![]() ![]() The Roman group, in the meantime, met at the home of Prince Borghese, at the request of Pope Leo XIII. After 1883 Bishop Mermillod of Geneva, who had earlier been a participant in the Roman group, was asked to set up an international clearinghouse to coordinate the work of these different circles. Another met in Rome at the winter home of Count von Kuefstein, and another met in France. One study circle met at the Austrian estate of Prince von Löwenstein. These early Catholic social thinkers were typically organized into study circles. Jacobini, was introducing La Tour du Pin to Leo XIII, he remarked that he and those who thought like him “were called socialists in certain Catholic circles.” However, “the Pope exclaimed: ‘Socialism! It’s Christianity.'” ![]() Indeed, in 1885, when an Italian priest, Msgr. Those Catholics who advocated the rights of workers and the necessity for state intervention in the economy, positions which at the time could be found chiefly among socialists, were often of noble or aristocratic backgrounds, and included Bishop von Ketteler of Mainz, Germany (who was also a baron), Prince Karl von Löwenstein, Count von Kuefstein, Baron Karl von Vogelsang, and other German and Austrian noblemen, as well as Jesuits connected with the journal La Civiltà Cattolica, and the French military officer René de La Tour du Pin. This should come as no surprise, because free-market capitalism was a major component of 19th-century liberalism, which also championed political democracy and did not countenance any involvement by the state in the workings of the economy. Rather, it came from those very Catholics who most opposed the overthrow of the ancien régime and who desired a return to the principles which had undergirded historical Christendom. The earliest call for a Catholic intellectual and pastoral response to capitalism and industrialism did not come from the so-called liberal Catholics, those thinkers in France, Belgium, and Italy who most welcomed political democracy and wished the Church to make an accommodation with post-Revolutionary Europe. Canon Aubert’s essays range in date from 1947 to 1992 and in subject matter from Church support for a miners’ strike in Quebec in 1949 to the growing awareness of European Catholics of the need for an effective response to the conditions created by capitalism and industrialism during the 19th century.Īubert surveys the situations primarily in Belgium, France, Italy, and Germany/Austria, though including mention of leading figures and events in England, the U.S., and elsewhere. David Boileau of Loyola University in New Orleans, who also wrote the final chapter for this work. ![]() ![]() The essays and reviews in this volume were assembled by Fr. Thomas Storck is a Contributing Editor of the NOR, and author, most recently, of Christendom and the West: Essays on Culture, Society and History.Ĭanon Roger Aubert, a priest of the Archdiocese of Malines-Brussels in Belgium, has been a prominent historian of Catholic social thought for some years. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |