Communion of saints

SANCTORUM COMMUNIO
everything depends on its once more approaching the masses
which have turned away from it, and moreover in such a way
that the church brings the gospel into real contact with the
present situation of the proletariat, in full attentiveness to how
these masses look upon the gospel.
The objective spirit of the church in its present historical
conditions has not yet shown much awareness of this
problem.
Christian social work has had some admirable achievements.
But where is there to be found any objective discussion of the
gospel, the church, and the proletariat On my view it cannot
be gainsaid that the future and the hope for our 'bourgeois'
church lies in a renewal of its life-blood, which is only possible
if the church succeeds in winning the proletariat.
If the church
does not see this, then it will spurn a moment of the most serious
decision. Nor is it hard to see that the churchliness of the modern
bourgeoisie is threadbare, and that its living power in the church
is at an end. On the other hand it seems to me as if, despite
outward opposition in the proletariat, there is no modern power
which is basically more open to the Christian gospel than the
proletariat. The living proletariat knows only one affliction,
isolation, and cries out for one thing, community. These ideas
are of course entangled and confined in class consciousness.
Nevertheless they are seeking something more intensively than
the bourgeoisie ever did. The church dare not let the proletariat
proclaim 'human peace' without speaking its own word in
this situation. It must not let the socialist youth movements
speak of community without calling into their midst the word of
the sanctorum communio. It must not shrug off the interest in sport
shown by modern youth (not just the proletarians), but it must
recognise that this too is a cry for community in discipline and
struggle,
and that here too the Word of the sanctorum communio
could find attentive response. Certainly it will not be heard,
and cannot be heard, in the way it often speaks to-day. For above
all the gospel must deal with the present—and that means at this
moment the proletarian mass—in a concrete way, 'serving the
Lord' (Romans 12.11). But let there be no apotheosis of the
proletariat!
It is neither the bourgeois nor the proletarian which
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