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Handout #225 |
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Man reduced to the level of a machine |
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With considerable nerve Cardinal de Bonald,
Archbishop of Lyons, complains that the worker is exploited like a machine,
but because he restricts himself to the moral level, he does not draw very
precise consequences for economic structures.
How does greed see a man? As nothing but a functional machine, a wheel which speeds up movement, a lever which lifts, a hammer which breaks the rock, an anvil which shapes iron. And what is the young Child? Greed sees it as nothing but as a cogwheel which has not yet gained all its power. In the eyes of greed, that is the whole of human nature. And if you ask it where the salvation of society lies, it will point out to you the continual motion of machines, the uninterrupted activity of the productive worker, the steam which annihilates distances ...Pastoral instruction and mandate of Mgr. Cardinal de Bonald on the sanctification of Sunday, issued in Lent 1842. |
