Against the Titans. Peter Nguyen

have been capable. Indeed, the last entity from which people expected help is Christianity, yet people expect the churches not only to stand up for purely religious and ecclesiastical issues, those pertaining to canon law and the Christian mysteries, but also and, most importantly, to defend people as people. For the people, the efforts of the Christian churches mean the appearance of a final power capable of saving them. For the Church, a significant possibility arises with the responsibility to regain a spiritual leadership with the masses that have become estranged from the Church. The first question posed to the churches aims to discern whether the churches recognize the plight of the people, whether the churches are willing to advocate for the people, and whether they know that as a result of the personal efforts of their ministers they have the possibility to assume the internal leadership of the German people and of the Western people. The second question posed to the churches aims to discern basic human rights that the Church is willing to support. No direct political activity is expected from the churches, however; the contribution of the churches lies in awakening people and in providing people who are able and willing to collaborate. The fact that the involvement of the churches in any given situation will be misinterpreted by today’s state and this involvement will automatically have political effects should not deter the churches from taking on the immense task of the spiritual leadership of the people. The third question posed to the churches should attempt to achieve clarity about the possibility of coordinating the efforts of both the churches and non-church groups and to make effective arrangements to maintain such coordination. The churches should not adopt a political stance, but they [should be] willing to commit to doing justice [in the world]. In doing so, the churches should be concerned about the people as people without limitations. See Delp, Gesammelte Schriften. 4, 403–4.

      116. QA introduced the term social justice into the tradition of Catholic Social Thought. The term was coined by the nineteenth-century Italian theologian Luigi Taparelli D’Azeglio to replace Thomas Aquinas’ terms legal justice and general justice. The term social justice specified that the goal of social institutions is not competition but the common good. See: Christine Firer Hinze, “Quadragesimo Anno,” in Modern Catholic Social Teaching: Commentaries and Interpretations, 167.

      117. Roman Bleistein, Alfred Delp: Geschichte eines Zeugen (Frankfurt am Main: Josef Knecht, 1989), 269.

      118. Bleistein, Alfred Delp, 269.

      119. Delp’s commitment to building a humane liberal democratic society in Germany will be further examined in conjunction with his ecclesiology in chapter 3. Delp’s social and political ideas anticipate Vatican II’s Gaudium et Spes.

      120. Delp’s writings for the Kreisau Circle are explored in greater details in chapter 3.

      121. Roon, German Resistance to Hitler, 241.

      122. Ibid., 241.

      123. Major Claus von Stauffenberg was part of a conspiracy group that included Dietrich Bonhoeffer. They conspired to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Hermann Goering, and Heinrich Himmler and to replace the Nazis with a temporary, military government. The military government would make peace with the Allies and end the war. Though there were debates about the merits of a military overthrow of the Nazis, members of the Kreisau Circle ultimately did not believe and participate in the tyrannicide because they desired to rebuild a new Germany after its defeat by the Allies.

      124. For example, Peter Yorck von Wartenburg, Hans Bernd von Haeften, Adam von zu Trott were tried, sentenced, and executed in August of 1944.

      125. Bleistein, Alfred Delp, 1989, 327.

      126. Ibid., 377–78.

      127. Ibid., 321.

      128. Luise Oestreicher was the secretary of St. Georg’s parish.

      129. Delp, Gesammelte Schriften 4, 21–22.

      130. Ibid., 22–23.

      131. Ibid., 24.