Brian Easton says while many of the world’s Christian religions seem preoccupied with personal issues that Jesus, their founder, barely touched upon, they must engage with economic issues too

Robert Prevost, chose the name Leo on becoming the 267th Bishop of Rome – the Pope – in homage to Leo XIII (in office 1878-1903) who issued the 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum or the Rights and Duties of Capital and Labour. A foundational text of modern Catholic social teaching it covered the relationships and mutual duties between labour and capital and between government and its citizens, arguing there needs to be some amelioration of ‘the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class.’ It reflects the Church coming to grips with modern industrial society. While it rejected unrestricted capitalism, it affirmed the right to private property; while rejecting Marxism (unrestricted socialism), it supported the rights of labour to form unions.

Its theses have been developed by three further encyclicals, the most recent of which was John Paul II's 1991 Centesimus Annus: The Centenary of Rerum Novarum. (See my discussion on the encyclical here.) Its publication coincided with the enactment of the Employment Contracts Act, which New Zealand’s Catholic bishops had already rejected as inconsistent with their Church’s teachings. (An even greater irony was that all three key politicians promoting the act – Jim Bolger, Bill Birch and Ruth Richardson – had Catholic upbringings.)

In 1986, a few years before, the United States Catholic bishops published a pastoral letter Economic Justice for All. Its thinking almost certainly impacted on Centesimus Annus. It certainly impacted upon Robert Provost, then working in Peru and America, who became a bishop in 1989.

It is a fascinating document for even a non-Catholic economist because it is grappling with issues central to how to organise an economy, applying the social teaching to a practical challenge. The letter was written at a time when the Reagan administration was implementing libertarian policies of laissez-faire capitalism, and it may be interpreted as a reaction to what was seen as hostility towards the Catholic Church's teachings on social justice.

The letter was greatly influenced by American philosopher John Rawls, whose seminal Theory of Justice, has been described as the most important book on political philosophy written in the twentieth century. (Rawls contemplated becoming an Episcopalian priest. His analysis goes back to Immanuel Kant who goes back to Jesus’s ‘do to others ...’)

The bishops say that they have not written ‘a blueprint for the economy. It does not embrace any particular theory of how the economy works, nor does it attempt to resolve the disputes between different schools of economic thought. Instead, the letter turns to Scripture and the social teachings of the Church. There, we discover what our economic life must serve, what standards it must meet.’

They set down those standards as:

(i) Every economic decision and institution must be judged in the light of whether it protects or undermines the dignity of the person.

(ii) Human dignity can be realised and protected only in a community.

(iii) All people have a right to participate in the economic life of society.

(iv) All members of society have a special obligation to the poor and vulnerable.

(v) Human rights are the minimum conditions for life in community.

(vi) Society as a whole, acting through public and private institutions, has a moral responsibility to enhance human dignity and protect human rights.

The bishops go on, ‘In Catholic teaching, human rights include not only civil and political rights but also economic rights …. all people have a right to life, food, clothing, shelter, rest, medical care, education, and employment.’

Here are some quotations (in page order) when they apply these principles:

‘Sustaining a common culture and a common commitment to moral values is not easy in our world …. One of our chief hopes in writing this letter is to encourage and contribute to the development of the common ground.’

‘Social justice implies that persons have an obligation to be active and productive participants in the life of society and that society has a duty to enable them to participate in this way.’

‘The obligation to provide justice for all means that the poor have single most urgent claim on the conscience of the nation.’

‘The Church fully supports the right of workers to form unions ... to secure their rights to fair wages and working conditions. … Unions may also legitimately resort to strikes where this is the only available means to justice owed to workers. … No one may deny the right to organise without attacking human dignity itself.’

‘The Catholic tradition has long defended the right to private ownership of productive property. ... Support of private ownership does not mean that anyone has the right to unlimited accumulation of wealth. Private property does not constitute for anyone an absolute and unconditional right. No one is justified in keeping for his exclusive use of what he does not need, when others lack necessities.’

‘The common good may sometimes demand that the right to own be limited by public involvement in the planning or ownership of certain sectors of the economy.’

‘The Church's teaching opposes collectivist and statist economic approaches. But it also rejects the notion that a free market automatically produces justice.’

‘Full employment is the foundation of the just society. ... We believe that 6 to 7 percent unemployment is neither inevitable nor acceptable. While a zero unemployment rate is clearly impossible in an economy where people are constantly entering the job market and others are changing jobs, appropriate policies and concerted private and public action can improve the situation considerably, if we have the will to do so. No economy can be considered truly healthy when so many … people are denied jobs by forces outside their control. The acceptance of present unemployment rates would have been unthinkable twenty years ago. It should be regarded as intolerable today.’

‘We find the disparities of income and wealth in the United States to be unacceptable. Justice requires that all members of our society work for economic, political, and social reforms that will decrease these inequalities.’

In summary, those who describe as Marxist the Catholic social teaching that Robert Prevost espouses are demonstrating their intellectual limitations.

I leave readers – and time – to judge to what extent Leo XIV promotes such sentiments but draw attention to a couple of issues which are yet to be addressed:

The bishops are largely writing about the US. How to apply their approach – and that of the encyclicals – to the whole world? (Recall Robert Prevost’s time in Peru.)

The bishops are largely writing about the present. How to apply their approach – and that of the encyclicals – to intergenerational equity and sustainability? (Appointed at the age of 69, Robert Prevost is likely to be in office in the 2040s.)

One hopes Leo XIV will have some responses.

: For my 1989 critique of Economic Justice for All – this column is an exposition – see here.

*Brian Easton, an independent scholar, is an economist, social statistician, public policy analyst and historian. He was the Listener economic columnist from 1978 to 2014.