Jesuits, the Social Question, and the Divide between Conservative and Progressive Neo-Thomists

The French and Industrial Revolutions transformed Europe’s political, economic, and social landscape, prompting the Catholic Church to revive Aristotelian-Thomistic principles, which led to the emergence of Neo-Thomism. In 1879 Pope Leo XIII’s Encyclical Aeterni Patris urged the Church to apply Neo-Thomism to modern challenges. In 1891 Rerum novarum addressed the relationship between capital and labor, introducing social justice as a concept distinct from commutative and distributive justice. Focused on the social question, social justice lacked a clear definition, sparking an ideological divide within the Church. This divide influenced the Society of Jesus, whose members, with a tradition of advising on economic morality, applied Neo-Thomistic principles to new challenges. Shaped by their environments, some Jesuits adopted a conservative, paternalistic approach emphasizing order, individual liberty, and private property, while others advocated communal values, equitable wealth distribution, and harmonious capital-labor relations. This article examines six European Jesuit thinkers from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who addressed the social question through Neo-Thomistic frameworks.

Keywords:
Jesuits; Neo-Thomism; labor; social justice; economy

“Let’s start by practicing justice, for without justice we cannot think of charity.”

—Father Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga, S.J. (1901–52)

The Social Question^[1]

The French and Industrial Revolutions fostered a divide between conservative and progressive tendencies within the Catholic Church and the Jesuit order. Political turmoil in Europe during the 1830s and 1840s, combined with the Long Depression of 1873, challenged the prevailing order, giving rise to the “social question.” Having originated in France after the 1830 Revolution and later spreading across Europe,^[2] the social question was a “scenario of social and economic defects resulting from one-sided monetary capitalism, leading to the collapse of human society,”^[3] which threatened social stability. Changes in capital-labor relationships, driven by capital accumulation and technological advancements, made the social question urgent.

The social question introduced the concept of social justice, which governs relationships among individuals as social beings. Employed by Pope Pius XI in the Catholic Magisterium, social justice emphasizes human inherent sociability^[4] and represents justice among individuals in their social interaction, focusing on societal relationships. Although scholars have assimilated social justice into earlier Thomistic legal justice,^[5] even if combined with distributive justice,^[6] it has acquired a place of its own, especially as it relates to economic issues, as Frank Brown wrote: “Social Justice should establish a legal and social order which will give form and shape to all economic life.”^[7]

However, achieving social justice was complex, navigating legal, political, economic, and philosophical obstacles amid turbulent historical circumstances, where conservative and progressive views often clashed even within the Society of Jesus.

The Jesuit Order and the Social Question

The Catholic Church sought to address the social question, with conservatives like Joseph de Maistre^[8] clashing with progressive thinkers like Félicité de Lamennais, founder of L’Avenir.

This divide also influenced the Jesuit order. Conservative Luigi Taparelli D’Azeglio’s emphasis on order contrasted with Alberto Hurtado’s views. Jesuits engaged in Catholic circles, sometimes shaping papal policies.^[9] Some advised Catholic entrepreneurial associations, while others supported labor unions.^[10] Over time general congregations developed a more consistent view of social justice.^[11] But before that, several Jesuits would come to opposing views.

Neo-Thomism and the Social Question

Nineteenth-century Jesuits were deeply influenced by Scholastic thought. As Sándor Agócs noted, “Neo-Thomism became a refuge for the leaders of the Church who rejected the Revolution and the intellectual and social changes it introduced.”^[12] Whether in its purest form (as advocated by French Jesuit Billot)^[13] or modified by Suarezian ideas, Neo-Thomism shaped the Society of Jesus, providing a renewed doctrine of reason and faith to address these new questions.^[14] This was the result of a conscious effort from the top; Pope Leo XIII’s Aeterni Patris (1879)^[15] explicitly urged the clergy to embrace Thomism. The appointment of Cardinal Mercier as head of the Higher Institute of Philosophy at the University of Leuven^[16] and the promotion of Jesuit Neo-Thomists like Franzelin and Kleutgen, co-ghostwriter of Aeterni Patris, reinforced this direction. At stake were longstanding issues, such as tensions between justice and charity, private property and taxation, and new issues like work relationships in an industrialized world and workers’ rights.

