Catholic Social Teachings before Vatican II
by Serre Verweij
Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical is due to be released and almost certain to become a valuable addition to the collection of papal encyclicals dealing with social issues. This was to be expected, as he took the name Leo XIV as a reference to Pope Leo XIII, who became famous as the Pope who established Catholic Social Teaching (CST) through his encyclical Rerum Novarum in 1891. Pope Leo's teachings, and the tradition based on it, have unfortunately been frequently misunderstood or misrepresented, especially since the Second Vatican Council.
CST is not merely about economics. Sexual ethics, the protection of the family and children, the rights of the Church and so on are all part of CST. They are not only social matters, as they are also matters of sin, natural law and so on, but they are essential to the social order. CST does not supersede, and is not completely divorced from, moral theology. Economics are an important part of CST, as are guidelines of how the common good can be served and yet balanced with individual freedom and personal rights.
Beyond basic principles however, Catholic teachings on economics are far less stringent or unchanging than Catholic doctrine on faith and morals. This flows from the fact that economic policy is highly situational and that the Church has always taught the different spheres of the Church and the state. The application of CST is not micromanaged by the clergy, although certain progressive clergy often like to pretend it is.
To truly understand CST correctly, one has to start with Pope Leo XIII, all of his teachings (that provided the context for Rerum Novarum) as well as the magisterial background he was situated in. One thing that becomes clear from studying CST and its history is that the claim (pushed by the likes of Tony Annet), that CST is compatible with or remotely similar to “social democracy,” is a bald-faced lie.
A detailed analysis of Catholic social teachings, specifically the pre-Vatican II tradition, can help clear up myths and misconceptions. The tradition leans right rather than left.
Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum and Conservative Capitalism
The rising threat of socialism and socialist revolution was the important threat to which Rerum Novarum responded. Contrary to what is often claimed, the encyclical did not proclaim some kind of third way or actively espouse distributism. The document condemned socialism by name many times, but did not do the same with capitalism. It affirmed repeatedly private property and the right to pass it on to one's children and not as some secondary or largely conditional right. It also affirmed natural inequality and social hierarchy and supported low taxes. The role it assigned to the state to regulate the economy was relatively limited. The state could have somewhat of a supervising role when labor conditions or wages were negotiated and should help ensure that property ends up being distributed as widely as possible.
Instead the encyclical advocated a return to traditional morality, hierarchy and Christian charity to deal with the effects of the Industrial Revolution. The encyclical had a holistic and transcendent view of the state and society, rather than a worldly or materialistic one.
"Now a State chiefly prospers and thrives through moral rule, well-regulated family life, respect for religion and justice, the moderation and fair imposing of public taxes, the progress of the arts and of trade, the abundant yield of the land — through everything, in fact, which makes the citizens better and happier."
Its most anti-liberal element was its rejection of a hypocritical tendency prominent among liberals of that time to prohibit all trade unions despite their professed support for freedom of association. Pope Leo XIII supported the existence of Catholic trade unions to counter socialist ones.
Rerum was in fact not even Pope Leo's first encyclical dealing with social issues, though it became his most well-known on the topic. Already in his election year (1878) he released the encyclical Quod Apostolici Muneris, which condemned socialism, communism and nihilism. In Graves de Communi Re in 1901, he would once again condemn socialism, as well as certain harmful tendencies within Christian Democracy. He specifically rejected attempts to democratize the Church or to reject Church supervision of Catholic politics. He even questioned the use of the name Christian Democracy itself.
Pope Benedict XV and Pope Saint Pius X
Pope Leo XIII's teachings were followed rather faithfully and without change. Pope Saint Pius X and Pope Benedict XV largely reaffirmed and repeated the themes of Rerum Novarum: the condemnation of socialism, defense of natural inequality, legitimate authority, private property and the family.
In 1910, Pope Pius X condemned the 'Christian socialist' Sillon movement in France in his encyclical Notre charge apostolique. He criticized the movement for suggesting God's authority is given directly to the people, rather than to the Church hierarchy. He also criticized them for promoting a one-world Church by promoting union with non-believers.
In his first encyclical, Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, Pope Benedict XV fully and unequivocally repeated the condemnations of Socialism contained in Rerum Novarum. He also explicitly proclaimed the classical liberal notion that workers by working harder within the market system could improve their existence, rather than by embracing socialism.
Pope Pius XI, the Great Depression and Fascism
The second significant encyclical issued was Quadragesimo Anno by Pope Pius XI in 1931, exactly 40 years after Rerum Novarum and during the height of the Great Depression. Pope Pius XI was the first Pope to take a more critical stance on the free market and on unbridled capitalism, yet he also did not condemn capitalism as such, only unbridled capitalism. He favored a regulated (to whatever extent) market over the absolute free market.
Quadragesimo Anno strongly reaffirmed and sharpened Rerum Novarum. On private property, the condemnation of socialism and the affirmation of a society based on divinely granted authority, Quadragesimo Anno did both. Specifically it stated that the natural right to property was such that it could not be violated even when property is not used or misused. At the same time the encyclical introduced the distinction between the right to possession and the usage of private property, stating that the latter could be legitimately regulated by the state. Additionally, he explicitly rejected the notion of a fully unregulated market. He noted how the unlimited free market (that had been prominent during the Roaring Twenties) had ironically paved the way for economic dictatorship. The encyclical went further in supporting labor law than Rerum Novarum, was sympathetic toward workers getting influence or some ownership of the businesses they served and promoted cooperative orders. Yet, the encyclical acknowledged the profit motive and even that rich people could try to get richer as long as this was not done in immoral or harmful ways.
