Rerum Novarum: The Root of Catholic Social Teaching

From the excellent and little-used Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church.  Excerpts:

...In response to the first great social question, Pope Leo XIII promulgated the first social Encyclical, Rerum Novarum[143]. This Encyclical examines the condition of salaried workers, which was particularly distressing for industrial labourers who languished in inhumane misery. The labour question is dealt with according to its true dimensions. It is explored in all its social and political expressions so that a proper evaluation may be made in the light of the doctrinal principles founded on Revelation and on natural law and morality.

Rerum Novarum lists errors that give rise to social ills, excludes socialism as a remedy and expounds with precision and in contemporary terms “the Catholic doctrine on work, the right to property, the principle of collaboration instead of class struggle as the fundamental means for social change, the rights of the weak, the dignity of the poor and the obligations of the rich, the perfecting of justice through charity, on the right to form professional associations”[144].

Rerum Novarum became the document inspiring Christian activity in the social sphere and the point of reference for this activity[145]. The Encyclical's central theme is the just ordering of society, in view of which there is the obligation to identify criteria of judgment that will help to evaluate existing socio-political systems and to suggest lines of action for their appropriate transformation.

Rerum Novarum dealt with the labour question using a methodology that would become “a lasting paradigm” [146] for successive developments in the Church's social doctrine. The principles affirmed by Pope Leo XIII would be taken up again and studied more deeply in successive social encyclicals. The whole of the Church's social doctrine can be seen as an updating, a deeper analysis and an expansion of the original nucleus of principles presented in Rerum Novarum. With this courageous and farsighted text, Pope Leo XIII “gave the Church ‘citizenship status' as it were, amid the changing realities of public life” [147] and made an “incisive statement” [148] which became “a permanent element of the Church's social teaching”[149]. He affirmed that serious social problems “could be solved only by cooperation between all forces” [150] and added that, “in regard to the Church, her cooperation will never be found lacking”[151]...(articles 89-90)