Thomas Aquinas provided a general framework: private exchanges follow commutative justice, while distributive justice governs relations with authority, such as taxation. However, social justice demanded new answers, and Neo-Thomism did not ensure consensus. Differing backgrounds, experiences, and challenges shaped Jesuits’ perspectives, positioning them on opposite sides of the social question.

The Social Question and the Conservative-Progressive Divide

Conservative Response to the Social Question

Classical liberalism initially shaped Catholic economic thought. Figures like François Xavier Joseph Droz, Charles de Coux, and Charles Périn viewed private property, markets, and capital-labor relationships through a liberal lens, advocating Christian charity to address excesses. Charles Périn consistently avoided the notion of social justice, seeing it as the same as commutative justice.^[17]

Drawing on Frédéric Le Play’s sociology,^[18] conservatives saw paternalistic associations as solutions to the working class’s plight. Charitable organizations, like the Société des amis de l’enfance and the Société de Saint Vincent de Paul,^[19] united aristocratic and bourgeois families to provide material aid and promote workers’ moral standards, rejecting undue state intervention.^[20] These groups also served a spiritual purpose: charity was a path to salvation, encapsulated in the Vincentian motto “God as goal and the poor as means.”^[21] French and German industrialists, like Léon Harmel and Franz Brandts,^[22] set the example in an “approach of the aristocratic stream of Catholicism” to solve the social question:^[23] along with bettering the working conditions in the factories, Christian moral standards were enforced, such as attending Mass, avoiding alcohol, and upholding family life.^[24]

Progressive Response

Charity alone proved inadequate. During the lingering Long Depression of 1873, social unrest arose in the working classes.^[25] In 1884 the Association Catholique des Patrons du Nord in the French city of Lille called for state involvement, just wages, and trade unions.^[26]

In 1886, responding to strikes in Liège,^[27] Bishop Mgr. Doutreloux convened the first Congress of Liège, a gathering of progressive Catholic leaders like Adolf Daens, Antoine Pottier, and Léon de Lantsheere,^[28] fostering a progressive agenda.

Ongoing Tensions

Conservatives responded swiftly. Charles Périn, invited by Bishop Mgr. Charles Freppel of Angers, organized an opposing congress advocating against state intervention.^[29] The battle between the Schools of Liège and Angers was intense, involving seminars, journals, and appeals to government and ecclesiastical authorities to influence papal decisions.

In 1891, Pope Leo XIII issued Rerum novarum, addressing the social question for the first time. Seeking a middle way using Thomistic categories,^[30] Rerum novarum “sought a middle way for the Catholic Church.”^[31] However, this middle way seemed to leave many questions unresolved. Some viewed it as essentially conservative,^[32] while others saw it as partially endorsing progressive stances.^[33] It emphasized that charity was beyond human enforceability^[34] and described private property as “inviolable”,^[35] but it also endorsed labor unions formed exclusively by workers.^[36]

Conservative and Progressive Jesuit Thinkers

This article examines six Jesuit thinkers: three conservatives and three progressives, shaped by their personal histories and the world they lived in. The late nineteenth-century unification of Italy pressured the Pontifical States and the Church’s temporal power of the Papacy.^[37] This had a direct impact on some of the figures we will analyze, such as the influencing Italians Luigi Taparelli D’Azeglio and Matteo Liberatore.

Progressive thinkers faced different contexts. In a Protestant-dominated Germany after the kleindeutsche Lösung excluded the Austrian Empire, Catholics were a minority. Even earlier, figures like Wilhelm von Ketteler, Bishop of Mainz, defended the Church’s right to educate its members.^[38] Later, under the new German Reich, the Kulturkampf pitted German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck against the Catholic world, leading to the creation of the Zentrumspartei.

