“If Christ the God-man is the ideal image of the Christian, this does not mean that there are no ties of blood and affinity, from nation to nation, from race to race, from government and subjects, from citizens to the dear soil of the fatherland. On the contrary, all these individual and collective relations find their higher perfection through the Christian experience of the virtues of the individual, race, nation and state, and which all have their ideal image in the human and divine perfections of the God-man Jesus Christ.”
Author’s Background
Ordinarily, the Catholic authors that are published at The Journal of American Reform have robust biographies. For each author, there is lots of information on him and it will be reported by numerous sources. However, this is decidedly not the case with P. Constantinus, the author of the short booklet—written in Dutch—which will be the focus of this post entitled, Katholicisme en Rasvraagstuk (Catholicism and the Race Question). It has been difficult to find information on him, to say the least.1
For that reason, the following biography to introduce the reader to the author will be short. Rest assured that the relevant work is legitimate. It bears a nihil obstat and imprimatur (see above) and was published in 1935 by the Geert Groote Society. Additionally, the booklet was referenced many times in Fr. Bonaventure Hinwood’s comprehensive study on the relationship between race and Catholicism.2
P. Constantinus O.F.M. Cap., born Joannes Nicolaas Reijgersberg in 1885, was a Dutch Capuchin friar and Catholic author. He wrote under the pseudonym “Constantinus van Schiedam” and was active in the mid-20th century. His works often addressed theological and social issues, including the relationship between Catholicism and race. As mentioned before, one of his notable publications is Katholicisme en Rasvraagstuk.
In addition to this work, Constantinus contributed articles to the journal Streven, discussing topics such as Jewish conversions to Catholicism. In his 1939 article Oriëntatie in het Joodse Probleem (Orientation in the Jewish Problem)3 he explored the sincerity of Jewish conversions, emphasizing the challenges and societal pressures faced by converts. Constantinus also authored Kunst in dienst van de Kerk (Art in the Service of the Church), published in 1958 by Uitgeverij Helmond. This work reflects on the role of art within the Catholic Church. He died in 1970.
To our knowledge, this is the first time the following text is being translated into English. Without further ado, Catholicism and the Race Question is presented below.4
CATHOLICISM AND THE RACE QUESTION.
Under this comprehensive title we do not wish to provide a deeply scientific consideration of the position of Catholicism in the very topical question of race. The aim is only to clearly set out the Catholic position in a few core ideas, so that the non-Catholic, including the Jew, can know how the Catholic, by virtue of his religiously and scientifically founded conviction, must judge in these important questions.
This does not mean, however, that one will not possibly find a different opinion in one or another Catholic; the reader should know that this different opinion only reflects an incorrect, subjective opinion, but not the Catholic idea.
The Catholic idea, insofar as it governs the racial question, is based on the revelation doctrine of the Old and New Testaments, as well as on the doctrine of the Church Tradition and the data of science, especially of Collective Psychology, of Race and Ethnology. On these data are based, among other things, the considerations which Mgr. Dr. Gföllner, Bishop of Linz, held on the racial question, Mgr. M. Faulhaber on Judaism and Prof. W. Schmidt in his various works, especially Rasse und Volk (Munich, 1927) and Die Stellung der Religion zu Rasse und Volk. (Augsburg, 1932).
It will probably be clearest to the reader if the principles of Catholicism in the racial question are set out clearly, briefly, with a sober explanation.
1. THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN RACE.
“However numerous the present and already extinct races are, however great their varieties, they are only variants on the basis of a much greater unity in nature of body and soul, which clearly points to a common origin of all races from one basic form; which is also generally accepted by modern science.” (W. Schmidt. Die Stellung der Religion zu Rasse und Volk. pg. 16).
The opinion of both the Pre-Adamites5 (according to which men were created “before Adam”, who however perished in the flood) and the Co-Adamites (who assumed several original ancestors of the present human race, on the basis of the many differences in races and peoples) is outdated, even if only on profane scientific grounds.
Long before the results of profane science, Holy Scripture had simply and clearly taught this unity of the human race because of its origin from one original human pair. Thus, among others, in Gen. II, 5-7, in the context of which Gen. I, 27-29 also becomes clear. Several other clear texts are scattered over the pages of Holy Scripture, among others Wisd. of Sol. X, 1: “This (divine) wisdom has given him, the father of the earth, when he was the first to be formed by God (and) when he alone was created...”; further Eccli. XVII, 15; XI, 1; Wisd. of Sol. VII, 1. The New Testament is especially characterized by a clear statement from from Acts, XVII, 26: “And from one father He has made every nation of mankind, to dwell on the face of all the earth.”
