Pope Leo XIII Quotes

23 Sourced Quotes

To this must be added that the hiring of labor and the conduct of trade are concentrated in the hands of comparatively few; so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself.

Pope Leo XIII
No one is so rich that he does not need another's help; no one so poor as not to be useful in some way to his fellow man; and the disposition to ask assistance from others with confidence and to grant it with kindness is part of our very nature.

Pope Leo XIII
Nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good.

Pope Leo XIII
It is shameful and inhuman to treat men like chattels to make money by, or to regard them merely as so much muscle or physical power.

Pope Leo XIII
Wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earner.

Pope Leo XIII
Therefore those governing the State ought primarily to devote themselves to the service of individual groups and of the whole commonwealth, and through the entire scheme of laws and institutions to cause both public and individual well-being to develop spontaneously out of the very structure and administration of the state.

Pope Leo XIII
The fact that God gave the whole human race the earth to use and enjoy cannot indeed in any manner serve as an objection against private possessions.

Pope Leo XIII
You are not to be looked upon as holding the true Catholic faith if you do not teach that the faith of Rome is to be held

Pope Leo XIII
People differ in capacity, skill, health, strength; and unequal fortune is a necessary result of unequal condition. Such inequality is far from being disadvantageous either to individuals or to the community.

Pope Leo XIII
We have seen that this great labor question cannot be solved save by assuming as a principle that private ownership must be held sacred and inviolable. The law, therefore, should favor ownership, and its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people to become owners.

Pope Leo XIII
For when men know they are working on what belongs to them, they work with far greater eagerness and diligence. Nay, in a word, they learn to love the land cultivated by their own hands, whence they look not only for food but for some measure of abundance for themselves and their dependents. All can see how much this willing eagerness contributes to an abundance of produce and the wealth of a nation.

Pope Leo XIII
Every man has by nature the right to possess property as his own.

Pope Leo XIII
Not only, in strict truth, was marriage instituted for the propagation of the human race, but also that the lives of husbands and wives might be made better and happier. This comes about in many ways: by their lightening each other's burdens through mutual help; by constant and faithful love; by having all their possessions in common; and by the heavenly grace which flows from the sacrament.

Pope Leo XIII
It is clear that the main tenet of socialism, community of goods, must be utterly rejected, since it only injures those whom it would seem meant to benefit, is directly contrary to the natural rights of mankind, and would introduce confusion and disorder into the commonweal. The first and most fundamental principle, therefore, if one would undertake to alleviate the condition of the masses, must be the inviolability of private property.

Pope Leo XIII
Inadequacy of his own strength, learned from experience, impels and urges a man to enlist the help of others.

Pope Leo XIII
The present age handed over the workers, each alone and defenseless, to the unbridled greed of competitors... so that a very few and exceedingly rich men have laid a yoke of almost slavery on the unnumbered masses of non-owning workers.

Pope Leo XIII
It is neither just nor human so to grind men down with excessive labour as to stupefy their minds and wear out their bodies.

Pope Leo XIII
Whoever has received from the divine bounty a large share of temporal blessings, whether they be external and material, or gifts of the mind, has received them for the purpose of using them for the perfecting of his own nature, and, at the same time, that he may employ them, as the steward of God's providence, for the benefit of others.

Pope Leo XIII
Heart of Jesus, burning with love for us, inflame our hearts with love of Thee.

Pope Leo XIII
No human law can abolish the natural and original right of marriage, nor in any way limit the chief and principal purpose of marriage ordained by God's authority from the beginning: Increase and multiply.

Pope Leo XIII
The Church of Christ, therefore, is one and the same forever.

Pope Leo XIII
But the supreme teacher in the Church is the Roman Pontiff. Union of minds, therefore, requires, together with a perfect accord in the one faith, complete submission and obedience of will to the Church and to the Roman Pontiff, as to God Himself.

Pope Leo XIII
Be mindful of this — that to exercise pressure upon the indigent and the destitute for the sake of gain, and to gather one's profit out of the need of another, is condemned by all laws, human and divine. To defraud any one of wages that are his due is a great crime which cries to the avenging anger of Heaven.

Pope Leo XIII