The Counter-Revolution and temporal society is a theme that has been treated in depth from various standpoints in many valuable studies. This study, since it cannot encompass the entire subject, restricts itself to giving the more general principles of a counter-revolutionary temporal order54 and to analyzing the relations between the Counter-Revolution and some of the major organizations that fight to better the temporal order.

1. The Counter-Revolution And Social Organizations
Within temporal society, there are numerous organizations dedicated to dealing with the social question and having in view, either directly or indirectly, the same supreme end as the Counter-Revolution: the establishment of the Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Given this community of ends,⁵⁶ it is necessary to study the relations between the Counter-Revolution and these organizations.

A. Works of Charity, Social Service, Associations of Employers, Workers, and So Forth

a. To the degree that these works normalize social and economic life, they are prejudicial to the development of the revolutionary process. In this sense, they are ipso facto precious auxiliaries of the Counter-Revolution, even if only in an implicit and indirect way.

b. Nevertheless, in this respect, it is worthwhile to call to mind some truths that are unfortunately often obscured among those who devote themselves selflessly to these works.

· There is no doubt that such works can alleviate and, in some cases, eliminate the material necessities that are the cause of so much unrest among the masses. But the spirit of the Revolution does not arise primarily from misery. Its root is moral and therefore religious.⁵⁷ Accordingly, to the extent their particular nature allows, these works must promote a religious and moral formation that gives special emphasis to warning souls of the revolutionary virus, which is so powerful in our days.

· Holy Mother Church compassionately encourages everything that might relieve human miseries. She does not blind herself to the fact that she cannot eliminate all of them, and she preaches a holy resignation to sickness, poverty, and other privations.

· Undoubtedly in these works there are precious opportunities for creating a climate of understanding and charity between employers and workers and, consequently, for demobilizing those who are on the brink of class struggle. But it would be incorrect to suppose that kindness always disarms human wickedness. Not even the innumerable benefits conferred by Our Lord during His earthly life deterred the hatred the wicked had for Him. Thus, although in the fight against the Revolution one should preferably guide and enlighten souls in an affable manner, it is evident that, against its various forms - Communism, for example - a direct and express combat by all just and legal means is licit and generally even indispensable.

· It is particularly to be observed that these works should inculcate in their beneficiaries or associates a true sense of gratitude for the favors received, or, when it is not a question of favors but of acts of justice, a real appreciation for the moral uprightness that inspires such acts.

· In the preceding paragraphs, we had principally the worker in mind. It should be pointed out, however, that the counter-revolutionary does not systematically favor one social class or another. While highly zealous for the right of property, he should nevertheless remind the higher classes that it is not enough for them to fight the Revolution in the fields in which it attacks their personal interests, and, paradoxically, to favor it - as one so often sees - by word or example in every other terrain, such as in family life, at the beaches, swimming pools, and other diversions, in intellectual and artistic pursuits, and so on. A working class that follows their example and accepts their revolutionary ideas will inevitably be used by the Revolution against the "semi-counterrevolutionary" elites.

· An aristocracy and a bourgeoisie that vulgarize their manners and dress in order to disarm the Revolution harm themselves. A social authority that degrades itself is comparable to the salt that has lost its savor. It is good for nothing save to be cast out and trodden on by men.⁵⁸ In most cases, the scorning multitudes will do just that.

· Although maintaining their station in life with dignity and energy, the upper classes should have direct and benevolent contact with the other classes. Charity and justice practiced at a distance are inadequate to establish links of truly Christian love among the social classes.

· Above all, those who own property should remember that if there are many people willing to prevent communism from encroaching on the right to private property (regarded, of course, as an individual right with a function that is also social), it is because this is desired by God and intrinsically according to Natural Law. Now, this principle refers to the property of the worker as much as to that of the employer. Consequently, the same principle behind the anticommunist struggle should lead the employer to respect the right of the worker to a just wage, in keeping with his own needs and those of his family. It is worth recalling this in order to emphasize that the Counter-Revolution is not only the guardian of the property of the employer but of that of the worker too. Its struggle is not on behalf of groups or classes, but for principles.

B. The Struggle Against Communism
We will now consider organizations whose main purpose is not the construction of a proper social order but rather the struggle against communism. For reasons already expounded in this work, we deem this kind of organization to be legitimate and often even indispensable. Of course, in saying this, we are not identifying the Counter-Revolution with abuses that organizations of this kind may have committed in one country or another.

