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The Busy Christian's Guide to Catholic Social Teaching Sponsored by |
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1760s-70s: Invention of the steam engine and cotton gin. 1800-25: 1815: 1848: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels issue The Communist Manifesto; socialism spreads. 1880-1915: Height of imperialism. (European control of Africa, parts of Asia, and India. U.S. involvement in Latin America.) 1886: battle between workers, socialists, and anarchists and police ends in the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago. American Federation of Labor founded. 1889: Cardinal Henry Edward Manning of Westminster becomes famous for supporting strike of London dockers; Hull House founded in Chicago by Jane Addams. 1890: Sherman Anti-Trust Act. 1891: Rerum novarum 1893: Panic of 1893 brings failure of 491 banks and over 15,000 commercial institutions. 1894: Pullman strike smashed by federal troops. 1900: Founding of Socialist Revolutionary Party of Russia. 1902: Peasant revolt in Russia suppressed. 1905: "Bloody Sunday" massacre in Russia. Moscow uprising crushed by government troops. 1911: Strikes and industrial unrest in Britain. Suffragette riots in Whitehall, London. Famine and revolution in China: Manchu dynasty overthrown. 1913: German Army Bill expands German army. 1914-18: World War I. 1917: Russian Revolution begins: Bolsheviks led by Lenin seize power. 1920: First full-time session of League of Nations. 1925: Adolf Hitler publishes Mein Kampf. 1926: General strike in Britain. 1929: Great Depression. Unemployment in Germany exceeds 3 million. 1930: German elections: 107 Nazis win seats in Reichstag. War breaks out between Paraguay and Bolivia. Revolution in Brazil. Revolution in Argentina. 1931: National Government formed in Britain after severe financial crisis. Japan invades Manchuria. Quadragesimo anno 1932: Hunger marches by unemployed in Britain. 1933: Hitler becomes German Chancellor, Reichstag burned. Franklin Roosevelt enunciates "Good Neighbor" policy: aid sent to Central and South America, U.S. troops withdrawn from Nicaragua. Japanese occupy China north of Great Wall; Japan leaves League of Nations after League condemns its actions in China. 1935: Germany reinstates conscription, repudiates military clauses of Versailles Treaty. 1936: German troops occupy Rhineland. 1937: Japanese take Nanjing and Shanghai ("Rape of Nanjing"). 1938: Austria declared part of German Reich after German occupation. 1939-45: World War II 1939: Fighting between Japan and Russia; Japanese repulsed. 1945: U.N. established. U.S. deploys first atomic bomb, destroying Hiroshima and, later, Nagasaki. 1947: India and Pakistan become independent. 1948: U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. 1949: Feminist Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex. 1950: Korean War begins. World population at 2.5 billion. "Population explosion" begins. 1952: First atomic submarine; U.S. explodes first hydrogen bomb. 1954: Senator Joseph McCarthy's anticommunist witch-hunt condemned by U.S. Senate. Vietnam split at 17th parallel: North Vietnam under Communist control. Cambodia becomes independent from France. 1955: Bandung Conference: 29 Afro-Asian nonaligned states gather to condemn colonialism. 1956: Martin Luther King, Jr. leads bus boycott in Alabama. Seven different governments in Haiti (to September 1957). 1957: Sputnik I and II launched by U.S.S.R. Common Market founded. 1957-67: Many African nations gain independence from colonial rule. |
Rerum novarum
English title: Author: Pope Leo XIII Date: May 15, 1891
The church has the right to speak out on social issues. Its role is to teach social principles and bring social classes together. The state's role is to create a just society through laws that preserve rights. Context: Much poverty. Because of the Industrial Revolution, workers are being exploited by profit-hungry employers. Public authorities are not protecting the rights of the poor. Innovation: First comprehensive document of social justice; brings the subject of workers' rights to light. Trivia: In 1841, while still a cardinal, Leo XIII started a savings bank for the poor. He was named a monsignor for his bravery during a cholera epidemic.
Quadragesimo anno English title: Author: Pope Pius XI Date: May 1931 Main points: After detailing the positive impact Rerum novarum has had on the social order—through the church, civil authorities, and now-flourishing unions—stresses that a new situation warrants a new response. Charges that capitalism's free competition has destroyed itself, with the state having become a "slave" serving its greed. Also, while the lot of workers has improved in the Western World, it has deteriorated elsewhere. Warns against a communist solution, however, because communism condones violence and abolishes private property. Labor and capital need each other. A just wage is necessary so workers can acquire private property, too. The state has the responsibility to reform the social order, since economic affairs can't be left to free enterprise alone. Public intervention in labor-management disputes approved; international economic cooperation urged. Innovation: Introduces the concept of "subsidiarity," saying social problems should be resolved on more local levels first. Trivia: Expands Rerum novarum's focus on poor workers to include the structures that oppress them.
