CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY
The concept of true democracy was enunciated by saints, like the
great reformer St. Robert Bellarmine, a Jesuit. But today it is done by
sinners. And so, most often, the beautiful principles of democracy conflict
with its practice.
In true democracy, we have the dream of the first Roman republic
of creating a nation of kings. In our democracy, the poor becomes poorer
and many kings become common men.
Genuine democracy is opposed to the rule of the mob, or people's
power, says G.K. Chesterton. For true democracy is based fundamentally on
the existence of the citizen, and the best definition of the mob is a body
of a thousand men in which there is no citizen.
Our democracy, commonly called political democracy is defined as the
desperate and hopeless attempt to get at the opinion of the best people,
i.e., people who do not trust their own opinions. It always ends up in
getting the opinions of the worst people, i.e., those who trust they have
the best opinions.
Political democracy means getting people who have no eye to
govern, to vote. Yet it is those who have no eye to govern who will best
govern, according to Christian Ethics.
One never starts a revolution to establish a true democracy; it is
because there is true democracy that one is able to start a revolution.
Our present democracy
has only one defect, it is not democratic.
G. K. Chesterton
(updated 08-23-02)
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