What is the Catholic Church's View on Socialism?
Terms like universal healthcare, tax the rich, and democratic socialism are widely repeated by leftists today. Politicians insist on imposing socialism in America.
Yet many Americans who dislike socialism, through no fault of their own, only have an elementary understanding of what it is beyond the simple “it doesn’t work” approach. How many miss the atheism embedded in its ideology? Even educated Catholics are unaware of the Catholic Church’s solemn condemnation of socialism.
However, the Catholic Church has unmasked socialism in clear and convincing terms. Her doctrine – a beacon of truth – should be studied and repeated by the faithful since socialism continues to harm nations, and its specter haunts the free world.
Let us examine the fundamental errors of socialism and explore what the Church teaches.
What is Socialism?
Socialism is a philosophical, political, social, and economic system as well as a political movement that advocates the abolition of private property to achieve societal equality.
Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels are widely regarded as the most influential socialist thinkers. Although socialism existed before them, they transformed socialist doctrine from a quixotic utopia into a political movement with the publication of The Communist Manifesto in 1848 and other written works. These publications present the doctrine of Marxism-socialism. In a sense, The Communist Manifesto is for Marxists-socialists what the Bible is for Christians.
Marx and Engels claim that history is no more than a struggle between classes (wealthy vs. poor, leaders vs. followers) and that world peace is achievable in a classless society where no man is greater or lesser. The Communist Manifesto served as a road map for communist-socialist regimes worldwide, including the Soviet Union, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, and North Korea.
According to the Manifesto, socialism seeks radical egalitarianism (inherited from the French Revolution slogan Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite) where all men are considered equal, not just in rights, but in all aspects of life, such as talent and intellect. The authors claim that those who are more talented or smarter “oppress” those less gifted – hence the theory of class struggle.
Marx and Engels further believed private property was the greatest inhibitor to total egalitarianism. “The theory of the Communists may be summed up in a single sentence: The abolition of private property,” states Marx. To do this, Marx proposed the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” which was charged with eradicating private property at all levels to advance the Communist Revolution. Without private property, everything would be owned by the collective and distributed to each individual according to their 'needs'.
Different Types of Socialism
What is the difference between communism and socialism? Ideologically, there is no substantial difference. The term socialism originated in the 1830s, whereas “communism” is older. Marx and Engels use the two terms interchangeably, and communist regimes often call themselves socialist, such as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R) and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
While numerous socialist schools cater to different tastes and temperaments, their common denominator is the abolition of private property. Democratic socialism, for example, seeks to abolish private property through ‘peaceful’ and ‘democratic’ means. National socialism, also known as Nazism, advocates for State control of private property. At the same time, Marxism calls for a dictatorship to eradicate private property through the iron fist of the state.
However, while various socialist schools may differ in their means and ends, the degree to which they advocate the abolition of private property is the degree to which they are socialist.
Socialism’s Hostility to God
Since the taproot of socialism is egalitarianism, socialists (if they are consistent with their doctrine) are hostile to any inequality, especially the most significant inequality of all, which is between God and man.
Marx defined religion as the “opiate of the masses” in his work, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Atheism replaces religion in the socialist utopia.
Consequently, socialists promote secularism (separation of religion from society), materialism (the belief that only the material world exists, not the supernatural), and Darwinism. Historically, these ideas often created conflict between socialist regimes and religious institutions, such as the persecution of Catholic clergy in the U.S.S.R., or the current socialist governments of Nicaragua and China, which have also been known to persecute religious figures.
Socialism Hates the Traditional Family
Socialism’s fanatic attachment to egalitarianism is also at odds with the family because the institution of the family is a source of inequalities. Some families are wealthier, more prominent, or more talented than others. Within the same family unit, members will be unequal. The father is the natural leader, the mother is the natural comforter, and the children should obey their parents.
In his twisted view, Fredrick Engels points to these legitimate inequalities as a source of class struggle in his book The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State:
“The modern individual family is founded on the open or concealed slavery of the wife… Within the family [the father] is the bourgeois (oppressor), and his wife represents the proletariat (oppressed).”
Moreover, Engels writes that monogamous marriage, the foundation of the family, was oppressive from the beginning:
“Monogamous marriage comes on the scene as the subjugation of the one sex by the other, as the proclamation of a conflict between the sexes unknown throughout the whole previous historic period… The first class antagonism that appears in history coincides with that of the female sex by the male. Monogamous marriage was a great historical step forward; nevertheless, together with slavery and private wealth, it opened the epoch that has lasted until today in which every step forward is also relatively a step backward, in which prosperity and development for some is won through the misery and frustration of others.”
Socialism does not tolerate God’s plan for marriage and family.
