Rerum novarum facts for kids

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Quick facts for kids Rerum novarum Error: {{language with name/for}}: missing language tag or language name (help) Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII

Signature date	15 May 1891
Subject	On capital and labor
Number	37 of 85 of the pontificate
Text	In Latin In English
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Pope Leo XIII.

Rerum novarum (pronounced RAY-room NOH-vah-room) is a very important letter written by Pope Leo XIII on May 15, 1891. Its Latin name means "of revolutionary change," and it's also known as Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor. This letter was sent to all Catholic leaders, like bishops, around the world.

The main purpose of Rerum novarum was to talk about the difficult lives of working people during a time of big changes, like the Industrial Revolution. It discussed the fair ways that workers and business owners should treat each other. It also looked at the role of the government in helping its citizens.

Pope Leo XIII wanted to improve "the misery and wretchedness" that many working-class people faced. The letter supported the right of workers to form unions. It also said that both socialism (where the government controls everything) and unlimited capitalism (where businesses have total freedom) were not good. Instead, it strongly supported the right to own private property.

Rerum novarum is seen as a key document for modern Catholic social teaching. Many ideas from this letter have been built upon by later popes in other important letters, such as Quadragesimo anno by Pope Pius XI (1931), Mater et magistra by Pope John XXIII (1961), and Centesimus annus by Pope John Paul II (1991). Each of these later letters marked an anniversary of Rerum novarum's publication.

How the Letter Was Written
The Pope's Main Message
Rights and Duties for Everyone
Key Principles
Rights and Duties of Property Owners
Caring for the Poor
The Right to Form Groups
Impact and Legacy
Influence in Portugal
See Also

How the Letter Was Written

The first ideas and drafts for Rerum novarum came from Tommaso Maria Zigliara. He was a well-known scholar who taught at a famous university in Rome. He was also involved in helping to write other important letters from the Pope.

Other important thinkers who helped shape the letter included the German theologian Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler and the British Cardinal Henry Edward Manning.

The Pope's Main Message

Rerum novarum is also called "On the Conditions of Labor." In this letter, Pope Leo XIII shared the Catholic Church's views on the social problems that came with capitalism and the rise of factories. These changes had led to new ideas like socialism and communism.

The Pope explained that the government's job is to make sure there is justice by protecting people's rights. He also said the Church must speak up about social issues. Its role is to teach right from wrong and help different groups in society get along, reducing class conflict.

He repeated the Church's long-held belief that owning private property is very important. However, he also said that businesses should not have complete freedom. They must also consider what is morally right.

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.

Rerum novarum is famous for describing the tough lives of poor city workers in the 1800s. It also criticized unrestricted capitalism, which meant businesses could do whatever they wanted without rules. To fix these problems, the letter suggested forming trade unions and using collective bargaining. This means workers could join together to negotiate for better conditions, instead of always needing the government to step in.

The letter used old Church teachings and applied them to modern problems. Pope Leo XIII quoted Thomas Aquinas to say that private property is a basic natural right. He also quoted Gregory the Great about using wealth wisely: "He that hath a talent, 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." While liberalism also supports private property, communism tries to limit or remove this right.

Rerum novarum also highlighted the special importance of the poor in society. It showed God's care for them. This idea later became known as the "preferential option for the poor" in Catholic teaching.

Rights and Duties for Everyone

To help society live in peace, the Pope suggested that workers and employers have certain rights and duties toward each other.

Some duties for workers include:

Doing their agreed-upon jobs "fully and faithfully."
Not damaging property or hurting others.
Not starting riots or rebellions.

Some duties for employers include:

Giving work that fits each person's strength, gender, and age.
Respecting workers' dignity and not treating them like slaves.

By reminding both groups of their rights and duties, the Church helps them understand what is right. The Pope also said that governments should protect workers' rights and keep the peace. Laws should only get involved when necessary to stop unfair actions. Often, governments had only supported businesses and stopped workers from forming unions to get better conditions.

Key Principles

The letter shared several important ideas to guide how businesses and workers should interact.

Respecting Human Dignity

Pope Leo XIII stated that "working for gain is creditable, not shameful, to a man, since it enables him to earn an honorable livelihood." He said that God gives every person dignity, creating them in God's image with free will and immortal souls.

To respect workers' dignity, employers should:

Allow time off for worship and family duties.
Provide rest periods, not expecting overly long hours.
Not require work in unsafe or immoral conditions.
Pay a fair daily wage for a full day's work.

