Quod Apostolici Muneris

QUOD APOSTOLICI MUNERIS. - Encyclical of Leo XIII of 28 Dec. 1878. After the Inscrutabili Dei consilio, issued on 21 Apr. 1878, with which the Pontiff presented in panoramic vision the conditions of society with its evils and indicated the means to remedy the ruinous decline toward which it was heading, the encyclical Q. A. M. appeared.

The purpose of this one was to indicate more specifically the evil that most gravely threatened the whole world: socialism, called by different names according to place: communism and nihilism), a most grave evil insofar as the adherents of that ideology strive to carry out the design of shaking the very foundations of civil society, under the pretext of the perfect equality of all in rights and duties; they dishonor the natural union of man and woman, weakening or even leaving their mutual bond at the mercy of lust; they assail the right of property established by the law of nature, thus claiming to steal and hold in common what was legitimately acquired. Such ideas are spread by every means of propaganda, and this has penetrated so deeply that frequent attacks against sovereigns have come about. The first cause of the evil, as the Pontiff observed, is the separation from God, begun with the « reform » and arrived at with iron logic at the denial of every order, which rests solely in God and in the supernatural truths that derive from him. The Church has sought to oppose this evil in every way from its beginnings, in particular by condemning the secret sects in which the seeds of present-day socialism were breeding. But it found no understanding in the civil powers which, prejudiced, always held the Church in suspicion and opposed it, in the attainment of the common good that would have served to prevent the rise of socialism.

Having thus established the evil and diagnosed its causes, Leo XIII presents the means to eradicate it. It is dutiful and urgent to return to God, the source of all power; to respect for authority, to the discharge of one's duty each according to the place he occupies in society; to the restoration of the Christian family in the indissolubility of marriage and in the mutual obligations of parents and children, of masters and servants. The right of private property must be inculcated and maintained, which rests on the precepts of the natural and divine law and is not a human invention contrary to the equality of all men; to this end the agreement between religion and civil power is indispensable; in any case, Catholics throughout the world should strive to unite their efforts and seek to establish, in opposition to social organizations, artisan and workers' societies.

Elio Degano