FOUNDED UPON ROCK: PART 10 REVOLUTION, STABILITY AND THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH:
THE LONG NINETHEENTH CENTURY
The French Revolution and the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte destroyed the ancien regime in France and, at least for the time, dealt a severe blow to the Catholic Church. But the Church weathered the storm and emerged in many ways freer for missionary work than before.
The economic and political situation in France deteriorated over the course of the eighteenth century, setting the stage for the French Revolution.
The finances of the French government grew steadily worse during the course of the eighteenth century due to the many wars it was involved in, the increasing expense of the royal court, and the very inefficient taxing system.
There was also an increasing frustration with corruption, crime and the continuity of vast poverty in the midst of a century that was seeing a vast increase in wealth from trade.
Louis XV, a great-grandson of Louis XIV, ruled from 1715 (when he was five) until 1774. At first, his success in the War of Austrian Succession made him popular. However, the losses in the Seven Years War diminished his prestige. And he was unable to carry out reform of the country that he knew were needed.
Paradoxically, the French victory in the American Revolution undermined the French government, both by diminishing its financial resources even further and by giving an example of a successful Revolution.
Louis XVI, who took over after his grandfather’s death, was a very pious Catholic and married to Marie Antoinette, who was the daughter of the Empress Maria Theresa of the Holy Roman Empire and also a devout Catholic. However, he was often weak in personality; and there were many people who disliked Maria Antoinette’s German background.
In 1789, Louis XVI convoked the Estates General, which had not been summoned since 1619, to help stabilize the country’s finances. The Estates General consisted of the First Estates of clergy (mostly priests, with some bishops), the Second Estate of the nobility and the Third Estate of the commoners. The priests of the First Estate joined the forces of the Third Estate to create the National Assembly, for they sensed the need to reform against the nobility and even to some degree the bishops, many of whom were also nobles. Louis XVI,
seeing the Assembly going in the direction of absolute control for themselves, tried to suppress it, but an insurrection broke out.
The king’s army fell apart and the revolutionaries took over. The storming of the Bastille prison made clear the inability of the French government to stop the revolutionary forces of the National Assembly, which took over governance of the country.
Although the initial proposals of the National Assembly at first recognized the centrality of Catholicism, most of its representatives soon turned against the Church, seizing Church property and taking over the parishes. In 1790, the Assembly demanded that all clergy sign the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, pledging final loyalty to them..
Pope Pius VI (1775 – 98) tried to keep control of the situation and, after waiting for several months, forbade clergy from signing the Civil Constitution, and ordered the suspension of those who did so from ministry. The clergy in France were divided, with most resisting the government (and often leaving the country) and some being loyal to the government. In rural areas, those faithful to the Church sometimes held out. The Vendee in western France were particularly heroic in this endeavor, but the revolutionary government had the greater military power. By 1792, the government suppressed all religious orders and took their property.
Starting in September, 1792, mass violence began to take place. King Louis was executed in January 1793, followed shortly by Maria Antoinette. The violence increased and became the Reign of Terror spread from September, 1793 to July, 1794, when its leader Maximilien Robespierre was assassinated. During this time, many priests and faithful Catholics fled the nation, with some coming to the United States and strengthening the Catholic Church here.
One group of Carmelite nuns, whose convent was seized in 1790, split into four groups who lived in hiding for four years. In June, 1794, they were discovered and brought to a Revolutionary Tribunal, who convicted them and sent them to the guillotine on July 17. They sang triumphantly on the way to the guillotine, while the crown was uncharacteristically silent and sober.
On July 26 and 27, Joseph Fouche, a former member of the ruling councils, whom Robespierre had turned against, organized the opposition to the tyrant and rallied the forces to arrest and execute him.
The chaos of the French Revolution paved the way for Napoleon Bonaparte to become Emperor of France. This period was very difficult for the Church, but would in the long run lead to improvements in the situation after his overthrow.
After Robespierre’s assassination, the General Directory took over. It was ineffective in reforming the situation. However, the French victories over the Holy Roman Empire, especially in the Netherlands and northern Italy, kept up its popularity for a time. Napoleon Bonaparte, a young artillery general, was central to France’s military successes.
