Pope Francis Attacks Private Property Rights

Pope Francis's Latest Attack on Property: It's a "Secondary Right"

Alice Salles

In Fratelli tutti, Pope Francis defines his vision of what an improved social order would look like, using theological elements, historical misconceptions,1 and political philosophy to create what has been dubbed his “quasi-humanitarian” manifesto. But in an attempt to swim with today’s political current, Francis pushes a “re-envisaging [of] the social role of property,” going against what previous popes have written and completely ignoring sound economic teachings.

In Fratelli tutti, Francis first claims that Christian thinkers understood that “if one person lacks what is necessary to live with dignity, it is because another person is detaining it.” In other words, those who are poor are such because someone else is holding the goods that all men require to live with dignity.

He then went on to echo Saint Pope John Paul II, saying that the “right to private property” was never considered “an absolute or inviolable right” in the Christian tradition. Instead, the church has always “stressed the social purpose of all forms of private property,” adding that the common use of created goods is the “first principle of the whole ethical and social order.”

Despite being the Holy Father, Francis was never shy about his political leanings.

In Fratelli tutti, his love for the poor isn’t just described as a deep caring for those with less access to certain services and goods. Instead, he uses poverty as a means to advocate against free markets.

Ignoring the encyclicals of his predecessors such as Pope Leo XIII, who once wrote that socialists, “working on the poor man's envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies,” Francis openly advocates against putting too much stock in one’s love for his or her own culture and nation, claiming that instead we should be looking at “a universal horizon,” a “global society” of sorts. In light of this, it is hard to see his claims regarding property rights as anything but an attack against the idea that communities can and should self-govern and that persons can and should have a right to own the fruits of their own labor.

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