The Pope specifically mentioned dangerous jobs like mining and outdoor work in certain seasons. These jobs need extra protection. He also said that child labor was wrong because it stopped children from getting an education and growing properly.

A fair wage, according to Rerum novarum, means at least enough money for a worker to live on. Pope Leo suggested paying enough to support the worker, their spouse, and family, with a little extra for savings. He also thought women should work at home if possible.

Working for the Common Good

Pope Leo XIII did not say one type of government was better than another. Instead, he explained what a government's role should be. The main goal of any government is to work for the common good of everyone. All people have equal dignity, no matter their social class. A good government protects the rights and cares for the needs of all its people, rich and poor. Everyone can help the common good in some important way.

Leo said that no one should be forced to share their belongings. However, if someone has a lot of wealth, they have a duty to use it to help as many others as possible. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that the common good includes: 1) respecting every person and their rights; 2) social well-being and development; and 3) peace and a stable, fair society.

The Idea of Subsidiarity

Pope Leo strongly criticized socialism because it wanted the government to take over the roles of parents, families, and communities. He believed the government should not interfere with families, which are the basic building blocks of society.

However, if a family is in extreme trouble due to illness, injury, or disaster, the government should offer help. This is because each family is part of the larger society. Similarly, if there are serious problems within a family that they cannot solve, the government might need to step in to ensure fairness. Governments should only get involved when a family or community cannot or will not fulfill its own duties and rights.

Rights and Duties of Property Owners

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."

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.

Caring for the Poor

Leo XIII emphasized the importance and dignity of poor and working class people.

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.

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. And 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.

This idea of giving special care to the poor, called the "preferential option for the poor," was further developed by later thinkers and popes.

The Right to Form Groups

Pope Leo XIII explained the difference between the larger civil society (the public community) and smaller, private groups within it. Civil society exists to protect everyone's rights and the common good. Private groups serve different special purposes within society. Trade unions are one type of private group, and the letter focused on them: "The most important of all are workingmen's unions, for these virtually include all the rest.... [I]t were greatly to be desired that they should become more numerous and more efficient." Other private groups include families, business partnerships, and religious organizations.

Leo strongly supported the right of private groups to exist and manage themselves:

Private societies, then, although they exist within the body politic, and are severally part of the commonwealth, cannot nevertheless be absolutely, and as such, 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....

The State should watch over these societies of citizens banded together in accordance with their rights, but it should not thrust itself into their peculiar concerns and their organization, for things move and live by the spirit inspiring them, and may be killed by the rough grasp of a hand from without.

While Leo supported unions, he was cautious about some parts of the growing labor movement. He advised workers to form different groups if their union seemed to be going in the wrong direction.

Now, there is a good deal of evidence in favor of the opinion that many of these societies are in the hands of secret leaders, and are managed on principles ill-according with Christianity and the public well-being; and that they do their utmost to get within their grasp the whole field of labor, and force working men either to join them or to starve.

He also spoke against governments stopping religious groups and other Catholic organizations from existing.

Impact and Legacy

Rerum novarum has been seen as both a critique of socialism and a guide for how the Catholic Church should respond to the exploitation of workers. The letter also suggested the idea of a living wage, even though it didn't use that exact term. It said: "Wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earner. " An American economist named Msgr. John A. Ryan later developed this idea in his book A Living Wage (1906).

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1911) said that the document "has inspired a vast Catholic social literature." Many non-Catholics also praised it as "one of the most definite and reasonable productions ever written on the subject."

In 2016, the magazine Jacobin, which has a socialist viewpoint, said that Rerum novarum was "uncomfortably" positioned between workers and business owners. They felt it "both opened up space for anticapitalist critique and severely restricted its horizons..."

Influence in Portugal

In the 1930s, when António de Oliveira Salazar's government was established in Portugal, many key ideas from Rerum novarum became part of Portuguese law. The Estado Novo ("New State") government adopted the idea of corporatism as an economic model, especially for how workers and businesses related to each other.

Historian Howard J. Wiarda noted that the basic policies of the Estado Novo were deeply rooted in European Catholic social thought, especially those from Rerum Novarum. After 1890, many Portuguese thinkers, worker groups, and trade unions were influenced by these ideas. Wiarda concluded that the Catholic social movement was powerful and also fit well with older Portuguese traditions. These traditions included natural law, strong central control, and the idea of natural social orders and hierarchies.