These indisputable principles are accepted by the Jews (in so far as the Old Testament is a valid source of divine Revelation for them), as well as by all Christians, who in addition accept the Revelation of the books of the New Testament. For the Catholic, the doctrine of Church Tradition is also valid. The explicit opinion of a large group of Protestant theologians in Germany concerning the Biblical standpoint will be discussed further.
For the Catholic, the doctrine of the unity of the human race finds, moreover, its powerful reinforcement by a series of supernatural truths, which are harmoniously connected with it. We shall enumerate them only briefly, because their further development embraces nothing less than almost the entire Dogmatic Special Theology; these truths are:
the elevation of all humanity in Adam, as progenitor, to a supernatural order of salvation;
the fall of all mankind in Adam, as progenitor, from the supernatural order of salvation;
the restoration work of Christ, the second Adam, through whom the possibility of the supernatural Salvation State has been created for all equally, based on the universality and abundance of Redemption.6 In all these points no priority is given to, or an exception made for, certain races and peoples. All are equally entitled, by virtue of their humanity, to the participation in Christ’s graces.
2. THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD TOWARDS ALL.
The recognition of one human couple as the common progenitors of all races and peoples contains the recognition of another truth, which is of tremendous significance for the mutual relationship of all mankind, namely, the Fatherhood of God towards every man and the brotherly relationship of all men to each other, as members of one great family of God, and this already by virtue of their natural origin, apart from the supernatural sonship of God through sanctifying grace. The prayer “Our Father, who art in Heaven”, borrowed by Christ from the Jewish Kaddish prayer, is the natural prayer of every child of Adam.
For human life does not come into being through the intimate connection of humans alone, but is a cooperation of humans with a creative act of God. Humans and God work together intimately in the formation of the child, which is a human image and an image of God. The human soul is not an emanation from the self-substance of God, nor the product of human generation. As a spiritual substance (Wisd. of Sol. IX, 15 in connection with Gen. II, 7; subsequently Matt. X, 28; 1 Cor. II, 21) it can only come into being through God’s creative power. This creative act is performed by God each time (by virtue of his eternal decree of God) in the origin of every human life. The parental act of generation and the creative act of God (according to the ideas in his divine Being) produce a human image and an image of God, which are reflected in the members of every race and nation. In ourselves as well as in others we discover these human and divine traits; we are by nature a human race and, as Paul said to the Athenians on the Areopagus, “God’s race.” (Acts XVII, 28). By virtue of our descent from God and common ancestors we are together one great human family, children at the same time of one Heavenly Father, brothers and sisters of one great human family. “It is therefore not just a beautiful way of speaking, but a real truth, that all the millions of men of whatever races, are always children of the one Father and brothers and sisters to each other, and that the races are closely connected families, united with each other by their relations to their common Creator and Father.” (W. Schmidt, Ibid. pg. 17).
3. THE COMMUNITY OF HUMAN BEINGS IN CHRIST.
As in descent through “birth” the connection with all ancestors is created and through this the mutual family relationship of the members of the human race; and as through God’s act of creation in the generation of each individual human soul an intimate relationship is created between man and God, as between child and father, and between people themselves as between brothers and sisters of the one great family of God; so there exists for every human being equally entitled an even higher calling, namely through “rebirth”, that is to say through a supernatural life in Christ to be even more intimately connected with God, as Father, and with people, as brothers and sisters. This “rebirth” is the subject of the conversation between Christ and Nicodemus. (John. III, 3 vg.). The covenant with Christ, to which all peoples and races are called, this new birth to a supernatural life, proceeds from Christ, who earned for us all graces by his sacrificial death, and makes us, by a supernatural ennoblement of our life, partakers of God’s nature. “We shall be like Him, says St. John, for we shall see Him as He is.” (I John III, 2). Hence St. Peter says: “We are partakers of God’s nature.” (II Pet. I, 4). This connection by grace with the right to the paternal inheritance, Heaven, makes man even more intimately, than by virtue of his nature alone, a child of God, a brother of Jesus Christ “the firstborn among many brethren.” (Rom. VIII, 29), brothers and sisters among themselves. (Rom. VIII, 17).
This bond in Christ, as our Brother, with God, as Father in this new, higher meaning, also goes to Christ as norm and goal and not to the racial or people-norm of Aryans, or Semites, or Hamites, Ural-Altaians or other groups. We must, regardless of which time or race we are, come to the highest possible Christ-likeness (Eph. IV, 13; Col. III, 11). In this intimate bond through Christ with the Father, and among each other, the “Our Father” only gets its full, deep meaning for all times, generations, races and peoples.
