4. The means of healing these social evils and reconciling all classes of society consist in the passing of laws prohibiting the exhausting of the bodily and financial strength of the people; in claiming that protection from the state to which all classes are entitled; in the continued effort to remove the particular defects of the present commercial laws by means of legislation; in establishing the rights of the working-classes in accordance with Christian principles and the demands of general equity; in founding different industrial auxiliary houses, either through the union of the working-classes and others, or through the friends of the working-classes; in restricting the amount of labor to be performed by females and children; in the careful cultivation of the moral and religious life in the families of the working-classes, especially by having Sunday kept holy, and by applying Christian principles to the sphere of business life; in the free development of Christian charity to alleviate inevitable want.
IV. Regarding the Rights of the Church.
1. The Catholic Church is, according to divine ordination, an independent society, which has the right to exist publicly in all lands as the one and universal church of Jesus Christ, and to protect which every Christian government should feel itself bound.
2. The ecclesiastico-political system which the parties opposed to the church are endeavoring to carry out stands in irreconcilable and open contradiction to the constitution of the Catholic Church, founded by Almighty God, sanctified through all centuries, recognized by the state, and guaranteed by the law of nations.
3. The power of the office of teacher, priest, and pastor, given by the Pope to [pg 119]the bishops, cannot be suspended or limited by any law of the state.
4. Church and state are ordained by Almighty God to harmonious co-operation. Their separation is to be lamented. If the hostility with which the modern state treats the church should make such a separation necessary, it will be more to the disadvantage of the state than to the church.
V. Regarding Liberty of Conscience.
1. No state power has the right to impose obligations upon its subjects which are in opposition to the commandments of God, the decrees of Jesus Christ, and the precepts of the church.
2. The apostolic courage with which the Catholic bishops, not fearing temporal loss, not even imprisonment and exile, defend the rights of God and of his holy church, as also the inalienable rights of Catholic conscience, and the priestly fidelity and firmness with which the Catholic clergy, not led astray by illusions and threats, remain true to the episcopate and the church, deserve the admiration and respect of all Catholics and of every right thinking man.
3. The measures used against the bishops and priests of the Catholic Church do not succeed in their object; they grieve most deeply the Catholic people, but they cannot be persuaded to exchange a church founded by Almighty God for one founded by the state. In vain are all the experiments used to separate Catholics from their rightful superior.