We can designate the legacy of Ariëns in the last hundred years in the revival of the Catholic labor movement, the Catholic women's movement, the Catholic working youth movement, the Catholic temperance movement, the Catholic people of journalism, the Catholic housing associations, the Catholic associations: from harmony to pigeon club. Ariëns at the beginning of the emancipation of the Catholic population in Nedrland and his organization virus pointed the way.
Ariëns has experienced that he is particularly pastor and not a journalist, politician, economist and entrepreneur. While the powerful of that time, enterprising liberals, religious leaders, shopkeepers and farmers opposed him: while socialist leaders made him black, while Christians cooperation should be forced to slip, Ariëns is ahead of its time. He pleads for movement from below, for free expression without interference by church leadership, in collaboration with others. He avoids conflicts and strikes, but he prefers to consult and negotiate.
We see in those hundred years how all the Catholic organizations in their own way which will develop principles. And we see a church leadership struggle with that emancipation. Only under Cardinal Alferink let the church leadership, the Catholic emancipation movements independently go their way. Ariëns has had more than his share of struggles in the direction of the Dutch Catholic Church of his time and he has not found a solution for it. Just as we have a solution for our time, the atoning work of Cardinal Alferink notwithstanding.
In a society where workers, women and youth are least esteemed, which they consider to be the most difficult and least valuable cost in the manufacturing process, choose Ariëns there from pastoral concerns for the personal, the unique human and binds to forms of community. The chaplain is loyal to his people and go through thick and thin to achieve something. Even if it costs him his health or his capital.
Now in our time the mass movements, who founded Ariëns are on their way out, we can still work his way out of the necessary learning. Even if we identify how the political forces people struggle between Purple and Fortuyn. Ariëns looking at people and listen to what interests them and what their desires are. Based on these stories and personal knowledge he brings together people who want the same thing together. He provides them with resources and warns others not to speak to their responsibilities. The practice of the current labor ministry in Twente proves the value of that method.
We have in our time powerful forms of communication and networking. We have many resources. The question, however, whether we know each other so personally or our agents want to work together. We know what need there is in the Netherlands today. What results will guide our efforts in the field of working, living, coexistence and political action?