The encyclical also helped counter excessive statism or totalitarianism by popularizing the concept of subsidiarity, where whenever realistically possible, issues should be dealt with at the lowest and most local level possible, rather than centrally micromanaged. This concept became very influential within Christian democracy.
Quadragesimo Anno acknowledged the increasing separation and distinction between communism and (moderate) socialism, but clarified that even socialism that upholds private property and rejects class struggle, remains at odds with the Catholic faith.
As a result, with Quadragesimo Anno, both raw capitalism/laissez-faire capitalism, communism and (moderate) socialism (including social democracy) all became untenable positions for a Catholic, yet this still left a large spectrum of options between the extremes Catholics could choose from. Regulated market capitalism, ordo-liberalism and Christian democracy, moderate Dirigism, mixed ownership economy, conservative decentralized corporatism, statist corporatism and even neo-feudalism were all viable options. From the Rhineland model to the older model in the Netherlands, the encyclical and its ideal could be implemented in many contexts.
Quadragesimo Anno was strongly supportive of the more classical bottom-up corporatism popular among authoritarian conservative regimes such as Salazarist Portugal and Austria under the Fatherland Front. Both regimes have wrongly been called fascist by Marxists, while Salazar actually outlawed the fascist movement in Portugal and criticized both Nazism and Fascism, whereas the Austrian regime was the first government to actively fight the Nazis. While progressives and socialists have criticized these regimes for being anti-democratic, they prevented a democratic takeover by either Nazis or Communists. The Austrian chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss was in fact the only head of government to have been murdered by the Nazis.
On statist corporatism and related national syndicalism, Quadragesimo Anno was more ambiguous. The encyclical praised the corporatist system for promoting class cooperation and repressing socialism, while noting both the possible risks of statism and that it would mainly be used to serve certain political ends. Pope Pius XI was rather ambivalent about Italy in general even then, whereas he consistently and fiercely opposed Nazism along with Communism early on. Pope Pius XI would come to strongly oppose Mussolini after he abandoned his support for Austria, drifted toward Nazism and embraced anti-Semitism.
Overall the encyclical was crucial for both reaffirming and strengthening the affirmation of private property and the rejection of all forms of socialism, while at the same time allowing economic intervention that remains in line with Catholic doctrine.
Pope Pius XII
While Pope Pius XII did not issue any major new encyclical on social issues, he did push the Church in a different direction on several issues (for better or worse). He has been criticized by some for not opposing Allied support for the Soviet Union sufficiently.
Pope Pius XII initially followed Pius XI in trying to prevent WWII and supporting (semi-)authoritarian conservative opposition to Nazism. He also took an active role in supporting the military German resistance that tried to assassinate Hitler. After the final attempt in July 1944 failed, the reactionary and ultraconservative (far right) military and political resistance in Germany was mostly exterminated.
When the plot failed, it became clear that a liberal Allied victory (with the help of the USSR) was inevitable, while reactionary and authoritarian conservative opposition had been decimated by Nazis and Communists. Corporatism and the third way, while not a part of Nazism but only of Fascism (and then only the statist form), nevertheless suffered from guilt by association.
Pope Pius XII chose Western capitalism and liberal democracy over the communist world and embraced the struggle against Stalin before the USA did. In his 1944 Christmas address he praised democracy as a legitimate and perhaps desirable form of government and contrasted it with pure mob-rule, which he discouraged (while still not rejecting monarchy or attacking absolute monarchy). At the same time his embrace of capitalism was more of the center-right and Christian democratic variety. He actively supported the (re)establishment of the Christian Democrats in Italy and hoped they could counter communism. While he moved away from corporatism or support for workers also getting a say over how businesses were run, he ironically also started to speak of the universal destination of goods and the importance of fairness toward less fortunate countries:
In the field of a new order founded upon moral principles, there is no place for narrow selfish calculations that tend to monopolize for themselves the economic resources and materials for common use, in such a way that nations less favored by nature are excluded. On this point, it is a great consolation to Us to see how the necessity of a participation by all in the goods of the earth is affirmed — even by those nations that, in the realization of this principle, would belong to the category of those "who give" and not to those "who receive." But equity demands that a solution to this question — decisive for the economy of the world — be achieved methodically and progressively, with the necessary guarantees, and that it profit from the lessons of the errors and omissions of the past.
Also, whereas Pope Benedict XV had promoted the ideal of an international organization dedicated to preserving peace, yet been openly skeptical regarding the League of Nations when it was founded, Pope Pius XII took a significantly more positive stance toward the United Nations. He also signaled a shift in the Church's stance on migration, promoting migration as a legal right in his encyclical Exsul Familia Nazarethana in 1952. He even supported the historically dubious claim that the Holy Family were migrants and refugees in Egypt (which like Judea fell under the Roman Empire). Ironically, Pope Leo XIV, while speaking strongly of the importance of the humane treatment of migrants, has spoken less of a right to migrate as such by comparison.
Overall, Pope Pius XII was significantly influenced by post-WWII optimism and moderate progressivism while remaining a firm anti-communist. This was also reflected in his greater openness toward the ecumenical movement. Yet his tendency toward Christian democracy remained right-leaning, and the anti-Nazi Pope had no conflict with either Francoist Spain or Salazarist Portugal.
Conclusion
Catholic social teachings always rejected not just materialism but a naturalistic or populist understanding of the faith. CST was and is anchored in reverence for God and His Church and respect for natural law.
Socialism has always been fought tooth and nail by the Church, including by the key heroes in the fight against Nazism. Christian Socialism is, as Blessed Pope Pius XI said, a contradictio in terminis. While under Pope Pius XII Rome started to act more sympathetic toward certain utopian novelties, the Catholic tradition of social justice has always been both anti-egalitarian and aimed at the Kingdom of God.
