WHAT IS ENCYCLICAL?

• a papal letter sent to all

bishops of the Roman Catholic
Church.
 RERUM
RERUM
NOVARUM
NOVARUM
On the New
On the New
Things
Things
WHO WROTE THE RERUM
NOVARUM?

POPE LEO
XIII
WHO IS POPE
LEO XIII
• Pope from 1878 to 1903
• Known for his social reforms
and recognition of the rights
of the workers
HISTORY
HISTORY
Release Date: May 15, 1891
• Was passed for all Catholic Bishops
• An encyclopedia entitled “Rights and Duties of
Capital Labor”
• Talks about the relationships and duties of
labor and capital
• Supports the rights of labor, rejects
communism and affirms the rights to private
property
 Rerum novarum is subtitled "On the
Conditions of Labor". In this document,
Pope Leo XIII articulates the Catholic
Church's response to the social
conflict in the wake
of capitalism and industrialization which
had
provoked socialist and communist move
ments and ideologies
 Criticism of Socialism
Pope Leo XIII saw socialism as
fundamentally flawed, seeking to replace
rights and Catholic moral teaching with the
ideology of state power. He believed that
this would lead to the destruction of the
family unit, where moral, productive
individuals were taught and raised most
successfully
 In the encyclical, the Pope says:
To remedy these wrongs the socialists,
working on the poor man's envy of the
rich, are striving to do away with private
property, and contend that individual
possessions should become the common
property of all, to be administered by the
State or by municipal bodies.
 Rights and duties
To build social harmony, the pope proposes a
framework of reciprocal rights and duties between
workers and employers. Some of the duties of
workers are:
• "fully and faithfully" to perform their agreed-upon
tasks
• individually, to refrain from vandalism or personal
violence
• collectively, to refrain from rioting and insurrection
 Some of the duties of employers are:

• to provide work suited to each

person's strength, gender, and age
• to respect the dignity of workers and
not treat them as bondsmen
 THE ENCYCLICAL MENTIONS SEVERAL FUNDAMENTAL
PRINCIPLES TO GUIDE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN
CAPITAL AND LABOR.
• Dignity of the person
• Common good
• Subsidiarity
• Rights and duties of property ownership
• Preferential option for the poor
• Right of association
 Dignity of the person
• To respect their workers' dignity in the workplace,
employers should:
• give time off from work to worship God, and to fulfill
family obligations;
• give periods of rest, not expecting work for long hours
that preclude adequate sleep;
• not require work under unsafe conditions with danger of
bodily harm;
• not require work under immoral conditions that
endanger the soul;
• pay a fair daily wage, for which employees should give a
full day's work.
• 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. If through
necessity or fear of a worse evil the workman
accept harder conditions because an employer
or contractor will afford him no better, he is
made the victim of force and injustice.
 Common good
• Without recommending one form of
government over another, Pope Leo puts forth
principles for the appropriate role of the state.
The primary purpose of a state is to provide
for the common good. All people have equal
dignity regardless of social class, and a good
government protects the rights and cares for
the needs of all its members, rich and poor.
Everyone can contribute to the common good
in some important way
The Catechism of the Catholic Church lists
three principal aspects of the common
good:
1) respect for the human person and his
rights;
2) social well-being and development; and
3) peace, "the stability and security of a just
order."
 Subsidiarity
• Pope Leo strongly criticizes socialism
for seeking to replace the rights and
duties of parents, families and
communities with the central
supervision of the state.
Rights and duties of property ownership

• Private ownership, as we have seen, is the

natural right of man, and to exercise that right,
especially as members of society, is not only
lawful, but absolutely necessary. "It is lawful,"
says St. Thomas Aquinas, "for a man to hold
private property; and it is also necessary for
the carrying on of human existence."
 Preferential option for the poor
• 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.
• God Himself seems to incline rather
to those who suffer misfortune; for
Jesus Christ calls the poor "blessed";
(Matt.5:3) He lovingly invites those in
labor and grief to come to Him for
solace; (Matt. 11:28) and He displays
the tenderest charity toward the
lowly and the oppressed.
Situation of Workers
• Poverty was rampant
• Decline in public morality
• Exploitation of workers
• Government did not give attention to the poor
• The first social justice encyclical that was
written in response to the Industrial
Revolution
Issues addressed:
• Rights of workers to dignity in the workplace
• Proper pay for work
• Reasonable work hours
• Safe working conditions
• Prohibition of child labor
• Right to join labor unions
Role of the Church
• Speak about social matters that affect religion
and morality
• Gospel principles help reconcile and unify
social classes
• Educate people to act justly
Duties of workers/poor
• Work well
• Protect the property of the employer
• Refrain from violence and rioting
DECLARATIONS

The Pope declared that the role of

the state is to promote social
justice through the protection of
rights.
“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.”
DIGNITY OF THE POOR

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 In
earning their bread by labor.
The richer class have many ways of
shielding themselves and stand less in
need of help from the State; whereas
the mass of the poor have no
resources of their own to fall back
upon, and must chiefly depend upon
the assistance of the state.
It is for this reason that wage-earners, since they
mostly belong in the mass of the needy, should
be specially cared for and protected by the
government.
IMPACT AND LEGACY
Rerum Novarum has been interpreted as a
primer to Catholic response to the exploitation
of workers.
 NEXT DISCUSSION
Developing a Plan for Assessing Local
Needs and Resources

• https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/
assessment/assessing-community-needs-and-
resources/develop-a-plan/main