Stanisław PyszkaCorresponding author

Evolution of the Cathohic Social Teaching in the Years 1891-2002

Article
10 - 2005, pages 129-148
Date of online publication: 03 août 2016
Date of publication: 30 novembre 2005

Abstract

The proclamation of the encyclical Rerum Novarum by Leo XIII on 15 May 1891 gave rise to what is today called the social teaching of the Church, or more precisely of the Catholic Church, since Orthodox churches did not take up the subject and Protestant churches became occupied with social issues only in the last decades of the twentieth century. Experts agree that the proclamation of this encyclical is linked with the beginning of the social teaching of the Church. There was no previous official social teaching, if we take social teaching to be a series of formal statements made by the Magisterium of the Church. At the end of the nineteenth century the Church witnessed radical political, economic and social changes, finding itself under various influences of the prevailing ideologies (CA 4). The so-called „second industrial revolution" in economic life took place in 1870-1914. Rerum Novarum is commonly considered the beginning of the social teaching of the Church in its modern approach/ Until then the faithful were only warned of errors (Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, 15 August 1832; Pius IX, Syllabus, 1864).

Keywords

Cite this article

Pyszka, Stanisław. “The Evolution of Catholic Social Teaching in the Years 1891-2002.” Forum Philosophicum 10 (2005): 129–48. doi:10.35765/forphil.2005.1001.9.