed to be governed by laws of its own making, and in practice each diocese is almost autonomous, within the broad limits of faith and morals. At any rate, the Catholic party, always and everywhere, is in favor of decentralization and local self-government; while both liberalism and socialism, in their typical and predominant forms, represent the principle of state despotism, hold that the central government is the source of all rights, and, as a rule, concede only grudgingly and under
