At times we hear complaints about priests who adopt definite positions on temporal problems and particularly on political questions. Today, unlike other times, many of these positions are taken up to favour greater freedom, social justice etc. Undoubtedly, active intervention in these matters is not proper to the ministerial priesthood, apart from exceptional cases; but do you not think that a priest should denounce injustice, the absence of freedom, etc., as un-Christian? How can these opposing demands be reconciled?

A priest, by virtue of his teaching mission should preach the Christian virtues, and their practical demands and manifestations in the concrete circumstances of the lives of the men to whom he ministers. He should, also, teach men to respect and esteem the dignity and freedom with which God has endowed the human person, and the special supernatural dignity which a Christian receives at Baptism.

No priest who fulfils this duty of his ministry can ever be accused, except through ignorance or bad faith, of meddling in politics. Nor could it be said that his teaching interferes in the apostolic task which belongs specifically to the laity, of ordering temporal structures and occupations in a Christian fashion.