The inherent values of tribe, race, people and language may not, according to Catholic opinion, be lost in this family of God; they are refined into means for the goal of this supernatural order of salvation. Thus the enthusiastic, strong-willed and emotional soul of the Semite, the converted Jew or Arab, will powerfully, burning with Eastern glow, push towards that Christ-ideal; he will be the equal, not the inferior, of the contemplative Aryan, who will stand sunk before Christ, the Reflection of the Light of the Father; the cool Westerner will soberly, rationally admire more and more the wonderful coherence of the truths of faith; the warm Southerner will be Christian for the unequaled beauties of God’s revelation with the childlike spontaneity of his sensitive soul; the Northerner will discover in Christianity a light more overwhelming than the Northern Lights of his regions. One will be Christian and fully Japanese, Indian, Mexican, Icelander, member of the great Brotherhood of Christ and God’s family and child of his tribe, race and people. Thus Saint John saw them standing before the throne of the Lamb, “from every kindred, tongue, people and nation.” (Apoc. V, 9; VII, 9).
4. UNITY DESPITE RACIAL DIFFERENCES.
In the great human family, also in its reception into the even more intimate kingdom of Christ, there remain striking differences between the individual persons and the smaller and larger groups. The smallest family knows them; every person is a small world in itself. Paul does not deny them either, although he expressly testifies that they do not in themselves determine the value of being a Christian. There it is not the racial norm that counts, but the norm of “Christ”. Hence his statement: “There is no distinction between Jews and Gentiles, for they all have the same Lord.” (Rom. X, 12). Only recently the Archbishop of Cincinnati, Mgr. John Mc. Nicholas, spoke out against the discrimination of the black races and Mgr. J. Smith defended their equal rights in the calling to the Faith at the meeting of the “National Catholic Inter-racial Federation”.7
On the one hand the exclusion of the racial norm for Christianity in contrast to the demands of the Judaizers of the first centuries, on the other hand, the recognition of the natural goods that may lie in the person-, class-, ethnological- or national-psychological differences. In this respect Catholic Internationalism stands in direct opposition to Bolshevik Internationalism, which is an “atomistic collectivism” in which individual and group, race and nation are transformed into a cog or screw in the service of the mechanism of collective technique.
Catholic Internationalism of the one God-family is therefore against racial superiority (Aryan, Semitic, etc.) as well as against racial leveling; it recognizes the values of the races and sees in them valuable means for building up the one kingdom of Christ and God.
The physiological peculiarities of the races lie in something of very subordinate importance, in the shape of the skull, the color of the skin, the growth of the hair, etc., all of which are the result of climate, diet, mode of life, etc.
The spiritual peculiarities of common language, civilization, customs, and practices do not together constitute “the” real human value. They can impart a higher perfection, which enables man to be a better man and Christian with the help of it, and thus help to perfect the image of man and God more finely in him. The differences mentioned do indeed form the different races with their physiological structure, the different nations with their own languages, customs, practices, civilization and art; historical events can make a further grouping into political states possible; the fact remains that the indestructible image of man and God unites them all in the one human family, and that the Christ norm of Faith shows a Christian brother and sister in everyone.
“If then,” says P. Schmidt, “the racial formations, however diverse, cannot separate the human body from the first human body formed by God, and if there is a personal connection for the human soul, in whatever race there is a personal connection with God, (by the immediate creation of every human soul), then all those millions of men are children of one Father.” (Ibid., pg. 17).
5. NO RACIAL SUPERIORITY.
On a deeper consideration of races we see that no race is the norm race, but that each has its own value and contributes to the great goal, human culture, the enrichment of mankind with those goods which harmoniously bring its physical and spiritual life to the noblest development, in order to be an all the more expressive image of man and image of God.
In the formation of a racial superiority one so readily plays the West against the East, not least in the field of culture and art, or the Aryan against the Semitic race, especially among the National Socialists. Certainly, a certain hierarchy of values of races cannot be denied. The difficulty, however, is whether the lesser or greater cultural value of a race can be explained by natural disposition or by accidental historical circumstances. Moreover, one often finds that peoples with a still rather primitive level of civilization betray a fine development in certain areas, e.g. in the field of art.8 Finally, in the course of the centuries there has been a considerable mixing of races, so that it is again very difficult to judge a race in its pure integrity with its unadulterated or unmixed goods in itself. Racial unity rarely exists and even in “race-purifying” Germany, four, possibly five, of the five European races are represented: the Nordic, the Eastern, the Baltic, the Dinaric and the Southern (Mediterranean).
However, if one wants to compare the East with the West in global contrasts, and the Semite with the Aryan9 etc., then one will have to compare both the good and the bad qualities from an unprejudiced standpoint. From an article, “Eastern and Western Culture”, published by me in The Colonial Mission Journal in 1931 (issue Nov., pgs. 323-328), a few thoughts may be reproduced here.
