The Indicator from Planet Money · Thursday, July 16, 2026
Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical 'Rerum Novarum' addressed the industrial transformations of his time, including the rise of socialism. While the Pope warned against radical state socialism and emphasized the dignity of private property, he also sided with workers on key issues, advocating for unions and a living wage.
“135 years ago, my venerable predecessor Leo the 13th observed the situation of factory workers, their families, uprooted and new forms of poverty, generated by rapid industrial transformation.”
“He says that families deserve the opportunity to own private property because that that provides a certain sense of dignity. And he's really concerned about the possibility of of sort of radical state socialism where there's no more private property.”
“That's in some ways the most important part and most radical part of this document is saying that workers deserve more than just enough to live on. It's very exciting to many people that the Pope or the Catholic Church doesn't just want you to get by. And doesn't just want you to make, you know, as many profits as possible for the owners of capital. That that particularly is is the part of Rerum Novarum that many people here and get excited about.”