.
According to the traditional doctrine of the Church, the right of property is a
consequence of the natural order created by God. Animals, plants and minerals
exist for the use of men. Every man has then, by virtue of the human condition
itself, the right to submit any of those goods to his dominion. This is
appropriation. Appropriation has something exclusive about it in the sense that
a good that has been appropriated cannot be used by another who is not its
owner. In his Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno of May 15, 1931, Pius XI
states:
"The original acquisition of property takes place by first occupation
and by industry, or, as it is called, specification. This is the universal
teaching of tradition and the doctrine of Our Predecessor, despite unreasonable
assertions to the contrary, and no wrong is done to any man by the occupation
of goods which are unclaimed and belong to nobody. The only form of labor,
however, which gives the working man a title to its fruits is that which a man
exercises as his own muster, and by which some new form or new value is
produced'' Actu Apostolicae Sedi, Typis Potyglottis Vaticanis, Rome, 1931,
vol. XXIII, p. 194).
Property
also derives from work. Being by nature his own master, man is also the master
of his work. Consequently, he is entitled to ask a remuneration for the service
that he renders. Thus, what he acquires individually with the fruit of his work
belongs to him. This is what Leo XIII teaches in his Encyclical Rerum
Novarum of May 15, 1891:
"Clearly
the essential reason why those who engage in any gainful occupation undertake
labor, and at the same time the end to which workers immediately look, is to
procure property for themselves and to retain it by individual right as theirs
and as their very own. When the worker places his energy and his labor at the
disposal of another, he does so for the purpose of getting the means necessary
for livelihood. In return for the work done, he accordingly seeks a true and
full right not only to demand his wage but to dispose of it as he sees fit.
Therefore, if he saves something by restricting expenditures and invests his
savings in a piece of land in order to keep the fruit of his thrift more safe,
a holding of this kind is certainly nothing else than his wage under a
different form; and on this account land which the worker thus buys is
necessarily under his full control as much as the wage which he earned by his
labor. But, as is obvious, it is clearly in this that the ownership of movable
and immovable goods consists. Therefore, inasmuch as the Socialists seek to
transfer the goods of private persons to the community at large, they make the
lot of all wage-earners worse, because in abolishing the freedom to dispose of
wages they take a way from them by this very act the hope and the opportunity
of increasing their property and of securing advantages for themselves"
(Acta Sanctae Sedis, Typographia Polyglotta
S.C. de Propoganda Fide, Rome, 1890-1891, vol. XXIII, 642.)
Finally,
property may also be acquired by succession. Children, who are the continuation
of their parents, naturally inherit their goods. Regarding this family-related
character of property, Leo XIII affirms in the Encyclical Rerum Novarum:
"Thus,
the right of ownership, which we have shown to be bestowed on individual
persons by nature, must be assigned to man in his capacity as head a family.
Nay rather, this right is all the stronger, since the human person in finally
life embraces much more.
"It
is a most sacred law of nature that the father of a family see that his
offspring are provided with all the necessities of life, and nature even
prompts him to desire to provide and to furnish his children, who, in fact
reflect and in a certain sense continue his person, with the means of decently
protecting themselves against harsh fortune, in the uncertainties of life. He
can do this surely in no other way than by owning fruitful goods to transmit by
inheritance to his children" (Acta Sanctae Sedis, Vol. XXIII. p. 646).
Property,
like every right, has a social function, but it is not limited to its social
function. This is what Pius XII teaches in his radio message of September 14,
1952, to the Katholikentag of Vienna:
"It
is for this reason that Catholic social teaching, besides other things, so
emphatically champions the right of the individual to own property. Herein also
lie the deeper motives why the Pontiffs of the social encyclicals, and
also We Ourselves, have declined to deduce, directly or indirectly, from the
labor contract the right of the employee to participate in the ownership of the
operating capital, and participate in decisions concerning operations of the
plant (Mitbestimmung). This had to be denied because behind this question
there stands that greater problem -- the right of the individual and of the
family to own property, which stems immediately from the human person. It is a
right of personal dignity; aright, to be sure, accompanied by social
obligations; a right, however, not merely a social function" (Discorsi e
Radiomessaggi di Sua Santita Pio XII,
vol. XIV, p. 314, English text from The Catholic Mind, Jan. 1953.
From
this standpoint, public property is distinguished from private property.
The
former normally consists of the goods that the State has for accomplishing its
mission. Without exceeding its specific function, the State also may possess
and administer something for the common good, as for example, when it takes
over the exploitation of an underground resource in order to lessen the taxes
born by the citizen with the profits derived from it. But this must be done
only in a limited way and in special circumstances. The State may also do this
in relation to a certain type of wealth which of its nature would place the
individual owning it in a position to dominate the State itself.
The
remaining goods belong to the private domain, and not to the public domain. A
private proprietor may be an individual, a group, or an association of
individual owners.
Naturally,
this doctrine and this terminology, which exist implicitly or explicitly in
current language, are not those of the Program.
The
Program does not affirm the natural right of property given by God to man. It
hypertrophies the collective property of social groups, transforming
each of them into a totalitarian mini-state in relation to its members; and it
calls self-managed property private, even though this be instituted - to a
large degree imposed - and even regulated by the State as it wishes.
***
In
mid September, just as the writing of this Message was coming to an end, the
Encyclical Laborem Exercens of John Paul II was published. The principal
media of the West gave it widespread and favorable coverage.
The
Encyclical undoubtedly contains new teachings, not all of whose ultimate
doctrinal and practical implications are laid out.
More
often than not, these circumstances allowed news reports about the document to
spread the impression that according to John Paul II:
a)
It is not an imperative of the nature of things that private property (and
therefore non-state property) be usually owned by an individual;
b)
In principle (and notably in modern conditions of economic life), it is legitimate
and even preferable that the right of property be normally exercised by groups
of persons instead of individual proprietors, thus better fulfilling its social
function. This would be the "socialization" of property.
If
one were to accept this understanding of John Paul II's document, the
necessary conclusions would be:
a)
that this "socialization" sharply contrasts with the
above-cited principles of the traditional Papal Magisterium, which teaches that
private property is a logical consequence of the personal nature of man and
the natural order of things:
b)
that the socialized regime advocated by the French SP finds important support
in Laborem Exercens.
It
would be painful for any zealous Catholic to shoulder the responsibility for
these affirmations regarding the Encyclical of John Paul II, for they would
have incalculable consequences in the religious and socio-economic spheres.
Indeed,
if one were to admit such opposition between the recent pontifical document and
the traditional documents of the Supreme Magisterium of the Church, the
theological, moral and canonical consequences would be innumerable.
As
Chapter II of this Message shows, the French SP affirms the logical connection
between the self-managing reform of business that it advocates, and the reform
of the economy in general, of education, of the family, and of man himself. For
the French socialists these multiple reforms are nothing more than aspects of
one single global reform.
And
right they are: "Abyssus abyssum invocat" - "Deep
calls unto deep," (Ps. 41:8) One does not see how a Roman Pontiff
could open the flood gates to the self-management advocated by French socialism
and thus implicitly or explicitly support this global reform.