Napoleon returned to Paris and arranged to take over the government as First Consul by November, 1799.
As a general, Napoleon had invaded Rome and arrested Pius VI in 1798. He was going to bring the Pope to Paris at that time, but Pius VI died in the meantime. After 18 months, the cardinals who could get together held a conclave in Venice under Austrian protection elected a Benedictine monk Barnabas Chiaramonti as the next Pope after an 18 month vacancy. He would take the name Pius VII.
After the election of Pius VII, Napoleon seemed at first to be more favorable to the Church, in part to pacify the rural areas. He allowed the Catholic priests back in and in fact signed a Concordat with Pius VII in 1801. The Concordat allowed the French government and citizens to keep most of the Church property they had seized, but also promised more financing for the Church. The French government would be able to nominate bishops, but the final choice was the Pope’s.
However, Napoleon added his own “Organic Articles,” which the Pope never agreed to, that gave him greater control.
Disputes over the interpretation of the Concordat led to severe conflicts. In 1809, Napoleon’s armies invaded Rome and arrested Pope Pius VII, putting him in a Benedictine cell. Pope Pius retaliated by refusing to appoint any more French bishops. The acerbic situation continued until just before Napoleon’s overthrow in 1814.
Meanwhile, Napoleon, both before and after becoming First Consul and then Emperor, won victories in Europe, gaining most of the homeland. He forced Spain into an alliance and then turned east, taking over the Holy Roman Empire and Prussia. Even after Napoleon’s defeat, the Holy Roman Empire would not be restored.
However, due to the British navy and especially its spectacular victory at Trafalgur in 1805, Napoleon could not invade the island nation. And then in 1812
he made the disastrous decision to invade Russia. His Grand Army was wiped out during the next winter. Britain, Russia, and patriots from Prussia and Austria then combined to defeat and overthrow him in 1814. He launched a brief attempt to come back, but he was decisively defeated at Waterloo in 1815.
In the aftermath of the conquests of Napoleon and then his defeat, the victorious nations gathered for the Congress of Vienna, which redrew national boundaries and tried to establish a lasting peace. The results for the Church were largely positive, but with problems developing in Spain.
Just before being defeated in 1814, Napoleon allowed Pope Pius IX to return to Rome; and he did so in a grand celebration. The declining power of the Spanish and French kings enabled Pope Pius VII to reestablish the Jesuit order in 1814.
The brother of Louis XVI was restored to the French throne as Louis XVIII. He tried again to control the Church, but his influence was greatly diminished. The French nobility likewise had much less influence in the Church. The common folk in the rural areas had held out for the true faith, and the French Church started paying more attention to them.
Even the Protestant powers of Europe began to see the Papacy as a positive force, keeping order and stability. The Congress of Vienna, which brokered the peace after the Napoleonic Wars, restored the Papal States as “the oldest and most legitimate monarchy.” Clemens von Metternich, the Catholic Prime Minister of the Austrian Empire, was central in establishing this peace, which would basically last until World War I.
During the wars with Napoleon, the former Holy Roman Empire became the mostly Catholic Austrian Empire. Although it was briefly conquered by Napoleon, it was restored after the wars and was a pro-Catholic force in Europe. And the mostly Catholic nation of Belgium was carved out of former territories of France and the Holy Roman Empire.
In addition, Catholics in Protestant nations received much more freedom.
For example, in 1829, the British Parliament passed the Catholic Emancipation Act. In Ireland the first seminary in centuries opened at Maynooth in 1795. In 1842, the missionary seminary of All Hallows also opened in Ireland, and would send missionaries to the United States, Australia and New Zealand, helping spread the faith in these lands.
In 1853, the Netherlands welcomed back a Catholic episcopacy.
Among the general public as well, Pope Pius VII’s courageous stance, as well as the suffering and martyrdom of many Catholic priests and religious brothers and sisters, gave the papacy and the Church greater prestige.
The political situation in Spain was unstable after the war, with a crisis over succession from 1834 – 1876, when a largely anti-Catholic republic took over. The instability did allow many Latin American nations to achieve independence more easily, and the populace there remained mostly Catholic.
The nineteenth century saw an increase of Catholic piety and missionary activity, partially in reaction to both the chaos in the early century and the industrialization that continued throughout it.
