The social encyclical Rerum Novarum, published in 1891, created a wake of exuberant Catholic action in the work sphere. This encyclical functioned like a prophet’s call for action, and Catholics responded. John Ryan, a priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis used the spirit and content of the encyclical to analyze what is a living wage for workers. Various worker groups developed to support laborers and to suggest how society could improve. Among these groups was the JOCists (Young Christian Workers) which blossomed into a huge international association by the 1920s.
But this social encyclical was not the last word on the subject of social concern. The clouds of socialism, which grabbed social territory by virtue of a violent Communist Revolution in Russia, and the emergent fascism, first in Italy (ca. 1922, notably close to the Vatican) and spreading elsewhere (Austria-Germany) loomed in the European arena in the 1920s and 1930s. Both were atheistic in their own way. Both were movements of centralization of power through might. These were threats to the ordinary person.
In the midst of this, Pope Pius XI penned another social encyclical, Quadragesimo Anno (Forty Years [later]), in which he attributed his predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, with insight into the condition of workers, but which now needed further explication from the perspective of faith. Pius defends the worker’s right to form unions, but these are not sledgehammers to destroy ownership.
The Pope admonishes the notion of a completely centralization of government control of the economy. He counters with the principal of subsidiarity. This principal espouses that a local group of persons have the right to exercise control of their affairs until such time that they need assistance from outside (above). Only then does larger government employ its influence, and only in a measured way. Of course, the atheistic quality of Socialism is condemned.
The tradition of social teaching via encyclicals continues in the 1960s by Pope John XXIII. He promulgates two encyclicals: Mater et Magistra [1961], about the Church’s positive role in and advice to the world, while espousing the positive contributions from the world (e.g., the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights), and Pacem in Terris [1963], where the Church contends with (condemns) the crazed imperial nuclear race (and will again challenge the world’s nuclear weapons stockpiling and threats in the document Gaudium et Spes [1965]). In each encyclical the longer tradition of addressing the social concern of the day is cited, hence “creating” a corpus of thought building on each other and expanding its range and application.
If there is anything for which Catholics can be proud of the Church, this body of social teaching is one of them. It is one of the best articulations of applying the gospel to actual conditions in modern times. It is one of the best expressions of the Church as an institution adding its input into the world’s institutions. And the tradition has continued.
It is one hundred nineteen years since Rerum Novarum was promulgated. I anticipate that Pope Benedict XVI will take advantage of the round numerical anniversary (120 years) to pen a social encyclical. Already his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est [2005], addressed what constitutes Christian charity and work for justice in describing how love is expressed.
As long as there is injustice there will be a need for the Church to express her ideals, call her members to practice justice, and condemn the sources of injustice. That cannot be said just once; once is not enough.
Once was not enough
