Rerum Novarum: Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor by Pope Leo XIII

(Rome: Vatican, 1891), 39

The chief good that society can possess is virtue.

Shortly after his election to the Papacy, Pope Leo XIV cited Rerum Novarum in explaining his choice of papal name, linking his planned response to the current technological revolution to Leo XIII's response to the Industrial Revolution:

Sensing myself called to continue in this same path, I chose to take the name Leo XIV. There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour.
–Pope Leo XIV, Address of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV to the College of Cardinals Saturday,10 May 2025

Rerum Novarum and the other Leonine Encyclicals along with the subsequent magisterium on Catholic Social Teaching, then, is helpful context for thinking about how Pope Leo may develop this magisterium.

Leo XIII provides an emphatic defense of private property and plea for Christian charity and morality in addressing the abuses of the working classes in his day. The principles outlined in this document have been foundational to the subsequent social teaching of the Church.

Leo names the central challenge: "The condition of the working classes is the pressing question of the hour."

He dismisses socialism as both ineffective and unjust. It is ineffective because it deprives one of liberty in disposing of his wages to better his condition. It is unjust because men have a natural right to private property.

Leo grounds his defense of private property within a defense of marriage and the family, because this property serves the first society of the family.

This private property ought to be used in accord with Christian morality. Following Thomas, Leo teaches that property is first to provide for the needs of our family and to live "becomingly"; after this, what is left over ought to be provided to the poor. Leo frames property as a form of stewardship rather than ownership for its own sake.

When what necessity demands has been supplied, and one's standing fairly taken thought for, it becomes a duty to give to the indigent out of what remains over...Whoever has received from the divine bounty a large share of temporal blessings, whether they be external and material, or gifts of the mind, has received them for the purpose of using them for the perfecting of his own nature, and, at the same time, that he may employ them, as the steward of God's providence, for the benefit of others.

Leo articulates the principle of distributive justice, [distributivam justitiam] (33): he sees the widespread ownership of productive private property as a means of cultivating flourishing and minimizing divisions between the classes. This idea inspires much of the subsequent articulation of distributism or localism by Chesterton, Belloc, and others.

He closes with a lengthy invitation to create labor unions in the model of the ancient guilds to protect workmen.

Throughout Rerum Novarum Leo emphasizes that solutions must be based in Christian morality and truth: "If human society is to be healed now, in no other way can it be healed save by a return to Christian life and Christian institutions". I look forward to hearing how our new Pope Leo XIV develops the stream of Catholic Social Teaching and the thought of Leo XIII in our age.