The attacks on the Church led to both an increased desire for spiritual leadership and a respect for the clergy.
People increasingly accepted the fact that the Pope must unify the Church in the face of all of the upheavals, intellectual, economic and political, of the times. Ultramontanism maintained very strongly to need for the Pope to play a central role in the ongoing affairs of the Church in each nation arose in reaction to the disasters that were falling on national churches. There was also an increased notion of the Pope as a father figure and a force of union, rather than more of a political interest.
The very fact that government taxes were not used as much to support the Church led to more of a sense of voluntary offerings and devotion. And the weakening of government control over the Church led to the selection of better bishops.
The bishops and religious orders gained more control over seminaries, which resulted in the training of clergy more loyal to the Church and less attached to the prevailing government. For example, the Austrian Emperor Joseph II’s attempt to control all seminaries in his lands was called off. And in France, before the Revolution, many clergy had little training at all. The provisions of Trent were more in force later.
With education becoming much more central, new religious orders were founded along these lines. For example, based upon the teachings of St. Francis de Sales, St. John Bosco founded Salesian Fathers in 1845 and Abbé Louis Brisson founded the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales in 1875. In the United States, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton founded the Sisters of Charity in 1810 and it expanded beyond all expectations.
In reaction both to the heresy of Jansenism and the more impersonal society, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Marian devotions became more common.
Jansenism was an almost Calvinist version of Catholicism that emphasized how sinful people are and argued that most things people did were sins and often mortal sins; thus, they believed that very few people are in a state of grace worthy of receiving Communion. Pope Clement XI condemned the view in 1713, but the effects of a very harsh morality were still around.
In addition, with a more and more industrial society, the social situation was becoming often very impersonal. With people often migrating, familial ties were not as strong.
In that context, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was increasing. This devotion had been in the Church since the eleventh century; St. Gertrude in particular promoted the devotion in the thirteenth century. However, it was the visions of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-90) that made the devotion ever more popular. In 1765, Pope Clement XIII allowed the French Church to celebrate the devotion as a feast. And, in 1856, Pope Pius IX extended the feast to the whole Church. The devotion celebrates the personal love of Jesus and His emotional support for each person.
Likewise, Marian devotions increased rapidly in the nineteenth century as the people sought more and more a maternal figure in the world. The Marian apparitions at Rue de Bac in Paris in 1830, at La Salette in 1848, in Lourdes in 1858, and at Knock, Ireland in 1879 inspired ever more devotion to Mary.
Saint Catherine Laboure was a Sister of Charity from a devout French Catholic farming family. In 1830, our Lady appeared to her predicted very difficult times beginning in the late nineteenth century. She asked St. Catherine to promote a devotional now called the Miraculous Medal, which quickly became a very popular devotion, although St. Catherine’s identity as the one who had the vision remained a secret.
In 1846, our Lady appeared to Maximin Giraud and Mélanie Calvat (two teenagers from shepherding families in the small French village of La Salette. Once again, she spoke of hardships to come, but of her maternal care for the faithful.
In 1858, Our Lady appeared to Saint Bernadette Soubirous in another small French town called Lourdes. She told her to promote repentance and the rosary, as well as have a chapel build near an underground spring
that had not yet been discovered. That spring was the source of healing powers that continue to this day.
In 1859, Our Lady appeared to Adele Brisi a young Belgian immigrant in Robinson, Wisconsin. She used the title Queen of Heaven, who prays for sinners and encouraged prayers for conversion and the evangelization of the new western lands of the United States. Adele Brisi engaged in such teaching and evangelization as a Third Order Franciscan. The apparition was approved by Bishop David Ricken of Green Bay in 2010 and is awaiting Vatican approval.
In 1879, Our Lady appeared to the people in Knock, Ireland. This time, the apparition was in silence, with simply Our Lady, St. Joseph and St. John venerating Jesus portrayed as the Lamb with a cross on the altar.
The apparition, however, strengthened the Irish people, who had earlier in the century undergone the horrors of the potato famine; and it is a central Marian site to this day.
In 1854, Pope Pius IX declared infallibly that Mary was conceived without original sin, resolving a centuries old debate. This definition, along with the Miraculous Medal and the apparition in Lourdes, contributed to the veneration of Mary as a sign of hope in the midst of a sinful world.
