Did "sacralis[ing] all papal writing", Leo XIII's Lockean ambiguities & inability to "distinguishing between what was or was not compatible with standard Catholic doctrine" brings us Vatican II & Francis's "accepting Locke’s absurd way of thinking"?: Property: in "Rerum novarum" and in reality When a pope gets lost...and how Catholics can find a better way
[Theological Studies 53 (1992) "SACRED AND INVIOLABLE": RERUM NOVARUM AND NATURAL RIGHTS ERNEST L. FORTIN... "Leo XIII may have had no choice but to fall back on the rights theory as a bulwark against the inroads of socialism, since there was little on the intellectual horizon that could have served his purpose equally well, but the strategy had its drawbacks. There are better ways of guarding against modern totalitarianism, its deification of the state, and its threat to freedom. After all, Aristotle and Thomas were not totalitarians... Little wonder that Leo's theologians, some of whom had been disciples and colleagues of Taparelli, should have had so much trouble separating the wheat from the chaff or distinguishing between what was or was not compatible with standard Catholic doctrine. To sum up, the problem with Rerum novarum is that it lives in two worlds between which it cannot choose and which it is unable to harmonize completely." - Ernest Fortin [https://theologicalstudies.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/53.2.1.pdf
https://theologicalstudies.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/53.2.1.pdf ]]
... Leo’s successors might have rapidly scrubbed away his excessive rhetoric away, if the nascent social teaching had been understood as an always and necessarily imperfect response to current issues. However, the popes, like many students of this teaching, have tended to sacralise all papal writings, including ones that are particularly likely to be distorted by the controversies and ideas of the moment. As a result of this exaggerated respect, it has taken more than a century of backtracking and equivocation before could Francis boldly declare that, “The principle of the subordination of private property to the universal destination of goods, and thus the right of everyone to their use, is a golden rule of social conduct” (Laudato Si’ 93)...
... Francis and his immediate predecessors have all seemed to assume that private property is a clear and distinct idea, something independent of the particular societies in which it is found. In that assumption, they are implicitly accepting Locke’s absurd way of thinking...
... Notes
[1] Ernest Fortin, “’Sacred and Inviolable’: Rerum Novarum and Natural Rights”, Theological Studies 53.2 (1992), 203-233. For background, see Douglas Kries, “Leo Strauss’s critique of Modern Political Philosophy and Ernest Fortin’s Critique of Modern ‘Catholic Social Teaching’”, in Geoffrey M. Vaughan ed., Leo Strauss and His Catholic Readers, Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2018, pp. 116-133. For an even more critical and comprehensive description of the “natural rights” tradition that influenced, via John Locke, the thinkers who helped Leo with Rerum Novaraum, see John Milbank, “The History of Natural Right” Church Life Journal, January 18, 2019, at .https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/the-history-of-natural-right/#_ftnref7
Note: "Taparelli has a good claim to being the father of Catholic social teaching. One of his students was the Jesuit Matteo Liberatore, who wrote the first draft of Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum (On the Condition of the Working Classes), the first papal statement on “the social question.” Leo himself, as we have noted, had been a student of Taparelli’s, his collaborator at the Civiltà Cattolica, and seems to have been influenced by him. [First pope to use term "social justice" was Puis XI] Pius XI used to recommend the study of Taparelli’s works in conversations with his friends and colleague." [https://isi.org/the-origins-of-social-justice/]
Stop for a moment of silence, ask Jesus Christ what He wants you to do now and next. In this silence remember God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost – Three Divine Persons yet One God, has an ordered universe where you can know truth and falsehood as well as never forget that He wants you to have eternal happiness with Him as his son or daughter by grace. Make this a practice. By doing this you are doing more good than reading anything here or anywhere else on the Internet.