Notes

  • 1-2: Introduction and warning
    • "That the spirit of revolutionary change, which has long been disturbing the nations of the world, should have passed beyond the sphere of politics and made its influence felt in the cognate sphere of practical economics is not surprising." (1)
    • "It is no easy matter to define the relative rights and mutual duties of the rich and of the poor, of capital and of labor. And the danger lies in this, that crafty agitators are intent on making use of these differences of opinion to pervert men's judgments and to stir up the people to revolt." (2)
  • 3: The Problem: Unchecked competition with no labor protection, rapacious usury, concentration of wealth.
    • "Some opportune remedy must be found quickly for the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class: for the ancient workingmen's guilds were abolished in the last century, and no other protective organization took their place...Working men have been surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the hardheartedness of employers and the greed of unchecked competition." (3)
    • "Rapacious usury, which, although more than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless, under a different guise, but with like injustice, still practiced by covetous and grasping men." (3)
    • "The hiring of labor and the conduct of trade are concentrated in the hands of comparatively few; so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself." (3)
  • 4-11: Condemns Socialism as both ineffective and unjust. It is ineffective because it deprives one of liberty in disposing of his wages to better his condition. It is unjust because men have a natural right to private property.
    • "But [socialists'] contentions are so clearly powerless to end the controversy that were they carried into effect the working man himself would be among the first to suffer. They are, moreover, emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community." (4)
    • "When a man engages in remunerative labor, the impelling reason and motive of his work is to obtain property, and thereafter to hold it as his very own. If one man hires out to another his strength or skill, he does so for the purpose of receiving in return what is necessary for the satisfaction of his needs; he therefore expressly intends to acquire a right full and real, not only to the remuneration, but also to the disposal of such remuneration, just as he pleases. Thus, if he lives sparingly, saves money, and, for greater security, invests his savings in land, the land, in such case, is only his wages under another form; and, consequently, a working man's little estate thus purchased should be as completely at his full disposal as are the wages he receives for his labor."
    • Private property: "Every man has by nature the right to possess property as his own." (6)
    • "Man not only should possess the fruits of the earth, but also the very soil, inasmuch as from the produce of the earth he has to lay by provision for the future." (7)
    • "There is no need to bring in the State. Man precedes the State, and possesses, prior to the formation of any State, the right of providing for the substance of his body." (7)
    • "Those who deny these rights [to private property] do not perceive that they are defrauding man of what his own labor has produced...It just and right that the results of labor should belong to those who have bestowed their labor." (10)
    • "With reason, then, the common opinion of mankind...has found in the careful study of nature, and in the laws of nature, the foundations of the division of property, and the practice of all ages has consecrated the principle of private ownership, as being pre-eminently in conformity with human nature, and as conducing in the most unmistakable manner to the peace and tranquillity of human existence." (11)
  • 12-14: Defends Marriage and the Family, including property at the service of the family.
    • "No human law can abolish the natural and original right of marriage, nor in any way limit the chief and principal purpose of marriage ordained by God's authority from the beginning: "Increase and multiply." Hence we have the family, the "society" of a man's house - a society very small, one must admit, but none the less a true society, and one older than any State. Consequently, it has rights and duties peculiar to itself which are quite independent of the State." (12)
    • "It is a most sacred law of nature that a father should provide food and all necessaries for those whom he has begotten...Now, in no other way can a father effect this except by the ownership of productive property." (13)
    • "Inasmuch as the domestic household is antecedent, as well in idea as in fact, to the gathering of men into a community, the family must necessarily have rights and duties which are prior to those of the community, and founded more immediately in nature." (13)
    • "The contention, then, that the civil government should at its option intrude into and exercise intimate control over the family and the household is a great and pernicious error. (14)
    • "Paternal authority can be neither abolished nor absorbed by the State; for it has the same source as human life itself...Socialists, in setting aside the parent and setting up a State supervision, act against natural justice, and destroy the structure of the home." (14)
  • 15: Summarizes that Socialism is to be rejected, and the "first and most fundamental principle" to alleviate the condition of the masses is private property.
  • Solutions
  • 16: A remedy must be informed by the Church
    • "No practical solution of this question will be found apart from the intervention of religion and of the Church." (16)
  • 17-18: Striving against nature is in vain: work is difficult, people are different, sin and suffering are a reality