St. Louis Marie de Montfort wrote the Treatise on True Devotion to Mary in 1712. However, after his death, it was lost to history until 1842, when sisters of the motherhouse of the Missionaries of the Company of Mary found it in storage. With the endorsement of Popes Pius IX and Leo XIII, it became a, and perhaps the, central text that guides Marian devotion devotion in Catholic life.
Also in reaction against the impersonal nature of Enlightenment era thought, the Romantic perspective arose.
Whereas Enlightenment era thought elevated abstract principles of reason, universal truths, usefulness and mathematical certainty, Romantic era thought emphasized the importance of sentiment, beauty, personal relationships, nature and national identity.
In Europe, the likes of Edmund Burke , Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the poets William Blake and John Keats, and the novelists Mary Shelly (who wrote Frankenstein in 1818) and Sir Walter Scott (who wrote Ivanhoe in 1819) represent this view. In America, the likes of Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emmerson, the Transcendentalist Movement, the poets Oliver Wendell Homes
Sr., Edgar Allen Poe, and Walt Whitman and the novelists Washington Irving and James Fennimore Cooper represent this view.
The Romantic movement was not inherently Christian or even favorable to organized religion at all. However, the reaction against the Enlightenment Era and the impersonal society did lead to an increased longing for the virtues of an older era and the more personal Catholic devotion to saints. In addition, there was a greater desire for the beauty of Christian art and liturgy. Thus, for example, artistic portrayals of the saints were more realistic than in the Middle Ages, but also more expressive of emotions than the eighteenth century. Gothic architecture and the centrality of churches in towns again increased in popularity.
Isaac Heckler was a member of the Transcendentalist movement who was briefly a resident of the idealistic Brook Farm. In the 1840s, he converted to Catholicism and became a Redemptorist priest. He then founded the Paulist fathers in America in an attempt to Christianize the new modern cultures and democratic ideals, while maintaining the ancient principles of brotherhood.
The expanding European empires, as well as the increased ability to travel, allowed missionary work to expand rapidly.
Both before and after the Napoleonic Wars, the European nations were building empires further around the world, and with them missionaries went out with the nations.
After the Napoleonic Wars, the Church formed new orders and congregations for missionary work.
In 1815, the Vatican established the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith to direct foreign missions. Likewise, in 1817, Pope Pius VII approved of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, which would be very involved in missions to Latin America and island lands, including Hawaii.
The French priest Venerable Jean-Claude Colin formed The Society of Mary (Marists) in 1816; and they evangelized much of Australia, New Zealand and Oceania. The Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (the Missionhurst order) was formed in 1862 and would bring the faith back to China as well as newer lands that were opening up to the Gospel.
Despite the losses in the Napoleonic Wars, France acquired colonies in Africa and the Far East, and missionaries became more able to evangelize these lands.
With its vast naval power and superior military, Great Britain likewise established colonies around Africa, acquired most of India, and gained access to China, Japan and many lands of the Far East. And, after the Act of Catholic Emancipation, Catholic missionaries could also go to the British colonies that were forming. The Irish missionaries in particular gained the sympathy of many local people, for the Irish were also from a nation subject to foreign power.
The kingdoms of Europe, most particularly Britain, France, Belgium and Portugal, but also Spain, Italy and later Germany increased acquisitions in the interior of Africa. These conquests did lead to much exploitation. But they also increased the ability to travel and promote the Gospel. As a result, Christian missions expanded, in both French and English speaking countries. Conversions were slow in coming at first, but gradually the faith spread in most lands.
Asia began becoming an area of expanded missions once again.
The British Empire gradually united India under its rule at first under the East India Company. After an uprising in 1857, Britain administered direct rule over almost all of the subcontinent, which includes modern day India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. This colonization was meant above all for trade. But many people in Britain and elsewhere argued that it should be seem equally or more as an opportunity to bring the Gospel more to these lands.
There had been Christians in India from the earliest days of Christianity when Saint Thomas brought the faith there. They tended then (as now) to be most prominent in the southern Indian area called Kerala.
