ABSTRACT
The encyclical of Leo XIII, the Rerum Novarum, was significant, but it could scarcely be called epoch-making. It proclaimed that wage-earners should be specially cared for by governments and that wage rates should be adequate for decent subsistence. To understand this aspect of the encyclical we must consider some recent developments not only in the labor situation but also in the status of the Catholic Church. The voice of the Church thereby blessed the trade union, but emphasized the need for special Catholic organizations. Many commentators found in this recommendation of Catholic unions the main objective of the encyclical. The ideal of poverty, especially as accepted by the monastic orders, made a strong impression on Catholic doctrine. Pope Leo had declared that “a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke that is little better than slavery.”
