The Universal Destination of Goods

In 1273, St Thomas Aquinas declared in the Summa Theologiae that “one should not consider one’s material possessions as one’s own, but as common to all,” adding that we must “share them without hesitation when others are in need,” while St Ambrose of Milan declared to a stunned nobility that, by giving aid to the poor, “you are not making a gift of your possessions” but are handing back to them “what is rightfully theirs.” “For what has been given in common for the use of all you have arrogated to yourself,” he remarked, concluding that “the world is given to all, and not only to the rich.”

These deeply collectivistic perspectives on wealth are not the preserve of a few fringe theologians or cherry-picked quotations, but accurately represent the core of a Catholic catechism: the universal destination of goods. The principle asserts, in short, that while “all men have a right to maintain the necessities of their own existence,” the holding of any form of surplus wealth is, as Fr. Ryan Erlenbush puts it, “to commit the sin of theft.”

While the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church upholds the right to private property on pragmatic grounds, it breaks property down into three “tiers”: what you need to survive, what you need for personal development, and surplus wealth. While it’s okay for any person to secure their own survival, and even to save a bit, the holding of any form of surplus wealth after that is theft from the poor, and a violation of the seventh commandment (“Thou shalt not steal”).

Church fathers made clear that this doctrine was not about charity. St John Chrysostom wrote that “not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life,” while St Gregory the Great explained further that “when we attend to the needs of those in want, we give them what is theirs, not ours. More than performing works of mercy, we are paying a debt of justice.” Pope Francis puts it perhaps more bluntly: “[I]f one person lacks what is necessary to live with dignity, it is because another person is detaining it.”

Since the acquisition of surplus property is theft, the universal destination of goods fully permits the poor to take back what is rightfully theirs from the rich, in the same way that recovering a stolen handbag from a thief is understood to be justified in natural law. This is not a fringe interpretation, as Pope Gregory IX explicitly noted in relation to this doctrine that “it is no less a crime to take from him that has, than to refuse to succor the needy when you can.” Perhaps even more alarming for those on the Catholic right, in cases where the poor are unable to secure what is rightfully theirs themselves, third persons — including states — may seek to return this stolen surplus wealth to its universal destination.

Pope Paul VI explicitly identified “social institutions” such as families, communities, and unions as the tools to “bring to reality the common destination of earthly goods” and further called on governments “to share and employ their earthly goods, according to the ability of each.” Dismissing the reactionary Catholic overemphasis on property rights, “all other rights,” he declared, “are to be subordinated to this principle.” This view has not been confined to theory. Prominent Catholic intellectuals of the previous century such as John Ryan were often fully committed to ending poverty through widespread state-directed wealth redistribution as well as the strengthening of employee participation in the economy.

While the doctrine may appear at first glance to be irreconcilable with modern industrial (and postindustrial) capitalism — perhaps even overtly socialist — right-wing Catholic theologians have exploited a number of nuances within the church’s social teaching in order to deny its radical implications. Interpretation of these teachings is richly contested despite the apparent clarity of the texts themselves. Prominent clergymen like the “bishop of the internet,” Robert Barron, have retorted that we should not “demonize” the powerful, reassuring listeners that despite how Catholic social teachings might sound, there’s nothing to worry about because the church is clearly against socialism.

An Accommodation With Capital?

He has a point. The church does have a 1949 Decree Against Communism, as well as a number of hostile declarations against “socialism,” partly responding to the anticlericalism of the Mexican and Russian Revolutions. The anti-socialism of Barron and others seems to be rooted in a misunderstanding of socialism as the negation of all forms of personal property, ignoring that socialists are concerned primarily with the ownership of the means of production and the distribution of the social surplus that workers produce. Given somewhat similar distinctions made by the church, there shouldn’t be too much to argue about here.