Catholicism stands on the solid foundation that the Christianization of individuals, races and people generally proceeds along psychological paths, from which it follows that the soul of individuals and people, the individual and national soul, has the right to the full appreciation of what is naturally true, good and beautiful in them. Only what is unworthy of man as a man deserves disapproval. It is the Pauline idea of being a pagan with the pagan, a Jew with the Jew, insofar as the good, true and beautiful are in them reflections of the perfections that are perfectly present in God as a high image.
The blazing enthusiasm of the Semite has already been pointed out above. We can add to this the respect for the commandment of God, for the Law in Judaism, and the complete surrender (Islam) in the Arab. In itself a beautiful racial characteristic. The Indo-European is more the meditative soul for the truth, the seeker for the highest unity with God; again a noble soul trait. The West is more of a calm cool thinker, has something of the Greco-Roman business likeness, which facilitates a calm acceptance of the truth, if not a certain rationalism that blocks the way to God. But this imperfection is equaled in the East by a danger of deification of laws of one’s own making, as with the Jew with many Talmudic precepts, in the case of the Muslim with many Koranic sayings, or by a danger of Monism and Pantheism, into which many Brahmanical or Buddhist speculations end.
The West is inclined, especially towards the Slavic Russian, to boast of his intellectual insight and to look down with disdain on the Slav’s tendency towards direct contact with God by blurring the lines that separate the sensual from the supersensible. But the Westerner forgets that his own sense of reason is sometimes not far removed from rationalism and that Russian radicalism in the urge for higher spheres often leads to complete surrender to God.
And just as little as the West or the Aryan may claim a certain precedence on the basis of ethnic character traits, just as little may this happen on the basis of (differential) psychology or from a class-psychological standpoint. A race or people with commercial energy will possibly do more against the seventh commandment, but possibly less against the sixth through sins of idleness, than a slower race. Besides the expansionist desire of the Japanese stands their love for family, ancestors and fatherland. Like the Chinese, they are big on families with many children.
And now, after considering these few features, we return to the thoughts of 1, 2 and 3 in the previous pages. When one, as a Christian, as a Catholic, stands above all on the standpoint of the unity of the human race, of the Fatherhood of God with regard to all races and peoples and of the mystical unity of believers in Christ, one will, through the power of noble human and supernatural Christian love, more easily pay attention to one’s own racial shortcomings and think of the beam in one’s own eye, rather than of the mote in the eye of another. (Matt. VII, 3-5; Lk. VI, 41, 42). Members of the same family forgive each other’s faults more easily, the stronger the love that binds them together is.
6. NO ONE-SIDEDNESS IN CULTURAL PERCEPTION.
The general human, Christian and Catholic principles, on which our racial views are based, will prevent us from seeing in one race or people the summary of all cultural values. The separate values, which each in the great human family possesses, together form the common family capital, which by mutual exchange enriches the individual human races with an ever new and greater capacity.
Egoistic self-satisfaction in the possession of one’s own values betrays great narrow-mindedness, far-reaching arrogance, unnatural un-brotherliness and brings with it the danger of less or greater isolation and confinement in oneself. More than before, this can be seen in our days in the narrow, overwrought racial or national exaltation, in the narrow-minded nationalism with oppression of minorities and their cultural goods, especially the borderlands, which after the war came to new masters.
Customs and morals, language, mother tongue and the many areas of art are a sacred racial and national heritage and deserve an objective, human, Christian, loving appreciation, just as in the same family one appreciates and judges the talents of one’s own brothers and sisters.
This does not happen from one’s own psyche or mentality, but from the psyche or mentality of those who are the creators and bearers of those cultural values. So easily does one take the Western concept as the norm for judging those values.
How easy it is, for example, to use our scale or harmonization system as a yardstick when judging exotic songs or non-Western music; just as easily do we use our scale or harmonization system as a yardstick when listening to Jewish synagogue chants and prayers, where each, individually, with his hot, moved mood of mind, the word “Jewish church” on his lips. One must be able to imagine what stirs the Jewish soul when he thinks of Jerusalem, the temple and the old days. And the deeper study of these melodies gradually reveals to us their very own beauty.10 Prof. Aufhauser points out in his already mentioned work Umweltbeeinflussung in “der geistl. Musik” (pgs. 111-122) that “the feeling for music, the musical conception, the aesthetic musical value of the peoples, the musical systems, the musical and instrumental scales, the doctrine of melody and rhythm are as different as their temperament and their feeling.” And these two have their own relative value, just as the races themselves possess it. Just as the specific song and music of the races is born from their very own emotional nature, so the emotional state in its turn feels most receptive to the sounds of the people, as Aug. de Wit in Orpheus in de Dessa so strikingly depicts in the emotion of the Javanese by the gamelan, or when the sound of the flute perceptibly travels through the moonlit evening of the Javanese land.