    • "The condition of things inherent in human affairs must be borne with...all striving against nature is in vain." (17)
    • "The consequences of sin are bitter and hard to bear, and they must accompany man so long as life lasts. To suffer and to endure, therefore, is the lot of humanity; let them strive as they may, no strength and no artifice will ever succeed in banishing from human life the ills and troubles which beset it." (18)
  • 19-20: The classes need not be at odds, but should dwell in harmony. Proposes minimum duties of workers and employers toward one another.
    • "Just as the symmetry of the human frame is the result of the suitable arrangement of the different parts of the body, so in a State is it ordained by nature that these two classes should dwell in harmony and agreement, so as to maintain the balance of the body politic." (19)
    • Duties of workers:
      • Perform work freely agreed upon
      • Not injure the person or property of employer
      • Not resort to violence or disorder
      • Not allow oneself to be preyed upon
    • Duties of employers:
      • Respect in every man his dignity as a person ennobled by Christian character
      • Ensure workers may attend to religious duties and not be led to neglect family or squander earnings
      • Not tax workers beyond strength or in work unsuited to their sex or age
      • Pay a "fair" wage: "Refrain from cutting down the workmen's earnings, whether by force, by fraud, or by usurious dealing; and with all the greater reason because the laboring man is, as a rule, weak and unprotected, and because his slender means should in proportion to their scantiness be accounted sacred."
  • ★21: The Church aims higher: view work in terms of eternity: our wealth matters not apart from how we use it, and our labor and sufferings become sweet when joined to those of Christ.
    • "But the Church, with Jesus Christ as her Master and Guide, aims higher still. She lays down precepts yet more perfect, and tries to bind class to class in friendliness and good feeling. The things of earth cannot be understood or valued aright without taking into consideration the life to come, the life that will know no death." (21)
    • "As for riches and the other things which men call good and desirable, whether we have them in abundance, or are lacking in them-so far as eternal happiness is concerned - it makes no difference; the only important thing is to use them aright." (21)
  • ★22: Man has a right to private property. After providing for one's family to live "becomingly", men with property have a duty to use that property to provide for those without.
    • "Therefore, those whom fortune favors are warned that riches do not bring freedom from sorrow and are of no avail for eternal happiness, but rather are obstacles; that the rich should tremble at the threatenings of Jesus Christ, and that a most strict account must be given to the Supreme Judge for all we possess." (22)
    • "It is one thing to have a right to the possession of money and another to have a right to use money as one wills."
    • Aquinas: "Man should not consider his material possessions as his own, but as common to all, so as to share them without hesitation when others are in need." (22, cf. Summa Theologiae, IIa-IIae, q. lxvi, art. 2, Answer.)
    • "No one is commanded to distribute to others that which is required for his own needs and those of his household; nor even to give away what is reasonably required to keep up becomingly his condition in life, 'for no one ought to live other than becomingly [convenienter].' But, when what necessity demands has been supplied, and one's standing fairly taken thought for, it becomes a duty to give to the indigent out of what remains over." (22, cf. Summa Theologiae, IIa-IIae, q. xxxii, a. 6, Answer; Lk-11)
    • Leo's summary: "Whoever has received from the divine bounty a large share of temporal blessings, whether they be external and material, or gifts of the mind, has received them for the purpose of using them for the perfecting of his own nature, and, at the same time, that he may employ them, as the steward of God's providence, for the benefit of others." (22, cf. St. Gregory the Great "He that hath a talent," said St. Gregory the Great, "let him see that he hide it not; he that hath abundance, let him quicken himself to mercy and generosity; he that hath art and skill, let him do his best to share the use and the utility hereof with his neighbor" in Homiliae in Evangelia)
  • 23-24: Poverty is no disgrace; rather the truth nobility in man is his virtue.
    • "As for those who possess not the gifts of fortune, they are taught by the Church that in God's sight poverty is no disgrace, and that there is nothing to be ashamed of in earning their bread by labor." (23)
    • "The true worth and nobility of man lie in his moral qualities, that is, in virtue; that virtue is, moreover, the common inheritance of men, equally within the reach of high and low, rich and poor; and that virtue, and virtue alone, wherever found, will be followed by the rewards of everlasting happiness." (24)
    • "God Himself seems to incline rather to those who suffer misfortune." (24)
    • "These reflections cannot fail to keep down the pride of the well-to-do, and to give heart to the unfortunate; to move the former to be generous and the latter to be moderate in their desires." (24)
  • 25-27: Christianity brings peace
    • Christian precepts bring peace in that they cause men to feel "that the blessings of nature and the gifts of grace belong to the whole human race in common, and that from none except the unworthy is withheld the inheritance of the kingdom of Heaven." (25)
    • "The Church does her utmost to teach and to train men." (26)