Marx and Engels further attack parental rights, claiming that children ought to be educated by the communist state to “rescue education from the influence of the ruling class” and create a “new man.” As the Soviet Union’s first Commissar of the People’s Welfare, Alexandra Kollontai, wrote, “The old family, narrow and petty, where the parents quarrel and are only interested in their own offspring, is not capable of educating the ‘new person.’”
Thus, socialism destroys the traditional family to obtain a communist utopia where no man is greater or lesser, and everything is owned and shared by the collective, including children.
Should the Catholic Church Care?
The Catholic Church understands that man is called to live in society and, therefore, should form a civil society that helps him attain the ultimate goal of life: Heaven. Since socialism interferes with man’s ultimate destiny, the Catholic Church has pronounced Herself against it. Based on natural law, Divine Revelation, the Magisterium, scholars, philosophers, and doctors of the Church, the Catholic social doctrine is clear and unambiguous.
Are All Men Created Equal?
Socialism claims that all men should be equal in all things, including talent, status, and wealth.
The Catholic Church teaches that all men are equal in nature and end, namely that all men are created in the image and likeness of God, our final goal is Heaven, and we share the same natural rights: life, liberty to worship the true God, and private property.
However, men are unequal in their accidents. Talent and family status differ. God made man with certain inequalities: intelligence, skill, and capacities of the soul to know and love God. His creation contains a vast ensemble of harmonious inequalities.
Pope Saint Pius X, in his motu proprio, Fin Dalla Prima, states:
“Human society, as established by God, is composed of unequal elements, just as the different parts of the human body are unequal; to make them all equal is impossible, and would mean the destruction of human society.”
God Loves Harmonious Inequality
Saint Thomas Aquinas explains that inequalities reflect the image of God: “Rather, inequality exists in creation for the benefit of the whole and must be attributed to God’s wisdom in the same way as diversity is accounted to God.”
Hierarchy is observable in material creation with minerals on the bottom, plant life above minerals, animals above plants, and humanity made in the image and likeness of God at the top. Theologians also mention the Angelic Hierarchy: the lowest choir of angels govern God’s creation while the highest choir of angels offer direct worship to God.
God’s creation contains hierarchy and inequality. Since man is the “summary of creation,” as Saint Gregory the Great writes and Pope Pius XI reaffirms, he would naturally reflect this harmonious hierarchy.
Indeed, saints, noble and poor, express facets of heroic virtue.
Saint Louis IX, King of France, funded religious orders, fed the poor, sponsored Crusades, and built gems of Gothic architecture like the Sainte Chapelle. Saint Martin de Porres, in contrast, was a formerly enslaved African who achieved heroic sanctity, performing miracles that inspire. Both saints, one reflecting majesty and the other poverty, gave God glory.
Church teaching is contrary to egalitarianism, the taproot of socialism, because harmonious and just inequalities reflect the perfections of God and should be loved and fostered for His greater glory.
Catholic Teaching on Private Property
Socialism attacks private property to achieve radical leveling. However, the Church’s social doctrine rejects this notion and affirms that private ownership is a natural right and should be protected. Man has the right to the fruits of his labor.
Moreover, God emphasized property rights in the Ten Commandments. The Seventh commands us not to steal, and the Tenth commands us not to covet our neighbor’s goods. If men were not supposed to have possessions, why did God grant protections for them?
Private property does not only include physical assets and luxuries (e.g., house, car); it also applies to land, artistic and intellectual property, and income, among other things. For example, if a factory owner makes a contract with a worker on a wage, according to Catholic doctrine, both are entitled to the money that they are owed—the worker, his just wage, and the owner, the profit.
Pope Leo XIII’s anti-socialist encyclical, Rerum Novarum, explains:
“Here, again, we have further proof that private ownership is in accordance with the law of nature. Truly, that which is required for the preservation of life, and for life’s well-being, is produced in great abundance from the soil, but not until man has brought it into cultivation and expended upon it his solicitude and skill. Now, when man thus turns the activity of his mind and the strength of his body toward procuring the fruits of nature, by such act he makes his own that portion of nature’s field which he cultivates – that portion on which he leaves, as it were, the impress of his personality; and it cannot but be just that he should possess that portion as his very own, and have a right to hold it without any one being justified in violating that right.”
The Church views property as a means for the poor to improve themselves. Pope Leo XIII states in the aforementioned encyclical, “The first and most fundamental principle, therefore, if one would undertake to alleviate the condition of the masses, must be the inviolability of private property.”
Socialists often ‘lament’ the status of the poor as a pretext to abolish private property. The Catholic Church rejects this notion because the right to private property is necessary to lift the poor out of poverty.
How can one give what he does not have? How can one cultivate what he does not own?
However, the right to private property is not absolute.
The Church recognizes that there are limitations to private property. For example, a factory owner cannot defraud a laborer of his wages. Such injustice cries to God for vengeance (Exodus 20:20-22). The employer must not abuse his legitimate authority.
