Leo XIV against Leo XIII

By Michael Pakaluk

Pope Leo XIV took his name to signal his closeness to Leo XIII, and yet, in his recent apostolic exhortation Dilexi te, his statements sometimes seem to contradict his predecessor: on the root of social evils, overcoming poverty, and private property.

For Leo XIV, the root of social evils is inequality. Reaffirming Francis, he states: “I can only repeat once again that inequality ‘is the root of social evils’” (n. 94). But for Leo XIII, in his first encyclical On the Evils of Society (Inscrutabili Dei consilio), the root of social evils is rather the rejection of Christianity by civil powers: “the source of the [social] evils lies mainly, we are convinced, in this: that the holy and venerable authority of the Church, which in the name of God governs mankind, upholding and defending all legitimate authority, has been despised and set aside” (n. 3).

The difference is not small, because if Christianity is not necessary, then, to eliminate social evils, it would suffice for civil powers to eradicate the “structures of sin”, that is, the structures of inequality. But if Christianity is necessary, then the most important policy of a civil power should be to foster, or at least facilitate, Christian belief and practice (for example, making it easy, and not difficult, for parents to send their children to religious schools).

In Rerum novarum, Leo XIII taught that the pursuit of equality is an unrealistic dream of socialism: “the condition of things inherent in human affairs must be borne with, for it is impossible to reduce civil society to one dead level. There are among men naturally immense and grave inequalities of the most important kind; people differ in capacity, skill, health, strength; and unequal fortune is a necessary result of unequal condition” (n. 17).

If someone were to respond that the inequality referred to by Leo XIV, following Francis, is not that of results or possessions, but that of recognition before the law and human dignity, then the nature of “poverty” changes radically, and the poorest members of our societies would be the unborn, because they are the ones whose equal human dignity is most generally denied worldwide. It would follow, then, that the Church’s “preferential option for the poor” must take the form of prioritizing the pro-life cause.

As for overcoming poverty, let us remember that Leo XIII was well informed about the economic science of his time thanks to his assistant, Fr. Matteo Liberatore, S.J.

The work of Adam Smith begins precisely with the observation that some countries are emerging from poverty and others are not, and wonders what explains the difference.

In current economics classes, it usually begins with the presentation of the hockey stick “graph”, which shows the astonishing worldwide economic growth of the last 300 years, and poses the question: what explains it? The answer, accepted by both Fr. Liberatore and Pope Leo, is the defense of the right to private property by civil power, and its recognition that individuals in their economic activity, and families, precede the State, that is, a free society and a free market. The State has a role in correcting abuses like oppressively long working hours, but, in general, a right administration of the State should suffice (nn. 32-33).

But the position of Leo XIV seems to deny the importance of that hockey stick “graph”: “The claim that the modern world has reduced poverty is based on measuring poverty with criteria from the past that do not correspond to current realities” (n. 13). He insists that poverty must be defined not in absolute terms, but relative to the standard of living of a particular nation.

However, if market processes for wealth creation have not reduced poverty (in that understanding), it follows that any confidence that they could continue to do so in the future must be the product of pure “ideologies”. And these are described in a caricatured manner, without corresponding to any position held by a responsible person today: such as “the defense of the absolute autonomy of the market” (n. 92), or the idea that “economic thinking requires us to wait for the invisible forces of the market to solve everything” (ibid.).

This apparent rejection of the free market is all the more disconcerting because, toward the end of his exhortation, where Leo calls for almsgiving, he first says that, of course, “it is better to find a job for a poor person than to give him alms” (n. 115). However, we cannot find jobs for the poor if someone does not create them first. Thus, it seems that even better than almsgiving, to serve the poor, would be the spirit of investment and entrepreneurship, within the framework of a well-regulated market.

Then Leo also seems to differ from Leo regarding the centrality of the natural right to private property. Leo XIII believed that both the rich and the poor were besieged by greed, and that, for the poor, greed often took the form of simply wanting to take from the rich what is necessary for their needs, instead of working to have something to offer in exchange.

Dilexi te, by Leo XIV, on the other hand, contains the following: “Therefore, every man has the right to possess a sufficient amount of the earth’s goods for himself and his family… People in extreme need have the right to take what they need from the riches of others” (the ellipses are in the original).

The second sentence is a quote from Gaudium et spes (n. 69), where a footnote provides all the necessary clarifications and a reference to St. Thomas Aquinas, to avoid malicious interpretations. Here, however, no such note is given. Moreover, the language of the conciliar Fathers is subtle (sibi procuret) and does not simply mean “to take” in a literal sense.

But now, if this statement—without qualifications—is combined with the idea that there is no absolute standard of poverty, and therefore no absolute standard of extreme need, the result is, to say the least, disturbing.

On social evils, poverty, and property—may the Leos roar in unison.

About the author

Michael Pakaluk, scholar of Aristotle and Ordinarius of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, is Professor of Political Economy at the Busch School of Business at The Catholic University of America. He lives in Hyattsville, MD, with his wife Catherine, also a professor at the Busch School, and their children. His collection of essays, The Shock of Holiness, will be published on August 25 by Ignatius Press. His book on Christian friendship, The Company We Keep, will be published this fall by Scepter Press. Both are available for preorder. He contributed to Natural Law: Five Views, published by Zondervan last May, and his most recent book on the Gospel was released by Regnery Gateway in March, Be Good Bankers: The Economic Interpretation of Matthew’s Gospel.

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