Rerum Novarum
Rerum Novarum
The title words of the Encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII on 15 May 1891 on the condition of labor. The Encyclical applies the old doctrines of traditional teaching concerning rights and duties of property and the proper relation of employer and employee to modern labor conditions. It refutes the false theories of the Socialists and defends the rights of private ownership. The true remedy it finds in the combined action of the Church, the State, the employer, and the employee. The Church being interested chiefly in the religious and moral aspects of social questions, the State has the duty and the right to intervene on behalf of justice and of social and individual well-being. Employers and workers it advises to organize into both mixed and separate associations for mutual and for self protection. The details set forth in the Encyclical reach practically all the principal problems and relations of industrial and social life. Thoughtful men look upon Pope Leo XIII’s Encyclical as the most fruitful and effective document on industrial justice thus far pronounced.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Rerum Novarum
The opening words and the title of the Encyclical issued by Leo XIII, 15 May, 1891, on the “Condition of Labour”. Although the Encyclical follows the lines of the traditional teaching concerning the rights and duties of property and the relations of employer and employee, it applies the old doctrines specifically to modern conditions. Opening with a description of the grievances of the working classes, it proceeds to refute the false theories of the Socialists, and to defend the right of private ownership. The true remedy, continues the pope, is to be found in the combined action of the Church, the State, the employer and the employed. The Church is properly interested in the social question because of its religious and moral aspects; the State has the right and the duty to intervene on behalf of justice and individual and social well-being; and employers and workers should organize into both mixed and separate associations for mutual protection and for self protection. All this is set forth with sufficient detail to reach the principal problems and relations of industrial and social life.
Probably no other pronouncement on the social question has had so many readers or exercised such a wide influence. It has inspired a vast Catholic social literature, while many non-Catholics have acclaimed it as one of the most definite and reasonable productions ever written on the subject. Sometimes criticized as vague, it is as specific as any document could be written for several countries in different stages of industrial development. On one point it is strikingly definite: “Let it be taken for granted that workman and employer should, as a rule, make free agreements, and in particular should agree freely as to wages; nevertheless, there is a dictate of natural justice more imperious and ancient than any bargain between man and man, that remuneration should be sufficient to maintain the wage-earner in reasonable and frugal comfort. 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.”. Although this doctrine had been a part of the traditional teaching for many centuries, it had never been stated with such precision and authority. As the years go by and thoughtful men realize more and more how difficult it is to define the full requirements of justice in the matter of wages, a constantly increasing number of persons look up on this statement of Leo XIII as the most fruitful and effective principle of industrial justice that has ever been enunciated.
———————————–
JOHN A. RYAN Transcribed by Frank O’Leary In Memory of Francis M. O’Leary, OBE, KSG
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIICopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York