Day 315: The Church's Social Doctrine

The Church's social teaching comprises a body of doctrine, which is articulated as the Church interprets events in the course of history, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, in the light of the whole of what has been revealed by Jesus Christ. This teaching can be more easily accepted by men of good will, the more the faithful let themselves be guided by it. CCC 2422

Today's reading from the Catechism is about the Church's social doctrine, which really is more outlined in Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum Novarum. In the Catechism, human dignity is at the heart of the Church's social doctrine teaching; the unjust exploitation of this is against the Seventh Commandment. In addition, we have a responsibility to care for the environment and animals. To greedily take from or damage the former, as well as needlessly harm or waste the lives of the latter, also violates this commandment.

The Catechism Compendium summarizes the economic systems that can oppose the social doctrine of the Church:

Opposed to the social doctrine of the Church are economic and social systems that sacrifice the basic rights of persons or that make profit their exclusive norm or ultimate end. For this reason, the Church rejects the ideologies associated in modern times with Communism or with atheistic and totalitarian forms of socialism. But in the practice of capitalism, the Church also rejects self-centered individualism and an absolute primacy of the laws of the marketplace over human labor. (#513)

My reading of CCC 2425 also calls extreme forms of libertarianism into question, as well as those mentioned above.

Finally, Fr. Mike Schmitz has a good video on how to be a steward with our possessions: