Protagonists of our time

The Habemus Papam moment took many faithful's breath away; there was great anticipation for the name of the future pope and, above all, for the name he would choose. There was some surprise at the announcement, but then the shy smile and hands raised in a moving greeting unleashed joy. A few days later, Leo explained the reasons for his choice: the name recalls Leo XIII, who at the end of the nineteenth century had faced the challenges of the industrial revolution. The new Leo, however, will face those of Artificial Intelligence.

Let us return to the penultimate Leo to better understand the last. In particular, let us focus on the encyclical letter Rerum Novarum of 1891, the first (and decisive) step in the formation of the Church's social doctrine, which in the following decades saw the contributions of Paul VI, John Paul II, and Francis.

We are in the midst of the Second Industrial Revolution, a period characterized by unprecedented production expansion, growing intercontinental trade, and a colonial race that placed Western powers at the center of global power. Economic development does not follow a linear path, but is marked by frequent crises that lead to continuous restructuring of production. These changes lead to a system based on the dominance of finance and multinational corporations. Uneven but impetuous growth is based on a vast mass of workers, forced to sell their labor power under miserable conditions. Population growth and the abundance of labor allow capital to exploit wage laborers to the full. Socialism, which found its greatest revolutionary expression in Marxism, had already emerged in 1848 with the Communist Manifesto. The destruction of private ownership of the means of production was advocated as the solution to exploitation.

With the encyclical, the Pope acknowledged the excessive exploitation of the working class: if workers are treated like commodities and wages are too low, their dignity is diminished. Wages should be considered based on the individual's needs, not the relationship between supply and demand. At the same time, the Pope urged workers not to embark on the path of socialism, because it causes more problems than it solves: excessive capitalism may be unjust, but socialism is the wrong path. According to Leo XIII, the abolition of private property could lead to dire consequences: private property is, in fact, a natural human right: as rational beings, man requires property to satisfy his needs. Property supports the family and is a consequence of work. Furthermore, without property, society would descend into a situation of widespread conflict. The only viable solution is the charity of Christ, which translates into the rights and duties of workers and industrialists. When paying a worker their wages, the owner must demand the agreed-upon working hours, but must not exploit them and must preserve their dignity. Workers must work, they have the right to protest, but they must not destroy the industrialists' machines. In place of unions, the Church proposes corporations in which owners and workers are no longer opposed to each other, but—united in a single institution—aim to dialogue and collaborate. The state must then intervene to help the most vulnerable, favoring small-scale property.

Leo XIII's recommendations sparked both criticism and consensus and translated into extraordinary activism from the Catholic world in the union, social, and cultural spheres without precedent. In short, Catholics were the protagonists of their time.


NP June 2025
Renato Bonomo