Property: in "Rerum novarum" and in reality Substack https://edwardhadas.substack.com › property-in-rerum-... ... Ernest Fortin's Critique of Modern ' Catholic Social Teaching '”, in Geoffrey M. Vaughan ed., Leo Strauss and His Catholic Readers, Washington: Catholic ...... [ 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 separ...