Nevertheless, we believe that the counter-revolutionary efficacy of such organizations can be greatly increased if their members, while remaining within the sphere of their specialized activities, keep certain essential truths in mind:

· Only an intelligent refutation of communism is efficacious. The mere repetition of catch phrases, even when clever and apt, is insufficient.

· This refutation, when made in cultured circles, must be aimed at the ultimate doctrinal foundations of communism. It is important to point out its essential character as a philosophical sect that deduces from its principles a particular concept of man, society, the State, history, culture, and so on, just as the Church deduces from Revelation and Moral Law al the principles of Catholic civilization and culture. Accordingly, no conciliation is possible between communism - a sect that contains the plenitude of the Revolution - and the Church.

· So-called scientific communism is unknown by the multitudes, and the doctrine of Marx does not attract the masses. An ideological anticommunist action among the general public must be aimed at a very widespread state of spirit that often makes anticommunists ashamed to oppose communism. This state of spirit springs from the more or less conscious idea that all inequality is unjust and that not only great fortunes but even medium-sized ones must be eliminated, for if there were no rich there would be no poor. This reveals vestiges of certain socialist schools of thought of the nineteenth century, perfumed with romantic sentimentalism. It gives rise to a mentality that claims to be anticommunist but, nevertheless, frequently calls itself socialist.

This mentality, which is becoming more and more powerful in the West, is a much greater danger than Marxist indoctrination itself. It leads us slowly down a slope of concessions that may reach the extreme point where nations on this side of the Iron Curtain will have become communist republics. Such concessions, which show a tendency to economic egalitarianism and state control, can be noted in every sphere. Private enterprise is more and more limited. Inheritance taxes are so onerous that in certain cases the federal treasury is the principal heir. Government interference in such things as exchange, export, and import makes industry, commerce, and banking dependent on the State. The State intervenes in wages, rents, prices, in everything. It has industries, banks, universities, newspapers, radio stations, television channels, and more. And while egalitarian statism transforms the economy in this way, immorality and liberalism are tearing the family apart and paving the way for so-called free love.

Unless this mentality is specifically fought, the West will be communist in fifty or one hundred years, even should a cataclysm engulf Russia and China.

· The right of property is so sacred that, even if a regime were to give the Church full liberty and even full support, she could not accept as licit a social organization in which all property were held collectively.

2. Christendom And The Universal Republic
While opposing a universal republic, the Counter-Revolution is also adverse to the unstable and inorganic situation created by the sundering of Christendom and the secularization of international life in modern times.

The full sovereignty of each nation does not prevent the peoples that live within the fold of the Church, gathered as one huge spiritual family, from constituting bodies profoundly imbued with the Christian spirit, and possibly presided over by representatives of the Holy See, to resolve their differences at the international level. Such bodies could also favor the cooperation of the Catholic peoples for the common good in all its aspects, especially with regard to the defense of the Church against the infidels and the protection of the freedom of missionaries in pagan lands or those dominated by communism. Finally, such bodies could enter into contact with non-Catholic peoples for the maintenance of good order in international relations.

Without denying the important services that lay bodies may have rendered on various occasions, the Counter-Revolution should always call attention to the terrible shortcoming that lies in their secularism and alert persons to the risk of these bodies becoming a germ of a universal republic.⁵⁹

3. The Counter-Revolution And Nationalism
In this connection, the Counter-Revolution must favor the maintenance of all sound local characteristics, in whatever field, in culture, customs, and so on.

But its nationalism does not consist of the systematic disparagement of what belongs to others nor the adoration of national values as if they were extraneous to the great treasury of Christian civilization.
The grandeur the Counter-Revolution desires for all countries is and can be only one: Christian grandeur, which entails the preservation of the values peculiar to each and a fraternal relationship among them all.

4. The Counter-Revolution And Militarism
The counter-revolutionary must lament armed peace, hate unjust war, and deplore the arms race of our days.

However, since he is under no illusion that peace will always reign, he considers the military class a necessity in this land of exile, and requests that it be shown all the sympathy, gratitude, and admiration rightfully owed to those whose mission it is to fight and die for the common good.⁶⁰

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Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira