Our current pope took his name from Leo XIII, who is most well known for his 1891 encyclical “Rerum Novarum”, a foundational document in Catholic social teaching. In revisiting this encyclical, we can understand and appreciate the ways Leo XVI’s papacy reflects and extends Leo XIII concern for a just society.

In Rerum Novarum, or “Of New Things,” Leo XIII explained to the Church what a just society looked like in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. Though written more than a century ago, the pope’s language remains clear and compelling to twenty- first- century readers. In the introduction to the encyclical, Leo XIII paints an image of a world not unlike our own in which “vast expansion of industrial pursuits and the marvellous discoveries of science” couple with “prevailing moral degeneracy” to unmoor society from the common principles by which it is governed.

Leo XIII lays forth a set of ideas to both resolve strife in the workplace and guide the faithful toward the Kingdom of Heaven. These principles – the Catholic Church’s response to the economic and social upheaval of the modern world – are just as vital to our present society as they were in Leo XIII’s time.

In the encyclical, the pope enumerated core rights of the human worker, including private property and just liveable wages. He discussed both the dignity of both worker and employer, citizen and state, laying out their duties towards one another. He encouraged Catholics to improve the conditions of the working class, but only by “rightful means” – an important limitation for today’s social activists. Above all Leo XIII encouraged the faithful to see the supernatural dimension of promoting a just society.

“Justice demands that, in dealing with the working man, religion and the good of his soul must be kept in mind,” Leo XIII added “Since the end of society is to make humanity better, the chief good that society can possess is virtue. Nevertheless, it is the business of a well-constituted body politic to see the provision of those material and external helps ‘the use of which is necessary for virtuous action’

In his remarkable document, Leo XIII asserted the Church’s central role in providing and promoting moral and monetary charity, of teaching humanity how to live together as good stewards of the earth and pilgrims on the way to heaven.

The new pope, Leo XIV, will undoubtedly draw on his nineteenth- century predecessor’s legacy: something he himself has already acknowledged.

“Pope Leo XIII in his historic encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first industrial revolution,” Pope Leo XVI said in an address to the College of Cardinals on May 10. “In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour.”

It is safe to conclude that Catholic social teaching, so often manipulated for ideological purposes, will be a central focus of the new pope, and that his teaching in that area will be rooted in the tradition of papal teaching to which he is now heir.

Published in Sunday Times of Malta (Aug 2025) – Gordon Vassallo