Conservative Jesuits

Luigi Taparelli D’Azeglio, S.J. (1793–1862)

Luigi Taparelli D’Azeglio was without doubt one of the most important Catholic thinkers on economic and social matters.^[39] Born in Turin (then Piedmont-Sardinia), he was the first rector of the Collegio Romano in Rome after its return to Jesuit control (1773–1814), he revised the curriculum to emphasize Aristotelian-Thomistic doctrines.^[40] His controversial advocacy of Thomism led to his exile to Naples and Palermo in the 1830s. Returning to Rome,^[41] he led the Thomistic revival, founding a study circle on Thomas Aquinas’s teachings that influenced Vincenzo Gioacchino Pecci, the future Pope Leo XIII.^[42] His Saggio teoretico di dritto naturale appoggiato sul fatto significantly shaped Neo-Thomistic doctrine.

A staunch advocate of order, Taparelli founded the conservative La Civiltà Cattolica in 1850,^[43] following the 1848 social upheaval, which prompted Pope Pius IX to adopt a conservative stance, issuing the Syllabus Errorum (1864) and proclaiming papal infallibility (Vatican Council I).^[44]

From this notion of order, Taparelli developed his Principle of subsidiarity,^[45] which emphasized the autonomy of midlevel organizations: contrary to the individualistic view of classical liberalism, he argued that man, far from alone, lives in society with and dependent on others.^[46] This dependency generates bonds and associations on several levels of association, which he called hypotactical associations:^[47] society is formed from the bottom up, starting from smaller groups (consortia or consorzii), which in their turn form broader, more complex  entities (deutarchies), finally reaching the highest and most complex organizations (protarchies).^[48] Each has a hypotactical right to act independently within its sphere if fulfilling its duties. If they fail, higher structures must intervene to assist but not supplant them.

Taparelli focused mostly on the negative aspect of subsidiarity, ensuring the Church’s independence amid Italy’s unification.

His influence on Rerum novarum regarding subsidiarity can be felt.^[49] In it, Leo XIII, apart from defending midlevel organizations (as the medieval guilds),^[50] highlighted the role of smaller entities within the state. Quoting Thomas Aquinas (Liber Contra Impugnantes Dei Cultum et Religionem), Leo XIII defended smaller entities:

Lesser societies and the larger society differ in many respects, because their immediate purpose and aim are different. . . . Private societies . . . cannot nevertheless be absolutely, and as such, prohibited by public authority. For, to enter into a society of this kind is the natural right of man; and the State has for its office to protect natural rights, not to destroy them.^[51]

Further, immediately below in the same paragraph, Leo XIII said that there “are occasions, doubtless, when it is fitting that the law should intervene to prevent certain associations, as when men join together for purposes which are evidently bad, unlawful, or dangerous to the State. In such cases, public authority may justly forbid the formation of such associations, and may dissolve them if they already exist.”^[52] The role of the state to intervene on the smaller organizations is clearly defined.

Another thing that marks Taparelli as a conservative is his interpretation of Thomas Aquinas’s teachings regarding private property. Taparelli viewed private property as ius naturale, or natural right stricto sensu, in contrast with the common view that regards it as ius gentium.^[53] In his Saggio, after criticizing Francisco Suárez’s understanding of ius naturale and ius gentium, Taparelli related private property to man’s freedom (“le proprietà private nascono dal dritto naturale per un fatto che all’ individuo è libero” ).^[54] This reflects the ongoing debate in Europe on the matter and the efforts to counter the threat of socialism.^[55]

Taparelli’s biggest contribution is his notion of social justice. For Taparelli, social justice stems from men’s intrinsic equality (even in unequal relationships, like that of father and son, both individuals remain equal as men)^[56] and sociability. Men do not live in isolation but in society; they form all kinds of associations (the consortia, deutarchies, and protarchies). To accomplish this, they create and develop social bonds, which give them not only rights but also duties, which do not end in the obligation of not doing harm (the old alterum non laedere), but of doing good.^[57] Man, as son of God, recognizes in his fellow men his fellow brothers, which impels him to be (as the Bible would call it) “his brothers’ keeper.” These obligations result in social, not individual rights—the rights of man living in society. Social justice demands that the individuals do good to the other on the basis of their subjective quality: fellow men in society.

Subsidiarity and social justice—Taparelli’s notions of order—center on the common good. In his Saggio, he stated: “Praise and sacrifice are therefore the first of the social means of cooperating for the highest common good.”^[58] He remains one of the most original thinkers of the nineteenth century, having developed a coherent notion of the new concept of social justice and updating the notion of subsidiarity and the importance of midlevel institutions.