And even in the broad field of native languages, Westerners will be able to guard against an unbrotherly feeling of superiority when they place the “hardness” of their own language sounds alongside their flowing sounds. It may contain much exaggeration, but a deep basis of truth lies in the lines of Lord Byron:
“That harsh Northern, whistling, grunting, guttural,
Which we’re obliged to hiss, and spit, and sputter all.”11
And in the field of architecture, sculpture and painting, the fine color combination of patterns, in weaving, carving and plaiting even the primitive peoples provide examples, which with honor adorn Western environments. Every mission museum of missionary orders and congregations proves this.
The same relative value that each of the races has in itself, the races also possess in the above-mentioned areas of art. We have dealt with this subject in great detail in het Tijdschrift voor Liturgie (Vol. 1933, pp. 99-107), “Volksziel en liturgische Kunst” in (pgs. 208-218), “Internationalisme en liturgische Kunst”, also in the R. K. Bouwblad (4th Vol. 1932-1933) “Volksziel en liturgische Kunst” (pg. 229 ff., and pg. 326 ff.). We only indicate here the principles of the honest Catholic standpoint, from which the high respect of Catholicism for the art of the people speaks.
No more than the Catholic doctrine itself, the ecclesiastical regulations are an obstacle to the full development of the popular soul in the field of art. On the contrary, it is perfected, ennobled by Catholicism.
Art as a factor of civilization is, like culture itself, of course a development of the noblest powers of a people in a given period of its existence.
The artist is a son of his people and works for his people. His work must bear the marks of his people and his time.
Hence the Church stands up for the rights of its own folk art, also and especially in the service of the liturgy.
Just as Catholicism does not tolerate the domination of a race or people, as a norma-race or norma-people for being Catholic, just as little does it tolerate the normative of the art of a people, race or time (Gothic, Romanesque, etc.) for the authenticity of Catholic, liturgical art. And just as little as the Japanese, Chinese, Klingalese, Arab, Dayak, Fuegian or Bushman ceases or must cease to be so upon entering the Church of Christ, upon becoming a “Christian”, nor must Japanese, Chinese and other folk art cease to be so upon entering the service of Christianity, upon its elevation to Catholic, liturgical art.12
Whether one stands with the Eastern sense of dependence of total surrender to God’s will towards God, like the Semite, be he Jew or Arab, or with the Indo-Aryan urge for union with God, like the Indian; whether one has a hot will-nature, like the Semite, a contemplative intellectual psyche, like the Aryan; whether one seeks immediate contact with God, like the Slav, or with the Western European Aryan a stronger connection with the environment; — whether one is disposed with a richer imagination, like the Spaniard and the Portuguese, or with a warmer feeling like the Italian and Frenchman, or with a heavier seriousness like the German and a somewhat gloomy view of the world, like the Anglo-Saxon; — or one considers one’s people as sons of Heaven and a family of God, like the Chinese, and sees everything, also in art, from a perspective of heights, and considers one’s native land as a dear gift from God, like the Japanese; the artist of each of these peoples will portray the truth, also the Catholic, the liturgical, in “his” artistic language, in construction, in image, in drawing and painting into one “Praise the Lord, all you peoples,” (Ps. CXVI, 1), “out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation.” (Apoc. V, 9; VII, 9).
7. APPARENT PRIVILEGES.
Perhaps one will be inclined to grant a certain precedence to the West over the East, because of the preaching of the Gospel, or to Judaism, as the custodian of God’s revelation in pre-Christian times and because the Son of God is of the lineage of Judah.
Most certainly, Christianity and with it the Christian ideas, which have Christianized the culture and art of the people, have gone from the western corner of Asia Minor through the lands of Hellenism to the Roman pagan world, to its heart, Rome; and from Rome, Christianity, almost outgrown its Eastern origins, went in broad waves over the Roman and Germanic, over the Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Iberian and Scandinavian countries; further through the discovery of America to the New World and the far West, so that Latin America was largely won for Christ. From the West also goes the noble conquest, although with greater difficulties, to the Black continent, to the immeasurable Asia and the far Oceania.
We must not forget, however, that the Christianization of Africa in pre-Islamic times was largely effected from Asia; that the Arabian Peninsula at the time of Mohammed’s appearance would have been entirely Christianized by the Abyssinian Monophysites, if Islam had not begun its mighty conquests; that the Nestorians in particular brought Christianity as far as Tibet and China. In fact, the West itself was the first great mission field of the East. Karl Adam says in Christus und der Geist des Abendlandes (Munich, 1928), that the borders of the West then actually lay far to the East, because Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt were incorporated into the great Roman Empire.
