There was only one “revolt” in the 19th century, and Pope Leo would have been intimately aware of it. That revolt, of course, was the revolt of Liberal Republicans against the Church and her institutions. Now, 19th century Republicanism has little to do with the modern American political party of the same name; 19th century Liberalism is of the Liberté, égalité, fraternité variety, characterized by the vicious and bigoted anti-Catholic motivation that was originally institutionalize in the French Revolution. Rerum Novarum was published May 15, 1891. It was at this time that 19th century Republicans were consolidating the power they had seized. Porfirio Diaz, the Republican general of the Mexian Reform wars, had only recently ascended to become dictator of Mexico. Liberal Republican governments were consolidating personal wealth and secular power throughout Central America. Napoleon’s post-Revolutionary adventures (i.e. all of the adventures of all the Napoleons*) in France itself had come to an ignominious (and well-deserved) end. Thus, Pope Leo refers here to the literal revolts against the institution of the Church, carried out throughout much of the western world.

Now, in most cases, those who revolted were well-justified. Church institutions in many societies were quite rich, and large concentrations of wealth and power were controlled by a few men of the upper hierarchies in most countries. More importantly, they did not tend to use this wealth to further the common good. However, the Church institutions were in all these cases no different from all other institutions within any given society. Every country in which a revolt occurred had large concentrations of wealth and power held by a few, and those few, whether ecclesiastical or lay, rarely operated with the common good in mind. The craftiness of the agitators consisted in directing the well-justified ire of the people against the Church — and the Church alone. In most cases, the agitators themselves wound up controlling or owning the properties seized from the Church, and nothing changed in the social organization: a very few controlled vast amounts of wealth and power and did not use it for the common good. The only change was that instead of distributing wealth and power amongst both an ecclesiastical and a secular elite, the secular elite deposed the ecclesiastical elite in order to build itself up to be even larger.

Pope Leo knew this, too, of course. And he would have been well-aware of the consequences of completely disenfranchising Church institutions from participation in the society. When Church wealth was deposed, it was deposed even from modest and genuinely poor institutions which did use their resources for the common good, and no secular equivalents emerged replace the services formerly provided by the Church. Real people suffered real harm. Thus, it is quite possible to read Rerum Novarum in light of the actual history in which it is set. It criticizes those social institutions which build themselves up at the expense of persons, while denying the very personhood of those whose efforts are so used. This is a far cry from criticizing wealth and rich folks merely because they are wealthy. Rather, it represents an understanding of the times which is far outside the scope of the time: Pope Leo admonishes those who exercise authority over wealth to be cognizant of the need for virtue, not just as an abstract philosophical term but as an imperative for directing actual human behavior. In other words, the common good must be sought in administering the riches of this world.

Recall that the 19th century Republicans seized the wealth of the Church, which is to say that they seized the wealth controlled by a small number of bishops and upper clergy (while completely debilitating the minor institutions as well). They then made use of this wealth themselves, either by taking it into their own private ownership or by controlling the institutions of government power that now owned this wealth — or both. In reaffirming subsidiarity, Pope Leo reminds those governments and persons made wealthy by Church seizures that they have taken what is not theirs. He also reminds those clergy who were former owners that their own improper stewardship is to blame for their loss and reinforces the overwhelming majority of clergy, religious, laity and Church institutions that never had access to much wealth for doing the good that they did throughout.

Thus, it is indeed true that “[w]e must therefore be wary of excessive government control,” in light of Rerum Novarum. This is the primary purpose of the document: to criticize the government institutions of the time for poor stewardship. Pope Leo tells us that stewardship is no abstract concept but is rather the very means by which we eat and drink and find shelter. When selfishness rules — and all those Republican governments of the 19th century were selfish — people suffer and die for our selfishness. Moreover, the very size of the government institutions that materialized in the wake of 19th century Church seizures was an impediment to serving the common good. Thus, true justice means we need to reduce the size of those institutions whenever possible, without building them back up into behemoths that dwarf the earlier problems. In other words, there may be good reason to depose a behemoth — even if it is headed by a Church official — but we have to make certain that we do not simply depose the one in order to build up a worse one in its place.

* One of the great ironies of the period is that Diaz and Napoleon III actually fought against each other, with Napoleon III backing a Mexican monarchy with the support of those that opposed Mexican Republicanism.