"...if human society is to be healed now, in no other way can it be healed save by a return to Christian life and Christian institutions. When a society is perishing, the wholesome advice to give to those who would restore it is to call it to the principles from which it sprang; for the purspose and perfection of an association is to aim at and to attain that for which it is formed, and its efforts should be put in motion and inspired by the end and object which originally gave it being. Hence, to fall away from its primal constitution implies disease; to go back to it, recovery." (Rerum Novarum, #27)
Hmm.
2 comments:
One of the greatest documents to ever come out of Rome, sadly it's widely ignored by the general church now. Too old...
Hi Christopher, thanks for reading. JPII wrote a follow up encyclical to Leo XIII titled Laborem Exercens (1981), into which I am currently delving. In even a post-concillar light, Rerum Novarum is timeless.
These two documents demonstrate something about Catholicism that is often misunderstood: We have not changed really anything over the centuries; only grown in our conviction and understanding of ourselves.
When one reads them back-to-back, one realizes that even though the worldly reality has changed, the truth does not change.
It's very sad that so many of the general assembly take no interest in what their Church teaches--they might be better Catholics if they did. This conventional wisdom that any church document is "too old" is nothing more than a refusal to learn and grow.
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