“The Holy Spirit, whom Christ the head pours out on his members, builds, animates, and sanctifies the Church” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 747). Every since the beginning of Christianity, this sanctifying action has resulted, among numerous other aspects, in the fraternal help and assistance in favor of our brothers and sisters in need. Nonetheless, this pastoral undertaking the Church has never meant stimulating rivalry, disputes or hatred toward those who possess a greater economic status, by having acquired such goods through their own efforts and the application of their talents and intellectual gifts or simply by inheritance. On the contrary, it was Pope Leo XIII, the Pope who inaugurated the social Encyclicals, who ardently condemned any incitement to envy, resentment and hatred between social classes promoted by anarchists, socialists and communists. Moreover, this ‘class struggle’ and ‘scientific discovery’ of Marx and Engels, was pointed out as the ‘motor’ behind all of the social complaints against the ‘exploitive bourgeoisie’, owners of capital, land and properties. This same ‘scientific discovery’ applied and developed later on by Lenin in the Revolution of 1917 in Russia and then numerous other countries, also received the condemnation of posterior Popes. Read more…
