The Intellectual Context of Rerum Novarum

Abstract

The subject of this article is the intellectual isolation of Roman Catholic — specifically papal — social doctrine, an isolation not only symbolized, but in some ways ratified and made permanent, by Rerum Novarum. I shall deal with it by posing and attempting to answer three related questions. Why did the Roman Church wait until 1891 before uttering any official teaching about the industrial economy? Why, when it did, was it so hostile to a market order? Why, in view of its lack of confidence in the market, was it so opposed to socialism? The short answer to all three questions is “The French Revolution.”