And even if one could call the West, mainly considering the missionary work of later centuries, the bearer of the Light of Faith for the peoples of other parts of the world, then the West has become this only by pure election of God, not on the basis of more perfect racial or national characteristics, or on the basis of any merit. In his merciful descent He gave to the Western peoples what He also wants to give through them to the East, which is equally called to the sublime beauties of the Kingdom of God. The West is therefore in the missionary duty, not as a greater rightful possessor, but as a greater debtor to God, without the supernatural task of preaching the faith including the recognition of higher values in the field of racial and ethnic studies. In the expression: the West brings the Light of Faith to the East, the name “West” has a purely topographical meaning.
As regards Judaism in particular, it cannot be denied that the Jewish race was destined by God to preserve the pure monotheistic idea of God, the ethics and the doctrine of revelation received from Him, and to become the preparation for the kingdom of Christ of a new covenant. Also, Christ, Mary, St. Joseph, the Apostles and so many others from whom the foundation and preaching of a new order of salvation proceeded, were Jews according to their human descent. As a Jew, one may certainly rejoice in this election of the race and of the great personalities of his race. But these supernatural circumstances leave the natural racial qualities entirely as they are, which is clearly evident from several facts.
After all, the many cases of idolatry and the harsh reproachments of the Prophets clearly testify that the Jewish people, although the bearer of the monotheistic idea of God and the revelation of God, was not or did not become monotheistic. The same applies to the purity of ethical relations; proofs of this can be found in almost all the prophets. About the Jewish descent of Christ, Mary and so many great personalities from the New Testament, the same considerations apply. Moreover, Cardinal M. Faulhaber rightly says in his speeches on Judaism in Munich in 1933 that in the Kingdom of God blood or racial relations are not sufficient, even though the people of Israel are in real blood relationship with Christ through Mary. The Cardinal refers, among other things, to Matt. III, 9: “And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham as our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham”; and in Lk. VIII, 21: “And he answered and said unto them, My mother and my brothers are these who hear the word of God, and do it.” (Cf. Schönere Zukunft. Vol. 9, No. 15, 4 Jan. 1934, S. 349 ff.). Whenever the Catholic in his Calendar of Saints of the Martyrology annually celebrates the memory of Abraham, Moses, David, several Prophets, of the Maccabees, etc., this is not done on racial grounds, because of the eminent racial characteristics of the Jewish-Semitic race, but because of their free, personal, heroic cooperation with the supernatural graces of salvation, because of their personal supernatural (and not because of their racial) merits and their faith in the coming Redeemer, not as (and insofar as He was) a Jew, a Semite, but the Son of God, the Redeemer of all races. In other words, the Church venerates holy Jews for the same reasons for which she venerates Saints from many races and peoples and who are also recorded in the Book of Martyrs. Here again Paul’s testimony comes clearly to the fore: “For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek” (Rom. X, 12), and: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal. III, 28). In connection with the above explanations it is useful to point out the statement signed by several German Protestant Theologians on “Holy Scripture and the Race Question.” (Die Chr. Welt, No. 1 Oct. 1933). Among the signatories we find: Deiszmann, Jeremias, Jülicher, Lietzmann, Lohmeyer, Lueken, Von Soden, Windisch.
This statement includes the following points:
The opposition “Jew-Greek” or “Jew-Gentile” in the New Testament is based on the election of the Jewish people by God. It is therefore not an opposition about natural or national individualities, nor a difference in value according to human standards.
When the New Testament says, according to Jewish-Christian thinking, that the Gentiles are sunk in sin, this sinfulness is not seen as a consequence of the natural disposition of the Gentile peoples, or as a result of biological, hereditary factors, but as guilt, through the denial of the one God, whom the Gentiles can also know. Moreover, Paul combats the opposition “Jews-Gentiles” as an opposition of ethical qualities, because Paul testifies that Jews and Gentiles are equally sinners before God.
The opposition “Jew-Gentile” as an opposition of different ethnic groups is contrary to Revelation in the light of the salvation state established by God in Christ.
From the principle of equality of all men before God as sinners, or as far as man “believes” as redeemed,13 follows... the equality of believers (i.e. without racial privilege), within the community of Christ’s (mystical) Body. Then it is explicitly declared, among other things, that Christ's Church is composed of both the called Jews and the Gentiles; that both the one and the other are suitable for ecclesiastical dignities; — that it is God who calls all races and peoples to the one, common Church. “A Christian Church,” the aforementioned Protestant Theologians conclude, “may not abandon these points.”
8. THE CHRIST STANDARD.
Christ is the norm of our humanity and of our Christian-ness. We have already seen this above and want to elaborate on it here.
