Quod apostolici muneris

Pope Leo XIII. turned in his second encyclical Quod Apostolici muneris ( mutatis mutandis: Our apostolic duty ) from December 28, 1878 against socialism.

The confrontation with socialism

The Roman Catholic Church considered in the 19th century socialism as their most dangerous enemy. Accordingly, it was socialism in general and Marxism in particular with respect to strictly negative. Pope Pius IX. , The predecessor of Leo XIII. Had 1846 in his inaugural encyclical Qui pluribus condemned communism as a " damnable doctrine " and in § 4 of its syllabus Errorum among others socialism and communism rejected as " epidemics ". Leo XIII. led this discussion further.

Shortly after the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Leo XIII. In his encyclical Quod published Apostolici muneris the tone and the content of the Church's statements when he wrote of the socialists as the "party of those people, which are called with different, almost barbarous names socialists, communists, or nihilists, and all over the world common are ". Socialism he described as a " plague " against which the " Church of God has such a great power as it still is still of neither human laws the prohibitions of the authorities the weapons of the soldiers ." Socialists denounced the Pope in the opening paragraphs of the encyclical, among other things, because they refuse those " higher powers " the obedience that they had received their temporal power of God, and because they demanded the equality of all people. Also condemns those democratic states, according to its constitution the right emanates from the people, not from God or ruling in the name of the monarch.

Although he explains that regents would do justice to prevail, exhorts all believers but at the same time, not to rebel against tyrants, but to endure their fate as imposed by God. Just as all men the rulers, so they rely on God, obedience debt are women, according to the encyclical, contrary to the egalitarian ideas of the Socialists, stopped to look at men as their masters. The inequality between men and women is accordingly given by God as well as class differences and the differences between the haves and the poor. Equality and repeal of these differences, as envisaged socialism, so was an offense against the divine order.

The Church would political forces that act against the socialist parties and movements that are conditional to the side that her " that position and freedom of play, in which she can make her so highly salutary influence to the best of the whole society asserted " the States.

The "small" social encyclicals

In addition to the known, the encyclical Rerum Novarum (15 May 1891), wrote Leo XIII. with Diuturnum illud (29 June 1881), Immortal Dei (November 1, 1885), Libertas (20 June 1888) and Graves de communi re (19 January 1901) a number of other, "less " social encyclicals.