I ask all The Catholic Monitor readers to also pray for the end of this war. Watch "Trump Calls Putin To Get Iran War Offramp! w/ Scott Ritter" on YouTube: ...Read more Please Pray for Trump to end the Iran War: Watch "Trump Calls Putin To Get Iran War Offramp! w/ Scott Ritter" on YouTubeFranklin & Graham calls on Christians to pray for 'end to the bloodshed' ahead of Trump-Putin summit...7mo
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Conclave Notes:
-- Open letter urges Pope Leo XIV to correct ‘scandalous incoherence’ in Amoris Laetitia...[Wow! Even notorious Popesplainer Fr.] Harrison warns that Pope Francis taught a ‘dangerous self-contradiction’ on Communion for the divorced and ‘remarried,’ petitioning Pope Leo to correct the record. [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2025/08/open-letter-urges-pope-leo-xiv-to.html]
-- Are the Cardinals who will participate in the upcoming conclave authentically appointed & morally justified in voting, or will the shadow of Francis's possible illegitimacy cast itself over the next papacy? [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2025/04/are-cardinals-who-will-participate-in.html]
-- 5 Dubia Questions for 1P5's Steve Skojec & All faithful Catholics especially Francis is definitely Pope Cardinals, Bishops & pundits [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/06/5-dubia-questions-for-steve-skojec.html]
Francis Notes:
l– Doctor of the Church St. Francis de Sales totally confirmed beyond any doubt the possibility of a heretical pope and what must be done by the Church in such a situation:
“[T]he Pope… WHEN he is EXPLICITLY a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church MUST either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See.”
(The Catholic Controversy, by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306)
Saint Robert Bellarmine, also, said “the Pope heretic is not deposed ipso facto, but must be declared deposed by the Church.”
[https://archive.org/stream/SilveiraImplicationsOfNewMissaeAndHereticPopes/Silveira%20Implications%20of%20New%20Missae%20and%20Heretic%20Popes_djvu.txt]
– “If Francis is a Heretic, What should Canonically happen to him?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2020/12/if-francis-is-heretic-what-should.html
– “Could Francis be a Antipope even though the Majority of Cardinals claim he is Pope?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/03/could-francis-be-antipope-even-though.html
– If Francis betrays Benedict XVI & the”Roman Rite Communities” like he betrayed the Chinese Catholics we must respond like St. Athanasius, the Saintly English Bishop Robert Grosseteste & “Eminent Canonists and Theologians” by “Resist[ing]” him: https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/12/if-francis-betrays-benedict-xvi.html
– LifeSiteNews, “Confusion explodes as Pope Francis throws magisterial weight behind communion for adulterers,” December 4, 2017:
The AAS guidelines explicitly allows “sexually active adulterous couples facing ‘complex circumstances’ to ‘access the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.'”
– On February 2018, in Rorate Caeli, Catholic theologian Dr. John Lamont:
“The AAS statement… establishes that Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia has affirmed propositions that are heretical in the strict sense.”
– On December 2, 2017, Bishop Rene Gracida:
“Francis’ heterodoxy is now official. He has published his letter to the Argentina bishops in Acta Apostlica Series making those letters magisterial documents.”
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church by the bishops by the grace of God.
Election Notes:
– Intel Cryptanalyst-Mathematician on Biden Steal: “212Million Registered Voters & 66.2% Voting,140.344 M Voted…Trump got 74 M, that leaves only 66.344 M for Biden” [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/intel-cryptanalyst-mathematician-on.html?m=1]
– Will US be Venezuela?: Ex-CIA Official told Epoch Times “Chávez started to Focus on [Smartmatic] Voting Machines to Ensure Victory as early as 2003”: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/will-us-be-venezuela-ex-cia-official.html
– Tucker Carlson’s Conservatism Inc. Biden Steal Betrayal is explained by “One of the Greatest Columns ever Written” according to Rush: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/tucker-carlsons-conservatism-inc-biden.html?m=1
– A Hour which will Live in Infamy: 10:01pm November 3, 2020:
http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/01/a-hour-which-will-live-in-infamy-1001pm.html?m=1
What is needed right now to save America from those who would destroy our God given rights is to pray at home or in church and if called to even go to outdoor prayer rallies in every town and city across the United States for God to pour out His grace on our country to save us from those who would use a Reichstag Fire-like incident to destroy our civil liberties. [Is the [J6] DC Capitol Incident Comparable to the Nazi Reichstag Fire Incident where the German People Lost their Civil Liberties?: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/is-dc-capital-incident-comparable-to.html?m=1 and Epoch Times Show Crossroads on Capitol Incident: “Anitfa ‘Agent Provocateurs‘”:
http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/epoch-times-show-crossroads-on-capital.html?m=1]
Pray an Our Father now for the grace to know God’s Will and to do it.
Pray an Our Father now for America.
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