Matteo Liberatore, S.J. (1810–92)

The Jesuit Matteo Liberatore, a conservative thinker, was born in Salerno, Italy, in 1810. He entered the Jesuit order in Naples during Luigi Taparelli’s exile there, where Taparelli, directing the Jesuit College,^[59] significantly influenced him.

The social and political upheavals of 1848 shaped Liberatore’s societal views. He actively contributed to La Civiltà Cattolica,^[60] for which he wrote numerous articles. His primary contribution to Catholic doctrine was drafting Rerum novarum.^[61]

His Della Conoscenza Intellettuale restored Thomism as a valid philosophical doctrine in the Church.^[62] Liberatore’s views, however, were linked to classical liberal ideas of freedom of association based on freedom of choice, rejecting compulsory entry.^[63] His early admiration for Adam Smith slowly evolved, but he later criticized Smith’s “mechanistic” economic doctrine, developing a perspective akin to economic personalism.^[64]

Liberatore’s views on private property were as conservative as those of Castelein and Taparelli. Perhaps due to his incomplete knowledge of the Scholastic tradition (he was a latecomer to Thomistic views), he seems to have been influenced by liberal (Lockean) approaches,^[65] arguing in Principles of Political Economy that private property, traditionally characterized as ius gentium, should be considered ius naturale,^[66] reinforcing private property’s absolute and individualistic nature^[67] and distancing it from Thomism’s more communal character.^[68] Liberatore puts special emphasis on the ownership of land (“permanently fruitful”)^[69] at a time when some, like Henry George, proposed to tax land comprehensively (the idea of the “single-tax”).^[70]

As a ghostwriter of Rerum novarum, Liberatore’s influence is clear. In his Principles of Political Economy, he wrote that “the right [of private property] is inviolable,”^[71] while in Rerum novarum he claimed that “The first and most fundamental principle, therefore . . . must be the inviolability of private property.”^[72]

Despite his conservatism, Liberatore showed progressive tendencies on labor issues. In drafting Rerum novarum, he advocated for family wages, prevailing over Cardinal Zigliara, with whom he drafted the Encyclical:^[73] Rerum novarum held that wages should “enable him [a worker] comfortably to support himself, his wife, and his children,”^[74] echoing Liberatore’s Principles: “the natural price of a man’s labor . . . will suffice to maintain him and her and two or three little children.”^[75] Unlike Castelein, who viewed state intervention in labor issues as socialist, Liberatore emphasized justice over charity.^[76]

Matteo Liberatore was very much a man of his time; like Taparelli, he was a staunch defender of order and, like Castelein, he defended the ius naturale of private property. But he also argued for minimum wages. His contribution as drafter of Rerum novarum renders him a distinguished place among Jesuit thinkers on social justice.

Auguste Castelein, S.J. (1840–1922)

The Jesuit Auguste Castelein, a conservative thinker aligned with classical liberalism, emphasized individual liberty. His life and work “sketch a broader panorama, with particular attention to the Jesuit order and the cross-border Catholic industrial elite of Belgium and Northern France.”^[77] He wielded significant influence in Belgian Catholic associations. His conservative perspective was likely shaped by personal experience: the 1870 capture of Rome by Italian forces, which forced him to leave the city and return to Leuven, and the 1886 riots in Liège and other Belgian regions likely reinforced his aversion to revolutions.^[78]

Born in Menin, Belgium, in 1840, Castelein studied philosophy and theology in Leuven and Rome, respectively. The social unrest of 1886 convinced him to address the social question conservatively and prioritize order. As an alternative to the progressive School of Liège, Castelein helped organize the Congress of Angers, opposing Bishop Mgr. Doutreloux and Abbot Antoine Pottier.^[79]

A disciple of Charles Périn at the University of Leuven,^[80] Castelein influenced Catholic industrial organizations in Belgium,^[81] advising the Assemblée Générale or Association des Patrons et Industriels Catholiques de Belgique (APIC),^[82] where he encouraged charity as a merely private, individual matter,^[83] and rejected state intervention as a form of socialism.