The contemporary Catholic right have therefore had to spin an ahistorical and nondoctrinal interpretation of the universal destination of goods, reconciling this apparently anti-capitalist doctrine with the Catholic Church’s intimate entanglement and support of industrialists and landowners (as well as its own surplus wealth). Attempts to dilute the doctrine have hinged on two core arguments: that church doctrine also upholds the sanctity of private property as a natural right, and that the distinction between necessary personal wealth and “surplus” is too difficult to meaningfully define.

While God, according to Pope Pius XI, “has given man the right of private ownership,” church doctrine does not support the idea that there is a supreme or absolute right to private property. Aquinas’s arguments in favor of it were pragmatic and derived from the universal destination of goods, not the other way round. The Compendium holds that “Christian tradition has never recognized the right to private property as absolute and untouchable,” and that where permitted, it must be “subordinated to the right to common use.”

In terms of the ambiguity of what counts as “surplus” wealth, there are of course some gray areas. Does one really need the newest smartphone? Is a long distance holiday acceptable? The church certainly makes no strict ruling here. But the line must exist somewhere. If hoarding billions of dollars in wealth and taking private trips to space would not qualify, practically nothing would.

These efforts to obfuscate the doctrine fall short when understood in context. Not only has the church outlined these ideas in the abstract but, as noted, has consistently argued for their real-world realization through various measures.

Outside of the Union, There Is No Salvation

The church, therefore, openly supports trade unionism, freedom of association, collective bargaining, and (unlike the International Labour Organization) the right to strike as a practical means of redistributing wealth.

In 1891, Pope Leo XIII called on Catholics to form unions as a means to “save unfortunate working people from the cruelty of men of greed” and from those “who use human beings as mere instruments for money-making,” concluding that if employers “degraded them with conditions repugnant to their dignity as human beings” it would be “right to invoke the aid and authority of the law” in their defense.

The Compendium also states clearly that “labour has an intrinsic priority over capital,” denouncing employers who followed “the principle of maximum profit” and who “establish the lowest possible wages for the work done by the employees.” A 1965 statement of the ecumenical council — of which there is no higher authority in the church than the Bible itself — asserted “the right of freely founding unions for working people” and for workers to freely participate in trade unions “without risk of reprisal.”

This statement has a hoary legacy within the church. During Ronald Reagan’s assault on organized labor in the 1980s, the United States’ Catholic bishops publicly stated that “the Church fully supports the right of workers to form unions . . . to secure their rights to fair wages and working conditions,” adding that “no one may deny the right to organize without attacking human dignity itself,” firmly opposing “organized efforts [by Reagan] to break existing unions and prevent workers from organizing.”

Pope Francis has gone even further, telling the Italian Confederation of Workers’ Unions in 2017 that “there is no good society without a good union” and organizing a World Meeting of Popular Movements, which has sought to link up “grassroots organizations” working to address the “economy of exclusion and inequality” by working for structural changes that promote economic justice — part of a more general move to the left that has taken place under Francis, who has expanded “social sin” to include questions of environmental destruction. The church’s clear, consistent, and dedicated commitment to trade unionism as a means of wealth distribution leaves little wiggle room for the Catholic right on this issue.

Does Any of This Matter to the Left?

The recent victory of Trump, carried over the line in part by the Catholic vote, has shown that the Left may be more isolated than it had thought, at least on a number of prominent social issues. Building alliances and common political platforms with other movements, organizations, and religious communities with shared goals will be essential to winning campaigns and reorienting a mass left movement that includes more working people.

The Left’s principled defenses of LQBTQ rights and women’s reproductive freedom, as well as secularism and humanism more broadly, makes a clash with the Catholic Church on these issues more or less inevitable. But that doesn’t mean leftists cannot make common cause with Catholics on other questions. Because of the church’s commitment to egalitarian economic views, it is possible for the Left and progressive Catholics to help change the political conversation by crafting a narrative about what we do agree on: the defense and expansion of trade unions, and the workers who produce society’s wealth being entitled to the fruits of their labor.

As religious studies professor Thomas Wetzel puts it, a progressive, economically left-wing church is now “hearteningly possible” for the first time “in decades.”