Month: May 2025 (page 1 of 1)

AA25 A Theology for Social Justice: Pope Leo XIII to Pope Leo XIV. Brian Easton

Originally published at: https://www.pundit.co.nz/content/catholic-theology-on-the-economy. Republished here with author’s permission.

Catholic Theology on the Economy

by Brian Easton 

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 (‘of revolutionary change’), 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 the Catholic social teaching that Robert Prevost espoused as Marxist 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.

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

MF22 POST EASTER REFLECTION, redemptive suffering, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and life after death

Christ is risen!

St Peter’s Wellington, 27 April 2025

Bishop Richard Randerson richardrandersonnz [at] gmail.com
Website: www.awordforallseasons.co.nz

Today, three Resurrection themes:

  1. What the Resurrection means
  2. Redemptive suffering – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
  3. Life after death

1. Resurrection: An article in The Post last week on Lloyd Geering highlighted his heresy trial by the Presbyterians for an article he wrote in 1966 entitled What does the Resurrection mean, a trial in which he was acquitted. What disturbed many was his quoting of a statement by English theologian R. Grigor Smith that Jesus’ bones might lie somewhere in Palestine. I agree with them both the reality of the Resurrection does not depend on any theory about Jesus’ bones. (Luke 24.5: why do you look for the living among the dead?) Lloyd Geering today is 107 and has done much to unpack the meaning and depth of the scriptures, although I differ from him in some aspects of his theology.

The reality of the Resurrection is seen in the changed lives of the disciples when they encountered the risen Christ. In today’s Gospel, Jesus appears to the disciples and later to Thomas (John 20.19-31). They were overjoyed and Thomas said, “My Lord and my God”.

And then in Luke 24.13-35 there is the moving story of how Clopas and a friend encountered a stranger on the road to Emmaus who became known to them in the breaking of the bread. They reported that their “hearts had burned within them”. In John 21.1-14 there is the account of the disciples fishing and noticing a figure on the beach lighting a BBQ fire. It was John who said: “it is the Lord” and they all went ashore and broke bread together.

In all these (and other) encounters we note two things: there is a mystery about the nature of Jesus’ risen body: it appears and disappears; it is not immediately recognised; it can eat bread. But the key thing is the transformation of the disciples. From grief and desolation they become followers filled with confidence and joy who go out to proclaim
the risen Christ.

John 20.31: “   But these (accounts) are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name”. Now all of that was 2000 years ago, but the Church was formed arising out of the experience of the disciples. And we know it is true today also because of our experience of the risen Christ in our own lives. Jesus is our constant companion in joy and sorrow offering new life and hope.

2. Redemptive suffering is also part of the resurrection story. You may have seen the recent film on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian who studied in New York in 1930. Returning to Germany he was outspoken against the Nazi regime while the Church was silent. He said that “silence in the face of evil is evil. Not to speak is to speak; not to act is to act.” He was executed in 1945, aged 39, for a plot to assassinate Hitler, just days before end of WW2.


Fellow pastor Martin Niemoller said: “When they came for the socialists I said nothing because I was not a socialist. When they came for the trade unionists I said nothing because I was not a trade unionist. When they came for the Jews I said nothing because I was not a Jew. And when they came for me there was no one to speak up for me.”


Suffering at the hand of evil is redemptive. The centurion at the foot of the Cross, a hardened Roman soldier, when he saw Jesus die said: “Truly this man was the son of God (Matthew 27.54). And Tertullian, around 200 CE said “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church”.

3. Life after death: as we think about life after death we remember today family members and friends who have gone before us in life and faith. We remember also at this Anzactide those who have laid down their lives in war and we pray for peace in our time. We also remember His Holiness Pope Francis whose faith led him into a leadership that changed the world. May they rest in peace and rise in glory.

There are many images (eg in the book of Revelation and parts of the gospels) about the day of judgment, heaven and hell. It is known as apocalyptic imagery and requires its own interpretation . But I have always been helped by the words of American theologian Henry Nelson Wieman who wrote of life after death as “hope without prediction.” We cannot predict the details of what lies beyond death, but we have hope in the full Christian sense of confidence that in life and in death we are with God.

As Jesus died on the Cross he said: Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my Spirit. I use them every night before sleeping. They are words of trust and confidence that God is with us in life and in death and beyond death, words we can use daily and finally.

Christ is risen. He is risen indeed!