Some missionaries arrived in the 14th century. And then in the 16th century, with the opening of India to trade by sea, more missionaries arrived. There was substantial progress and the native Christian population mostly joined the Catholic Church either as Latin Christians or members of the Syro-Malakara rite, which more traces its origin back to St. Thomas.
In the 18th century Protestant missionaries started coming in larger numbers, but the Christians were still mostly Catholic.
The increased communication and transportation, and well as the establishment of more peace among the areas of India, enabled missionaries to bring the Gospel more inland, although the
Christians (about 2.5% of the population today) still tend to be near the coasts.
The first Catholic mission in Korea was established in 1784, led by a layman. The difficulty in getting Catholic priests limited the growth of the Church, but there was gradual expansion, which has increased rapidly since World War II.
Western powers forced Japan and China to open their borders to trade, with the former coming along more willingly than the latter. With this openness, missions rapidly increased.
There had been Christian missionaries in China since the 16th century. However, beginning in the 18th century, Chinese governments had become increasing oppressive toward Christians as outsiders, with oppression increasing in the early 19th century. But after the First Opium War (1839 – 42) forced China to open the way to trade with the West, and demonstrated the weakness of those governments, the ruling classes became much more favorable to the faith.
Starting with the arrival of American Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853, Japan became more open to outside trade. At first, this openness did not extend to religion, but in 1871, the increasingly powerful Emperor Meiji allowed full freedom of religion and evangelization. Conversions were not as common in Japan, however, with about one percent of Japanese being Christian today.
In Vietnam, Catholic missionary work had begun in 1627, but increased rapidly in the late 18th century. At first, the government allowed Christian missionaries, but then clamped down on this work as it became more successful. When the French government took over the area from 1858 to 1883, the missionaries could again continue their work, with substantial success to the point that about 8 percent of Vietnamese are Christian now, with the vast majority being Catholic.
In the United States, the Catholic Church increased in size dramatically, largely due to immigration from France in the early 19th century and then Ireland in the mid-19th century.
The chaos in Europe led many French clergy and other Catholics to seek freedom in this land, despite the disabilities here.
Between 1845 and 1852, the Irish potato famine led to the emigration of about 1.5 million Irish overseas, including about 600,000 to the United States. Cities such as Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore became largely Irish.
The responses in America ranged from sympathy for their plight and desire for a new life to an anti-Catholic nativist reaction, especially embodied in the Know Nothing party of the mid-nineteenth century.
Gradually, Catholicism took on a more mainstream role in American life, and Catholic schooling expanded.
In dealings with the world, the Church faced the loss of the Papal States, but at the same time more independence and the calling to promote a true Christian response to the social development and upheavals of the time.
The Italian unification effort resulted in the seizure of the Papal States in 1870.
When Pope Pius IX was elected in 1846, he was thought of as a liberal in large part because he was favorable to Italian unification efforts, which were well underway.
However, in 1848, when most areas of northern Italy were joining together to overthrow the Austrian influence and unite together, Pope Pius IX overrode the Parliament of the Papal States (which was his right) and refused to have the Papal states support them. He was sympathetic to their cause, but did not want to start a war with Catholic Austria.
After this veto, there was rioting in the streets of Rome and the murder of Pelligrino Rossi, his Prime Minister. The Pope himself was forced to flee in disguise to Naples, only to be restored two years later by the Austrians. At that point Pope Pius IX turned against efforts at uniting Italy and became much more suspicious of popular and revolutionary politics.
The Italian unification effort continued apace, however, as King Victor Immanuel II, the king of Piedmont-Sardinia was declared King of Italy in 1861. His prime Minister Camilio Benso, the Count of Cavour, had anti-Catholic leanings, which hardened the opposition.
The Papal States had been supported by the Austrian Empire and the King of France. However, Austria steadily weakened and became effectively the junior partner to the newly ascendant Germany, whose policy was guided by the hard nosed Prime Minister Otto von Bismark. And then, when France and Prussia went to war in 1870, France was no longer in a position to defend the Papal
States. The result was that the forces of Italian unification invaded the Papal States and then Rome itself in 1870 with courageous but insufficient opposition from the Papal troops.
Pope Pius IX remained in the Vatican until his death in 1878, continuously protesting the seizure of the Papal States. His successors gradually came to an accommodation with the Italians, but there was no formal agreement until 1930. And it was often considered impious for a faithful Catholic to serve in the Italian government.