On labor issues, Castelein opposed employees’ rights to share in company profits or receive a family wage.^[84] His liberal tendencies led him to focus on commutative justice for salaries.^[85]

Regarding private property, Castelein offered a conservative interpretation of Rerum novarum. He emphasized its “inviolable” character, arguing that the Encyclical (paragraph 15) referred to “the inviolability of private property,”^[86] affirming its absolute nature.

Castelein significantly influenced Belgian politics, both in the Church and in entrepreneurial circles. His contributions to an understanding of the social question, individual rights, and community roles remain noteworthy.

Progressive Jesuits

Heinrich Pesch, S.J. (1854–1926)

Heinrich Pesch, widely regarded as the founding father of Solidarism,^[87] developed this concept in his extensive Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie, emphasizing the primacy of community while preserving individual freedom.

Born in Cologne in 1854, Pesch pursued studies in theology, philosophy, and jurisprudence before enrolling in 1901 at the Friedrich-Wilhelm University in Berlin (now Humboldt University) to study economics and engaging with prominent economists Gustav von Schmoller and Adolf Wagner.^[88]

Pesch’s early experiences confronted him with the social question. His time in Lancashire, England—the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution—exposed him in direct contact with the “fate of the worker.”^[89]

Pesch’s legacy extends beyond his writings to his influence on the “study group,” including Gustav Gundlach, Oswald von Nell-Breuning, Franz Mueller, and Goetz Briefs.^[90]

Corporatism is a hallmark of Pesch’s doctrine. Building on Ketteler and Taparelli’s ideas of subsidiarity, Pesch advocated for a revived guild system, enabling vocational groups to represent members, manage conflicts within professions, and resolve disputes between employers and employees.^[91]

As an economist, he did not just recall ancient institutions; his ideas about growth, production, and distribution, in what he called relationships of the coverage of needs (Bedarfsdeckungsverhältnisse),^[92] combined the new economic insights with Thomistic distributive justice. His understanding of the relationships for the satisfaction of needs (Bedarfsdeckungsverhältnisse) analyzed economically and normatively how supply influences demand, often with negative social consequences for the poor.^[93]

Pesch articulated two key economic principles: the principle of the satisfaction of needs (Bedarfsdeckungsprinzip) and the principle of equivalence (Äquivalenzprinzip). The former posits that the economic process exists to satisfy human needs, not merely desires, distancing him from utilitarists like John Stuart Mill. The latter refers to the equality in exchanges.

According to the first principle, the economic process exists not for its own sake but for the satisfaction of needs. This had an impact on all of his economic views, so he advocated for professional (vocational) associations (Berufsgenossenschaften)^[94] and supported social security measures for the poor, invalid, and the old.^[95]

Pesch applied the principle of satisfaction of needs to commerce. He argued that, contrary to liberalism, freedom is not an end in itself; it serves a common purpose: the satisfaction of needs of the whole people (Bedarfsversorgung des ganzen Volkes).^[96] This guided his views on several issues: On tariffs, although not a protectionist, he nevertheless favored “protective tariffs” (Schutzzölle) for nascent industries^[97] and he defended commercial speculation (like insurance) when it favored production and distribution of goods.^[98]

According to the principle of equivalence, the exchange of goods must respect the equivalence of worth (iustitia commutativa).^[99] But for him this equality was not individualistic: Recalling the old subjective communis aestimatio, or “common estimation,” he went further to say that this estimation, although subjective, is located in a society. For Pesch the equivalence had real, not individualistically arbitrary, foundations.^[100] He argued that the capitalist view of the equivalence renders the market devoid of the true equivalence and tends to hurt the consumer.^[101] Pesch acknowledged the value of goods according to their utility (Nützlichkeit)^[102] insofar as they satisfied needs, but his point of departure from capitalism was that a social hierarchy of needs (e.g., clothes protect people from the weather, which to society is more valuable than the need to be seen with a beautiful diamond [mere luxury]).

