MERLO -
HORSTIUS,
JACOBUS. - Ascetic writ-
er, b. at
Meerlo, near
Horst (diocese of
Ruremonde; the
Netherlands), on 24 July
He recognized the importance of the social question and maintained in speech and writing that it had to be solved with the aid of religion, which alone could, in his view, bring the worker closer to the employer and the poor to the rich. In 1882 M. was entrusted with the direction of a commission charged with “studying, in the light of Catholic doctrine, all questions of social economics, and especially those concerning workers, and determining the true principles, assessing the extent to which they were observed and the manner in which they might prevail within society.” He was therefore among those who effectively prepared the way for Rerum Novarum.