Mater et Magistra English title: Author: Pope John XXIII Date: May 15, 1961 Main points: Enumerates the economic, scientific, social, and political developments that have taken place since Rerum novarum and Quadragesimo anno. Says there's not just a disparity between rich and poor classes anymore—there's a disparity between rich and poor nations. Decries arms race and the plight of the world's farmers. Arms spending contributes to poverty; peace would be possible if economic imbalances among nations were righted. It's the duty of wealthy, industrialized nations to help poor, nonindustrialized nations; but in giving aid, it is every country's duty to respect the latter's culture and to refrain from domination. Since technological advances have made nations interdependent as never before, cooperation and mutual assistance are necessary. Says all Catholics should be reared on Catholic social teaching. Context: Advancements such as nuclear energy, automation, space exploration, and improved communication technologies pose complex, new problems for industrialized nations. Meanwhile, millions live in poverty in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Innovation: "Internationalizes" social teaching by addressing, for the first time, the plight of nonindustrialized nations. Trivia: Stresses the popular Catholic Social Action motto "see, judge, act" as a model of effective lay involvement.
Pacem in terris English title: Author: Pope John XXIII Date: April 11, 1963 Context: Follows two early Cold War events—the erection of the Berlin Wall (August 1961) and the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962). Innovation: "Its optimistic tone and development of a philosophy of rights made a significant impression on Catholics and non-Catholics alike," say Henriot, DeBerri, and Schultheis in their book Catholic Social Teaching: Our Best Kept Secret. Trivia: First encyclical addressed to Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
Gaudium et spes English title: Author: Vatican II Date: December, 1965 Main points: Up to all Catholics, as the "People of God," to scrutinize the great technological and social changes—good and bad—that have transformed the world. (Names some of these changes—industrialization and mass communication, e.g.—and lists many changes they've effected in turn: greater gaps between rich and poor, overpopulation, rapid growth of city life, questioning of traditional values by the younger generation, etc.) Families, the foundation of society, are especially vulnerable to today's new trends; the Catholic Church should use culture more to spread the gospel; with new developments in weaponry, a new evaluation of war is needed. Context: The Cold War and arms race still loom. Discussion of Gaudium et spes was slotted after Belgium's Cardinal Joseph Suenens spoke up after the first session of Vatican II asking that the council also address issues more "external" than liturgical change. Innovation: First social teaching to represent opinions of the world's bishops. Trivia: This and other Vatican II documents initiate frequent use of the phrases "People of God" and "signs of the times."
Populorum progressio English title: Author: Pope Paul VI Date: March 26, 1967 Main points: The church, in response to Jesus' teachings, must foster human progress—progress not understood solely in terms of economic and technological advances, but in terms of fostering full human potential (i.e., social, cultural, and spiritual). Traces world conflicts to the root cause of poverty, advocating proper development as a means to peace. Wider disparity between rich and poor nations, exasperated by an inequity in trade relations that free trade is unable to correct: developing nations, exporters of cheap raw goods to industrialized nations, are unable to pay for expensive manufactured goods of industrialized nations. Supports international development agencies, such as a World Fund and Food and Agriculture Organization. Since the goods of the earth belong to all, the right to private property is subordinate: "the superfluous wealth of rich countries should be placed at the service of poor nations" ( 49). Context: The Vietnam War rages. African nations fighting wars of independence. Innovation: First encyclical devoted specifically to the issues of international development. Trivia: Coined the phrase, "development is a new word for peace." Go on to Part II of the Busy Christian's Guide to Catholic Social Teaching. Return to: |
Main points: Promotion of human dignity through just distribution of wealth. Present inequality creates a decline of morality as shown in alcohol consumption, prostitution, and divorce. Workers have basic human rights that adhere to Natural Law, which says all humans are equal. Rights include the right to work, to own private property, to receive a just wage, and to organize into workers' associations. Employers and employees each have rights and responsibilities: while the worker should not riot to create a situation of conflict with the employer, the employer should maintain an environment respecting worker's dignity.
Context: A response to the Great Depression, which began in 1929 and rocked the world. In Europe, democracy has declined and dictators have emerged to take power. Fortieth anniversary of 
Main points: The only way to ensure peace is to ensure a foundation that consists of specific social rights and responsibilities. The bulk of the encyclical goes on to list these, detailing rights and responsibilities that ought to exist (1) between people, (2) between people and their public authorities, (3) between states, and (4) among people and nations at the level of the world community. Some specifics: cultural changes demand that women have more rights; justice, right reason, and human dignity demand that the arms race must cease; the United Nations needs to be strengthened.
Explores relationship between Catholic Church and humanity. (While the church isn't bound to any party or social system, its mission "begins in this world"; all people called to improve the world; Jesus is the lord of history; etc.)
There's an urgency to seeing to these problems, Paul VI says: growing disparity tempts the poor to violence and revolution as possible solutions.