In labor issues, Pesch managed to link the principle of satisfaction of needs and the principle of equivalence to arrive at a solution amicable to social justice: commenting on Rerum novarum, Pesch recalled that Leo XIII (although not yet settling for family wages) asserted that the worker, participating as he does to cover the needs of society, must in turn cover his own needs; that is, he deserves a salary sufficient to cover his own needs.^[103] We can here see a socialization of the iustitia commutativa by the principle of satisfaction of needs: the iustitia commutativa of the labor-wage exchange is altered so as to cover the needs of workers as contributing members of society, resulting in minimum wages.

Pesch’s originality—his massive and comprehensive work on economic theory—places him at the forefront of Catholic economic thought; thus, he remains indispensable. He is one of the few thinkers to have established a doctrine that can be called his own and places him at the center of Jesuit economic thinking.

Oswald von Nell-Breuning, S.J. (1890–1991)

Oswald von Nell-Breuning has been identified as one of the fathers of the German social market economy. Advocating for, a “socially-tempered capitalism,”^[104] his work helped establish the foundations of modern German economic and social structure.

Born in Trier in 1890, Nell-Breuning was ordained in the Jesuit Order in 1921 and in 1927 became professor of moral theology and canon law at Sankt-Georgen in Frankfurt am Main.^[105] Very early on, he was impressed by the economic hardship, the social question, and the situation of the working class.^[106] A prolific writer, Nell-Breuning’s writings would influence German Catholic thinking before and after World War II.^[107]

A committed Neo-Thomist, Nell-Breuning was not afraid to examine, criticize, and at times even recognize virtues in the writings of Karl Marx.^[108] A deep theorizer (he analyzed the principles of economic processes, commercial markets and capital-labor relations), he could be also extremely pragmatic in his views of modern markets.^[109]

Initially, Nell-Breuning adopted positions similar to the capitalist-oriented Kölner Richtlinien, which merely condemned capitalist excesses.^[110] Later he would distance himself from those views as well as from other, more romantic ones of German and (especially) Austrian thinkers like Karl von Vogelsang.^[111] Instead, he embraced Pesch’s solidarist doctrine as not only more morally defensible but as a philosophical and economic doctrine in its own right. The influential and more progressive West German social circle of the 1930s, Königswinterer Kreis, would play a decisive role, influencing him away from more conservative and classical liberal ideas.^[112]

Of great importance for Nell-Breuning was defeating the notion of the victory of one class over another in the class struggle. While first working to achieve a “class-free society,”^[113] he would later accept tension or issues between classes, insofar it was not based nor did it lead to enmity.^[114]

The “Nestor of the Catholic social doctrine,”^[115] Nell-Breuning ghostwrote the Encyclical Quadragesimo anno (1931)^[116] and wrote Reorganization of Social Economy: The Social Encyclical Explained. In both Quadragesimo anno and in his commentaries, he went to great lengths to reconcile the commutative justice of wages and the social value of labor and its impact on its remuneration. Like Pesch, Nell-Breuning denied the capitalist do ut des, facio ut facias approach to the value of work; he asserted that “an economic exchange value of work implied the right to demand equivalent value; only in its social relations did work possess this value. Consequently, this value depended upon the social circumstances in which labor is performed.”^[117]

A staunch solidarist, Nell-Breuning followed and further developed Heinrich Pesch’s ideas on corporatism and the community: men have not just different individual goals but also a common goal, their common good (Gemeinwohl).^[118] Solidarity (or solidarism) did not, however, remain for Nell-Breuning a concept fixed in time, covering only men in one point in time; intergenerational Solidarism expressed itself in matters of social security.^[119] His Solidarism was not based on transactional doctrines;^[120] departing from those liberal approaches, he advocated a Christian “communitarian” Solidarism: we deserve and are subject to Solidarist measures, not because of something we have done but because of who we are, human beings.

Taking up Taparelli’s notion of subsidiarity, Nell-Breuning did not, however, explicitly recognize him as a source.^[121] This may be due to their different views on authority and the fact that, while Taparelli emphasized the negative face of subsidiarity, Nell-Breuning seemed to emphasize its positive side and the obligation of the state to act when inferior bodies could not achieve their goals, “always consistently with the requirements of common welfare.”^[122]

On private property, Nell-Breuning, in Quadragesimo anno, clarified Rerum novarum’s stance, aligning with Thomas Aquinas by classifying private property as ius gentium, limited by the common good.

