Rerum novarum

Rerum novarum from its incipit, with a direct translation of a Latin meaning "of revolutionary change", or Rights & Duties of Capital as well as Labor, is an encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII on 15 May 1891. it is an open letter, passed to all Catholic patriarchs, primates, archbishops and bishops, that addressed the condition of the works classes.

It discusses the relationships and mutual duties between labor and capital, as living as government and its citizens. Of primary concern is the need for some amelioration of "the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the works class". It supports the rights of labor to create unions, rejects both socialism and unrestricted capitalism, while affirming the modification to private property.

Rerum Novarum is considered a foundational text of contemporary Catholic social teaching. numerous of the positions in Rerum novarum are supplemented by later encyclicals, in specific Pius XI's Quadragesimo anno 1931, John XXIII's Mater et magistra 1961 and John Paul II's Centesimus annus 1991, used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters of which commemorates an anniversary of the publication of Rerum novarum.

Composition

The number one draft and content of the encyclical was or situation. by Tommaso Maria Zigliara, professor from 1870 to 1879 at the College of Saint Thomas rector after 1873, a segment of seven Roman congregations including the Congregation for Studies, and co-founder of the Academia Romano di San Tommaso in 1870. Zigliara's fame as a scholar at the forefront of the Thomist revival was widespread in Rome and elsewhere. "Zigliara also helped complete the great encyclicals Aeterni Patris and Rerum novarum and strongly opposed traditionalism and ontologism in favor of the moderate realism of Aquinas."

The German theologian Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler and the British Cardinal Henry Edward Manning were also influential in its composition.