  • 27: Recall how Christ and his Church have transformed history; our recovery should draw from these roots
    • "Civil society was renovated in every part by Christian institutions...Of this beneficent transformation Jesus Christ was at once the first cause and the final end; as from Him all came, so to Him was all to be brought back." (27)
    • "If human society is to be healed now, in no other way can it be healed save by a return to Christian life and Christian institutions. When a society is perishing, the wholesome advice to give to those who would restore it is to call it to the principles from which it sprang." (27)
  • 28-29: The Church cares about not just spiritual welfare, but material welfare as well. Christian morality leads to temporal prosperity.
    • "Christian morality, when adequately and completely practiced, leads of itself to temporal prosperity, for it merits the blessing of that God who is the source of all blessings; it powerfully restrains the greed of possession and the thirst for pleasure-twin plagues, which too often make a man who is void of self-restraint miserable in the midst of abundance; it makes men supply for the lack of means through economy, teaching them to be content with frugal living, and further, keeping them out of the reach of those vices which devour not small incomes merely, but large fortunes, and dissipate many a goodly inheritance." (28)
  • 30-33: The state should not interfere excessively in private life, but it does have a duty to promote the common good and protect all its members, especially the poor and vulnerable.
    • "No human expedients will ever make up for the devotedness and self sacrifice of Christian charity. Charity, as a virtue, pertains to the Church; for virtue it is not, unless it be drawn from the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ; and whosoever turns his back on the Church cannot be near to Christ." (30)
    • "The foremost duty of the rulers of the State should be to make sure that the laws and institutions, the general character and administration of the commonwealth, shall be such as of themselves to realize public well-being and private prosperity." (32)
    • "As regards the State, the interests of all, whether high or low, are equal." (33)
    • "Among the many and grave duties of rulers who would do their best for the people, the first and chief is to act with strict justice - with that justice which is called distributive [distributivam justitiam] - toward each and every class alike." (33)
  • 34: All should contribute, but not all will contribute equally. The interests of the working class (housing, clothing, food) should be watched over by the state.
    • "But although all citizens, without exception, can and ought to contribute to that common good in which individuals share so advantageously to themselves, yet it should not be supposed that all can contribute in the like way and to the same extent. No matter what changes may occur in forms of government, there will ever be differences and inequalities of condition in the State." (34)
    • "Since the end of society is to make men better, the chief good that society can possess is virtue." (34)
    • "Justice, therefore, demands that the interests of the working classes should be carefully watched over by the administration, so that they who contribute so largely to the advantage of the community may themselves share in the benefits which they create-that being housed, clothed, and bodily fit, they may find their life less hard and more endurable." (34)
  • 35: The state must not overly interfere with families.
    • "The State must not absorb the individual or the family; both should be allowed free and untrammelled action so far as is consistent with the common good and the interest of others." (35)
    • "As the power to rule comes from God, and is, as it were, a participation in His, the highest of all sovereignties, it should be exercised as the power of God is exercised - with a fatherly solicitude which not only guides the whole, but reaches also individuals." (35)
  • 36-42: Ways in which the state should intervene to support the working class, especially through protecting the dignity of workers.
    • "Whenever the general interest or any particular class suffers, or is threatened with harm, which can in no other way be met or prevented, the public authority must step in to deal with it...the principle being that the law must not undertake more, nor proceed further, than is required for the remedy of the evil or the removal of the mischief." (36)
    • "When there is question of defending the rights of individuals, the poor and badly off have a claim to especial consideration." (37)
    • "The working man, too, has interests in which he should be protected by the State; and first of all, there are the interests of his soul." (40)
    • "No man may with impunity outrage that human dignity which God Himself treats with great reverence, nor stand in the way of that higher life which is the preparation of the eternal life of heaven." (40)
    • "The rest from labor is not to be understood as mere giving way to idleness;...Rest (combined with religious observances) disposes man to forget for a while the business of his everyday life, to turn his thoughts to things heavenly, and to the worship which he so strictly owes to the eternal Godhead." (41)
    • "If we turn now to things external and material, the first thing of all to secure is to save unfortunate working people from the cruelty of men of greed, who use human beings as mere instruments for money-making." (42)
    • "In all agreements between masters and work people there is always the condition expressed or understood that there should be allowed proper rest for soul and body." (42)
      • "His strength is developed and increased by use and exercise, but only on condition of due intermission and proper rest. Daily labor, therefore, should be so regulated as not to be protracted over longer hours than strength admits. How many and how long the intervals of rest should be must depend on the nature of the work, on circumstances of time and place, and on the health and strength of the workman." (42)
    • "Too early an experience of life's hard toil [does] blight the young promise of a child's faculties, and render any true education impossible." (42)
  • 43-45: Just wages
    • "To labor is to exert oneself for the sake of procuring what is necessary for the various purposes of life, and chief of all for self preservation...each one has a natural right to procure what is required in order to live." (44)
    • "Let the working man and the employer make free agreements, and in particular let them agree freely as to the wages; nevertheless, there underlies a dictate of natural justice more imperious and ancient than any bargain between man and man, namely, that wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earner." (45)
  • 46-47: Distribution of property
    • "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...The law, therefore, should favor ownership, and its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people to become owners." (46)
    • "Many excellent results will follow from this; and, first of all, property will certainly become more equitably divided...If working people can be encouraged to look forward to obtaining a share in the land, the consequence will be that the gulf between vast wealth and sheer poverty will be bridged over, and the respective classes will be brought nearer to one another." (47)
  • 48-61: Unions
    • "Such unions should be suited to the requirements of this our age." (49)
    • "It is this natural impulse which binds men together in civil society; and it is likewise this which leads them to join together in associations." (50)
    • "Private societies cannot be prohibited by public authority. For, to enter into a "society" of this kind is the natural right of man; and the State has for its office to protect natural rights, not to destroy them." (51)
    • "Laws only bind when they are in accordance with right reason, and, hence, with the eternal law of God." (52 cf. Summa Theologiae Ia-Ilae, q. xciii, art. 3, ad 2m: "Human law is law only by virtue of its accordance with right reason; and thus it is manifest that it flows from the eternal law. And in so far as it deviates from right reason it is called an unjust law; in such case it is no law at all, but rather a species of violence.")
    • Unions "must pay special and chief attention to the duties of religion and morality, and that social betterment should have this chiefly in view." (57)
    • "Age gives way to age, but the events of one century are wonderfully like those of another, for they are directed by the providence of God, who overrules the course of history in accordance with His purposes in creating the race of man. We are told that it was cast as a reproach on the Christians in the early ages of the Church that the greater number among them had to live by begging or by labor. Yet, destitute though they were of wealth and influence, they ended by winning over to their side the favor of the rich and the good-will of the powerful. They showed themselves industrious, hard-working, assiduous, and peaceful, ruled by justice, and, above all, bound together in brotherly love. In presence of such mode of life and such example, prejudice gave way, the tongue of malevolence was silenced, and the lying legends of ancient superstition little by little yielded to Christian truth." (59)
    • "The condition of the working classes is the pressing question of the hour." (60)
  • 62-64: Conclusion
    • "Every one should put his hand to the work which falls to his share, and that at once and straightway, lest the evil which is already so great become through delay absolutely beyond remedy." (62)
    • "In regard to the Church, her cooperation will never be found lacking, be the time or the occasion what it may; and she will intervene with all the greater effect in proportion as her liberty of action is the more unfettered." (63)
    • "The happy results we all long for must be chiefly brought about by the plenteous outpouring of charity; of that true Christian charity which is the fulfilling of the whole Gospel law, which is always ready to sacrifice itself for others' sake, and is man's surest antidote against worldly pride and immoderate love of self." (63)

Discussion Questions

  • What is the equivalent to "the land" (5), or productive property more generally, in today's economy?
  • Why is providing for ourselves a right? (7)
  • How should we think about "impressing your personality on the land" (9) in today's economy, when the agricultural labor share has gone from 40% in 1900 to 1% in 2020?
  • How might we re-frame the duties of workers and employers toward one another for our age? (20)
  • What does it mean to live becomingly [convenienter] (22)?
    • Is this where Leo misinterprets (or disagrees with) Thomas? "It is a duty, not of justice (save in extreme cases), but of Christian charity - a duty not enforced by human law." (22)
    • For another perspective, see David Bentley Hart's Christ's Rabble.
  • How should we use our talents to support those in need (cf. St. Gregory the Great in 22)?
  • Discuss distributism from 33: distributivam justitiam
  • How in our fatherhood can we "exercise as the power of God is exercised—with a fatherly solicitude"? (35)
  • What is the role of unions today in our lives as professionals, if any (48+)?

Topic: Encyclical, Catholic Social Teaching, The Leonine Encyclicals

Created: 2023-04-06-Thu
Updated: 2025-06-25-Wed