Rola i miejsce człowieka w ustroju państwowym w świetle katolickiej nauki społecznej okresu międzywojennego

Abstract

This article presents the matter of the role and place of man in a political system of the state as seen by Catholic social teaching of the interwar period. According to this idea, the state originates from the human nature in which there is an innate tendency to unite with other as society in order to achieve security, peace and development. The state is therefore a command of the natural law which has been grafted in man by God. Whereas every society by operation of the natural law should have authority which would function in a given political system of the state. Regardless of the form of political system, a Christian state should however exist. One can consider a state’s character as a Christian one only if it displays the right attitude towards God’s commandments and commandments of the church, the superiority of moral law over human rights, as well as their predominance in both private and public life. According to many thinkers there was no Christian state in the interwar period. In the said period, the important factor in the failure of materialization of a Catholic state in Poland was the stand-up fight between the political groups invoking Catholicism. As a result, there was no coherent perspective on socio-political and economic transformation. This was the reason for the discouragement on the part of many enlightened Catholics from being active in public life which tended to attract unscrupulous people.