Reasonable limitations do not inhibit the fundamental right to private property but strengthen it, as the greatest defense of the right to private property is the virtue of the owner.
Therefore, in light of Church teaching, Catholics cannot subscribe to a system that seeks to abolish private property.
Catholic Doctrine on Secularism
Socialism abhors the public profession of religion, even though it may superficially tolerate its private practice. The Church opposes this socialist secularism as She has the duty to educate the consciences of the faithful and thus cannot neglect the faithful’s influence in society.
The Catholic Church, by right of Her Founder, Jesus Christ, is the true Church and must be professed in all spheres of life as the Psalmist says, “Declare his glory among the Gentiles: his wonders among all people” (Ps. 95:3). The nature of the Church is to be a public religion because Her mission is to save souls, nearly all of whom live in society.
Likewise, the state is responsible for protecting society from enemies, criminals, and immoral behavior, thus linking itself to the Church’s mission of the salvation of souls. Since the state’s mission is related to that of the Catholic Church, the state must publicly profess religion, not hide it.
Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical, Immortale Dei, makes this clear:
“As a consequence, the State, constituted as it is, is clearly bound to act up to the manifold and weighty duties linking it to God, by the public profession of religion.”
Since the Church is commanded by God to “make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19), She cannot neglect Her mission in public society. This mission puts every faithful Catholic at odds with socialist secularism, as all true Catholics desire the Church to be loved and exalted in the societies they live.
Catholic Doctrine on the Traditional Family
Socialism falsely claims marriage is oppressive and that a husband enslaves his wife. The Church could not disagree more because the institution of marriage is elevated and sanctified by Our Lord:
“Therefore now [man and wife] are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder” (Matt. 19:6).
Unlike socialism, the Catholic Church views the family as the basic cell of society and worthy of protection. Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical, Arcanum Divinae, sustains that the inequalities between parents and children are good and necessary for the education of children, as well as their spiritual and physical protection:
“As regards children, they ought to submit to the parents and obey them, and give them honor for conscience’ sake; while, on the other hand, parents are bound to give all care and watchful thought to the education of their offspring and their virtuous bringing up: ‘Fathers, . . . bring them up (that is, your children) in the discipline and correction of the Lord.”
His Holiness states further that “free love,” another concept incited by socialists, is contrary to reason and Divine truth:
“That the judgment of the Council of Jerusalem reprobated licentious and free love, we all know; as also that the incestuous Corinthian was condemned by the authority of blessed Paul. Again, in the very beginning of the Christian Church were repulsed and defeated, with the like unremitting determination, the efforts of many who aimed at the destruction of Christian marriage, such as the Gnostics, Manicheans… St. Simonians, phalansterians, and communists.”
Socialists seek to erase inequalities within the family, and thus destroy the family itself. However, the Church affirms the sacredness of the family, calling Catholics to defend this institution known as the ‘first society.’
What about ‘Christian’ Socialism?
So-called Christian socialists or Catholic socialists combine socialist doctrines such as class struggle and the abolition of private property with Christian doctrine, often basing their views on grossly misrepresented elements from the Bible. However, papal documents condemn this form of socialism despite the Christian label.
Pope Pius XI’s encyclical, Quadragesimo Anno, states that socialism is irreconcilable with Catholic teaching:
“We make this pronouncement: Whether considered as a doctrine, or an historical fact, or a movement, Socialism, if it remains truly Socialism, even after it has yielded to truth and justice on the points which we have mentioned, cannot be reconciled with the teachings of the Catholic Church because its concept of society itself is utterly foreign to Christian truth.”
In the same document, His Holiness affirms that “Christian” socialism is an oxymoron: “Religious Socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.”
Pope John XXIII reiterated the teachings of his predecessors. In his encyclical, Mater et Magistra, the Pontiff states that “no Catholic could subscribe even to moderate socialism.”
Catholics Will Always Be Hostile to Socialism
Church teachings on egalitarianism, private property, secularism, marriage, and the family are irreconcilable with socialist doctrine. Some “Catholics” may call themselves socialists, but a true Catholic loves, obeys, defends, and spreads to others the doctrine of the Catholic Church. A “Catholic” socialist is not a Catholic at all.
The Catholic position towards socialism, in all its ugly forms, is one of utter hostility.
Nearly every pope since Blessed Pius IX has condemned socialism forcefully, as numerous papal documents attest.
Pope Benedict XV, in 1920, placed the protection of Catholics targeted by socialism under the most chaste spouse of Mary, Saint Joseph, Heavenly Protector Against Socialism.
Catholics faithful to the teachings of the Church should oppose socialism with fearless courage, as Pope Pius XII underscores:
“The Church will fight this battle [against socialism] to the end, for it is a question of supreme values: the dignity of man and the salvation of souls.”