ABSTRACT
Th e Christian Democratic movements, as has been seen, refer on the one hand-directly or indirectly-to the Christian revelation and the tradition of the Church, and on the other to the practical experience of lay Christians during the last four or five generations. From this combination of revelation and historical experience they have built up a set of principles for handling modern political, economic, and social problems; a comprehensive genuinely catholic synthesis, drawing on all the main currents of modern social thought. A movement with characteristics of these kinds has a clearly identifiable place in the general history of the Christian Churches. We have considered it so far in a relatively short perspective, covering only those few generations in which Christian Democracy has actually been coming to birth. It remains now to situate it in the longer perspective of Christianity as a whole.