The ideal image of the Christian as a human being and therefore the ideal image of each and all as a human being is the human nature of Christ in its total perfection. Hence Christianity in its natural side must already be “the” religion of all races and peoples through the formation of man according to that Christ-ideal.
In his perfect human nature, as an ideal of personality formation, the danger is absolutely excluded that in this ideal of Christ, who by birth from Mary, a Jewess, belonged to the Semitic race, the properties of this race would become a general ideal of humanity. For racial properties are the complex of those constantly emerging properties, which more than others assert themselves in a certain race and characterize the other properties to a lesser or greater extent.
In “Christ’s” human character-picture we find “all” good human qualities present in their perfection and in their mutual-perfect-harmonious connection. Whoever without prejudice accepts Christ’s human nature in this regard, is full of admiration for this high ideal of character.
Semites, as is evident from several Koran texts, and from sayings of many prominent Jews from the last 70 years, including Graetz, Jacobs, Kohler, Montefiore, Klausner, Ahad Ha-am, etc., as well as non-Semites, even teachers of the ancient Indian wisdom in modern Brahmanism, including Debendranath Ta-gore, father of Rabindranath, and also Mahatma Gandi, fully acknowledge the perfection of Christ as a human being, according to the ethical meaning of the word “character”. Everything, seen in this light, is so humanly noble, so perfect, that Christ, seen as a human being alone, is “the” ideal of personal development for all.
“Apparuit benignitas et humanitas (philantropia) salvatoris nostri Dei; But after the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared”. (Tit. III, 4).
Because of this perfection, already as a human being, Christ receives his central significance for all, as the ideal of complete humanity, with the right to the full preservation of the naturally good racial qualities, which again find their high image in Him; so that what Paul says of the supernatural Christ-likeness, also already applies to the natural: “In everything Christ” (Col. III, 11).
Christ is the norm of being a Christian.
Judaism and Islamism have not infrequently attributed a certain dominance to the Semitic race, by connecting the idea of “religion” too closely with the idea of ”race” in the formulation of religious regulations. Brahmanism and Buddhism presuppose too much the psyche of the Indian, for it to be more widely disseminated in a Western direction. Many Eastern religions shifted the religious ideal too much in the direction of state politics, so that religion was too exclusively the religion of the race, the people, that lived within the political boundaries.
If Christ the God-man is the ideal image of the Christian, this does not mean that there are no ties of blood and affinity, from nation to nation, from race to race, from government and subjects, from citizens to the dear soil of the fatherland. On the contrary, all these individual and collective relations find their higher perfection through the Christian experience of the virtues of the individual, race, nation and state, and which all have their ideal image in the human and divine perfections of the God-man Jesus Christ. The higher the Christ-life of grace rises in the Christian, and the more he directs himself to Christ as Example, through Christ with his graces living in him, to Christ as goal, the nobler will be the relations from individual to individual, from group to group, from each to all, because in everything there will be “Christ”.
Christ, the God-man, stands above man, above the state, above the race, above the people, above time, and yet He lives so deeply in us that Paul says: “Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me.” (Gal. II, 20).
Thus the Christian ideal, which is the Christ-ideal, the Christ-life in me and in others, is an ideal that equally embraces all races and peoples, all states and empires, all times and centuries. The Christian ideal is universalistic!
Hence the races find in this Idealism, which is a living reality for the Christian, their highest guarantees, the most brotherly idea of equality, the purest equality of justice, their highest crowning, the surest guarantees against racial leveling, against oppression by a majority race, a safeguard against self-satisfied racial superiority, because here applies: “Christ before all”. “Thou (Christ) hast redeemed us by thy blood to God, out of every kindred, tongue, people, and nation” (Apoc. V, 9) will be the song of “a great multitude, which no man could number, out of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.” (Apoc. VII, 9). What is continued there in the eternal kingdom of Christ had its beginning in that same kingdom of Christ on earth; the fullness of the glory of heaven corresponds to the fullness of the life of Christ in us on earth, and this fullness of the life of Christ in us leads to the full, untainted membership of race, people, state and time. It is in this profound sense that we must understand the word of St. John when he describes the races and peoples who rejoice around the throne of the Lamb.
“That, in short, is the Christian philosophy of personality. It does not deny the finitude and determinacy of man, but within these limits it opens up an ideal which cannot be surpassed in sublimity.” (F. Sawicki. Das Ideal der Persönlichkeit. Paderborn, 1922. Cf. also L. Rademacher. Das Seelenleben der Heiligen. Paderborn, 1920).
CONCLUSION.
At the end of this brief review we shall quote some thoughts from the work of Prof. W. Schmidt already cited.
“Human personality derives its value from the fact that each soul is created immediately by God Himself for a whole eternity, — that each one is cared for and governed by God’s Fatherly goodness, — that each one is redeemed, nourished, and led to personal conformity with the Father by His divine Son.