However, even as the Pope’s secular power was weakening, his prestige was increasing as he was seen as a fatherly figure in an impersonal age and a representative of certainly in a changing age. This prestige, along with the need to clarify the inspiration of divine Scriptures, led to the Vatican I Council.
The infallible definition of the Immaculate Conception brought to the forefront the issue of whether a Pope can define a dogma infallibly without the specific consent of a Council or the consensus of bishops throughout the ages.
In addition, modernism had drawn into question the issue of whether principles of the faith are in fact enduring.
Modernism was, among other things, as effort to say that the faith must change to be in accord with modern principles.
In 1864, Pope Pius IX responded with the Syllabus of Errors, which condemned the notion that the faith must be adapted to the modern world. It also seemed to criticize principles of democracy and free speech. However, the Bishop of Orleans Felix Dupanloup explained that what he was criticizing is the notion that the freedom of the press and speech can override the moral law and public duties, that democracy, rather than good government, is the ideal in itself, and that there should be no restraint on either. The Pope was simply reiterating previous teachings, but the Syllabus drew a great deal of protest from the press and intellectuals. Common people, however, seemed to be much more supportive.
Along similar lines many theologians were trying to downplay the supernatural in Scriptures. Most prominently the Lutheran theologian Rudolf Bultman proposed “demythologizing” the Bible to sense only a spiritual meaning rather than the plain meeting. In reaction, fideism maintained that reason has no value when applied to matters of faith.
For these reasons, as well as a desire to simplify the liturgy and update canon law, most bishops favored convoking the first ecumenical council since Trent 300 years earlier.
Pope Pius IX called for a Council to meet at the Vatican in 1870.
The Council produced two documents: Dei Filius and Pater Aeternus.
Dei Filius confirmed the inerrancy of Scripture and the fact that the Church can hand on definitive interpretations of it. It also confirmed that the value of reason and the fact that there can be no final conflict between faith and reason. Pope Leo XII would follow up on this teaching with his 1893 encyclical Providentissimus Deus (On the Study of Scriptures), which endorsed efforts to study Scripture and make it more available to the public, but also a warning about those who would “defile or corrupt it.”
Pater Aeternus confirmed that the Pope can hand on infallible dogma as a matter of his own initiative, but that he only does so when clearly intending such a definition as a matter of faith of morals.
Due to the invasion of Italian forces, the Council had to adjourn without addressing the other issues. Some of these issues would be dealt with by later Popes, as with the 1913 codification of canon law and the 20th century reforms of the liturgy leading up to Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Vatican II Council constitution on the liturgy.
The Papacy was also instrumental, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a response to the Industrial Revolution and the philosophies surrounding it.
The Industrial Revolution had led to much greater wealth, technology, trade, transportation and the like. But there was also an increased sense of isolation and helplessness amidst the impersonal forces of the world.
Some people celebrated the progress as almost wholly good. Many people believed that science and technology were the key to solving the world’s problems, although others thought they were negative forces. There were even proponents of social Darwinism and the so-called Gospel of wealth who said that the wealthy are the fittest and best people. There were also socialists who wanted to level the economic playing field by getting rid of private property.
In this context, Pope Leo XIII tried to bring together the Church’s thinking on social questions in his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum.
In that encyclical, refocused attention from impersonal forces or ideas of progress to argue that government, economics, and all development should support the human person and those institutions that are closest to the person, in particular the family, the churches, and other intermediate institutions. They in turn have a sacred role from God Himself to develop the soul of each person and of all of society.
He defended the right to private property as necessary for justice and the freedom of the family, the church, and other private groups, and thus condemned socialism.
But he also argued that precisely because private property is important, all people, including those at the lower rungs of society, should have access to it. Thus, he strongly defended the right to a just wage (i.e. a wage enough to support oneself and one’s family.)
He also argued that work should be in dignified conditions and limited to decent hours, lest it infringe upon each person’s ability to develop a family, faith and a role society.
And in general, he argued that we should not view the world in terms of class conflict, but rather that the different classes “should be united not only in the bond of friendship but also in the bond of brotherly love.”