In the
previous posting on this subject, we learned that, while Pope Leo XIII
started off his pontificate by continuing the condemnation of the “new things”
of socialism, modernism, and “New Age” thought, people just weren’t “getting
it.” Despite the work of Msgr. Aloysius
Taparelli, S.J. in developing a philosophically sound principle of social
justice, the socialists had seized on the term and made it their own by giving
it a definition that conformed to socialism instead of to natural law.
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| Henri de Saint-Simon |
Taking back
social justice could wait, however, but the danger of socialism could not. The principle of the New Christian socialist Henri
de Saint-Simon, that everything is to be subordinated to material betterment,
had permeated virtually the whole of society.
Worse, Leo XIII had discovered that the traditional focus of the Church
on faith and reason was having little if any effect. A new approach was needed to combat the new
things.
The New York City
mayoral campaign of 1886 triggered a breakthrough in the manner of presenting
Catholic social teaching, which some have mistaken for a change in
teaching. Campaigning against Abram
Stevens Hewitt (1822-1903), Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (1858-1919), and a few
“also-rans,” the agrarian socialist Henry George (1839-1897), supported by his colleague,
the Catholic priest Father Edward McGlynn (1837-1900), ran on a platform
derived from George’s book, Progress and
Poverty (1879).
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| Abram Stevens Hewitt |
George declared
if elected mayor he would establish the Kingdom of God on Earth. He would do this by founding a New
Christianity and abolishing private property in land to bring temporal
salvation to humanity and inaugurate a terrestrial paradise.( Sylvester L. Malone, Dr. Edward McGlynn. New
York: Dr. McGlynn Monument Association, 1918, 12; Stephen Bell, Rebel, Priest and Prophet: A Biography of
Dr. Edward McGlynn. New York: The
Devin-Adair Company, 1937, 27.)
How George expected his New Crusade (ibid.) would do so has never
been explained.
Summoned
repeatedly to the Vatican to explain his views on land ownership, McGlynn
refused and was excommunicated for disobedience July 4, 1887 (effective July 5,
due to the holiday). In the meantime, an
encyclical that began as a particular response to the controversies stirred up
by George and McGlynn was expanded to address all forms of socialism (“Opposed to Henry Georgism,” The Milwaukee Journal, April 30, 1887, 1).
 |
| Pope Gregory XVI |
Half a century
before, Gregory XVI’s Mirari Vos had
been revolutionary as an encyclical that addressed social matters instead of
religious, philosophical, or theological issues. Nearly four years in preparation and
involving consultation with a number of experts, Leo XIII’s new encyclical was
equally revolutionary as a Catholic social document. This has led to the mistaken belief that Rerum Novarum — the term comes from a
phrase in Gregory XVI’s Singulari Nos
— was the first social encyclical.
Instead of merely
warning against the new things of the modern world (especially socialism) on
the grounds that they are opposed to faith and reason, however, the new
encyclical presented a pragmatic solution to the problems of both capitalism
and socialism: widespread ownership of capital.
Leo XIII’s long experience as both a civil and religious leader — he
became pope at an age when most men had already retired — gave him a unique and
practical knowledge of how society actually works that the socialists,
modernists, and New Agers could not match.
 |
| Pope Leo XIII |
Pecci’s terms as
papal governor of Benevento (1838-1841) and Perugia (1841-1843), then as nuncio
to Belgium (1843-1846), and finally Archbishop-Bishop of Perugia (1846-1878)
were exemplary both for the future pope’s administrative efficiency and
attention to the needs of the poorest of the poor. (As nuncio
to Belgium, Leo XIII had been made titular Archbishop of Damietta. His appointment to Perugia, a bishopric, was
technically a demotion, so the hyphenated title was granted to stress the fact
that he had not been degraded.) He concentrated his efforts in four
areas: 1) reform and training of the clergy, 2) education for all, 3) promoting
widespread capital ownership, and 4) resisting the intrusion of the State into
individual, family, and religious life.
This vast
experience and knowledge are what Leo XIII applied to resolve not merely the
stated conflict between “labor” and “capital” (meaning owners of labor and
owners of capital, respectively), but to lay the foundation for rebuilding the
whole of the common good. In this way
the social order would not become a “Heaven on Earth,” but provide the
environment within which every child, woman, and man has access to the
opportunity and means to acquire and develop virtue.
 |
| Henry George |
Ordinary people
could become not the gods of the New Age or the slaves of capitalism and
socialism, but more fully human by acquiring control over their own lives
through direct capital ownership. As the
pope explained,
We have seen that this great
labor question cannot be solved save by assuming as a principle that private
ownership must be held sacred and inviolable.
The law, therefore, should favor ownership, and its policy should be to
induce as many as possible of the people to become owners. (Rerum Novarum, § 46.)
There was only
one problem. Despite all his experience
and practical knowledge, the pope had only a limited grasp of money, credit,
banking, and finance.
In common with
many of the leading experts at the time, Leo XIII believed that the only way to
finance new capital formation (i.e.,
invest) is to produce more than is consumed, and accumulate the excess as money
savings. These savings can then be used
to purchase land or develop a business.
As he said,
If a workman's wages be
sufficient to enable him comfortably to support himself, his wife, and his
children, he will find it easy, if he be a sensible man, to practice thrift,
and he will not fail, by cutting down expenses, to put by some little savings
and thus secure a modest source of income. (Ibid.)
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| Father Edward McGlynn |
As would be the
case with distributism a few decades later, the problem here is twofold. One, by limiting the source of savings to
what can be accumulated by restricting consumption (“practicing thrift”), only
people who can afford to cut consumption will be able to save and invest, and
that, to all intents and purposes, means only the rich can afford to own
capital.
Two, by implying
that the only source of capital is that which is already owned by others, Leo
XIII’s program relied on the willingness of wealthy owners to divest themselves
of their capital voluntarily. Anything
else would destroy that private ownership the pope had already insisted must be
regarded as “sacred and inviolable.”
Despite the
revolutionary genius embodied in Rerum
Novarum, there remained no practical means to implement Leo XIII’s vision. Even in America, the one country where it had
been possible to obtain land on easy terms under Abraham Lincoln’s 1862
Homestead Act, the “free land” had nearly all been taken by 1891 when the
encyclical was issued.
Nor were the
capitalists, socialists, modernists, and New Agers slow to take advantage of
these weaknesses.
#30#