Two human personalities of different sexes then unite in full personal freedom, and without losing their personalities, they give themselves away to each other, and thereby they also give to each other and to the entire human race the children that result from their union. To these children they impart as their most valuable inheritance not only external cultural goods which they brought with them and increased, but also the noblest parts of their own physical being, in which the thinking, feeling and willing of their souls left their traces, so that the children continue to resemble their parents.
When this own bodily and spiritually influenced being and these goods of the inner and outer culture are passed on in the course of time and history by the further generations, tribes, races and peoples come into being. All are for man the physical and spiritual mother-ground, which he needs, in order to ripen the fruits of his growth as richly as possible and to impart them to others. One may therefore neglect nothing, but one must care for everything according to its very own nature, and this again in its living relation to the whole.
Just as all men find their origin in one source of life, and all are in their deepest essence equal to one another, and as one Father brought them all forth, leads and governs them, and as all are received and called into the mysterious community of the Body of Christ, his Son, so now all races and peoples must find each other again in the community of the great family of peoples, in the family of the Children of God. This family will certainly not assume permanent, fixed political forms, since it has no permanent dwelling place on this earth either, for all generations die in succession and disappear from the stage of this world. In its eternal essence, however, and in its eternal purpose, this family has become a supernatural reality in the CATHOLIC CHURCH, whose messengers have been sent to all races and peoples, so that they may spread ever further over the whole earth (καθ' όλη τοὴν γῆν) throughout the whole Οικουμένη.” (Ibid., pgs. 64-66).
END.
CONSIDER SUPPORTING THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN REFORM!
As I intend to devote more and more time to this political project, I want to continue to provide free, educational material, whether visual (graphics) or written (essays, translations and a forthcoming book) content. If you have benefited from my work in any way, kindly consider supporting The Journal financially. On a personal note, I am married and duty-bound to provide for my family, so any help, big or small, is appreciated. Subscribe or make a one-time donation.
Regardless, the production of free material will continue, hopefully with ever-increasing quality, and I will keep all my subscribers notified of my plans.
In addition to Substack, the home of The Journal, my work, graphics and commentary can be found on the following platforms:
X: @AmericanReform_
Telegram: @American_Reform
For any reader with more biographical information about P. Constantinus, particularly if you are Dutch, kindly contact the admin at the following email address: American[dot]Reform[at]proton[dot]me
See numerous footnotes in Fr. Bonaventure Hinwood’s 1963 study, “Race, Reflections of a Theologian”.
The physical booklet is in our possession and it does not seem to be found anywhere online.
This doctrine originated mainly from Isaac de la Peyrère, a Calvinist physician of the 17th century, who later became Catholic and then recanted his error. He thought he could appeal to Gen. I, 27. What is stated in Gen. II, 7 would then refer for the first time to Adam’s creation.
For Christ’s work as reconciliation, see, among others, Rom. V, 11; II Cor. V, 18-19; — as redemption: Rom. III, 24-25; Eph. I, 7; as renewal: Eph. IV, 23; as re-creation: II Cor. V, 7; — as total restoration: Eph. I, 10; Christ as the restoring new Adam: Rom. V, 18. On the abundance of redemption: among others Rom. V, 15, 20; on the universalism of redemption: among others I John II, 2; I Tim. II, 6.
“There are those who hold that the Negro has peculiarities that make him unsusceptible to the Faith. To those I declare that such a feeling is blasphemy, for the Church was established for all men regardless of race.”
Herbert Kühn. Die Kunst der Primitiven. Munich, 1920. J. B. Aufhauser, Umweltbeeinflussing der christlichen Mission. Munich, 1932.
The Aryans are the tribal people of the Indo-Europeans.
A. Z. Idelsohn. Gesänge der Yemenischen Juden. Leipzig, 1914. Dec. in Journal of the Palestine Society, 20 Nov. 1921 on “Hebrew Music and the Intonations of the Pentateuch.”
No tone sounds harsh, rough, raw or hoarse there, Like our rattling, screeching, Nordic grunting. (Van Lennep).
Official documents that guarantee these theses are, among others, Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) to the first English missionaries (Migne. Patr. lat. 95, 70); the Propaganda Congregation in 1659 to the first Apostolic Vicars for East Asia (Collect. S. C. d. P. F. Bd. I, p. 42). Furthermore, the questionnaire of that same Cong. in 1922 to the Mission Superiors about native art; the communications of Mgr. C. Costantini and of the Synodal provisions of the Synod of Peking. Cf. among others also Stimmen der Zeit, Feb. 1933.
We can understand this in a Catholic sense. In the sense of the non-Catholic theologians who formulated this formula, there may be a non-Catholic meaning in it.