Nell-Breuning’s sophisticated analysis of commerce justified operations like stocks and hedge funds, provided they avoided mere speculation. In his commentary on Quadragesimo anno, he noted that “speculative trades are one method used to hedge against price risks and to ensure a steady supply of materials, at a steady price, for manufacturers and consumers.”^[123]

On labor, Nell-Breuning analyzed just wages, considering as determining factors (Quadragesimo anno, paragraphs 70–74): “(a) the worker’s and his family’s needs, (b) the condition of the enterprise, (c) common welfare.”^[124] With this, he reconciled commutative justice with the principle of satisfaction of needs (Bedarfsdeckunsprinzip). He also highlighted the desirability of incorporating features of a partnership between employer and employee. We find this idea in Quadragesimo anno: “We consider it more advisable, however, in the present condition of human society that, so far as is possible, the work-contract be somewhat modified by a partnership-contract.”^[125] In his commentary to Quadragesimo anno, he included the American “stock option” system, which allows but does not obligate the worker to enter into that partnership: “the main point is that co-proprietorship is left to the employee’s free decision; it is up to him whether he desires such close connection with the enterprise in which he is employed.”^[126]

And he championed workers’ right of “co-management” (Mitbestimmungsrecht).^[127] This would address the workers’ alienation by linking their fates to their company’s.^[128] Initially cautious, he later endorsed Germany’s 1970s parity structure of companies as progressive.^[129]

Nell-Breuning’s longevity and vitality enabled him to address twentieth-century globalization and environmental crises, among other challenges.^[130] He was a sharp critic of the Federal Republic of Germany’s housing^[131] and other social policies, but praised its harmonization of capital and labor, establishing him as a central figure in economic and social thought.

Gustav Gundlach, S.J. (1892–1963)

Like Oswald von Nell-Breuning, Gustav Gundlach contributed to papal encyclicals^[132] and advised Pope Pius XII on social issues.^[133]

Born in Geisenheim im Rheingau in 1892, he studied philosophy before entering the Jesuit order in 1912. Though sometimes labeled reactionary and individualist,^[134] his economic views were progressive, prioritizing socialization and cooperation over isolation and competition to fulfill human nature.

Like many Germans, Gundlach experienced the German financial crisis resulting from the 1929 crash of the New York Stock Exchange, with its hyperinflation and general hunger.^[135] This experience would influence his view on economic and social matters.

A staunch anti-National Socialist, he faced persecution in Nazi Germany and fled to Rome,^[136] where he helped draft the unpublished Encyclical Societatis Unio, also entitled Humani generis unitas, against anti-Semitism, intended for release by Pope Pius XI but halted by his death.^[137]

As a member of Heinrich Pesch’s “study group,” which would continue Pesch’s work,^[138] Gundlach viewed socialism as a variant of atheist liberalism^[139] seeking solutions in the Neo-Thomistic tradition. Like Pesch, he saw human relationships as the inherent socialization of man, laying the ground for solidarity to bring about social justice: “When we say that the State must manage social justice, the ultimate meaning of this statement is to regulate, coordinate, and determine the exercise of people’s personal rights, which are inherently equal and free.”^[140] As Heinz Sproll observes, Gundlach built on Pesch’s solidarism to free economic concepts, such as private property, from liberal axioms.^[141] For Gundlach, the spiritual, inner principle of social life gives the state its values and power.^[142] This meant that no arrangement regarding the social question can satisfy the common good and social justice.

We can see in Gundlach’s writings Taparelli’s insistence on a natural order; man is internally related to other human beings and has to develop this sociability. Echoing Taparelli, Gundlach saw this development in stages: the first association is the family and only then, going higher and outward, does it reach the highest association, the state. In Solidarismus, Einzelmensch, Gemeinschaft, he argued that humans are inherently relational, starting with the family and progressing to the state as a Societas Perfecta with qualitative, not quantitative, totality.^[143] Natural communities (like the family) order themselves functionally to the state as the ultimate organizing entity,^[144] but the content of the values is given to the State by these natural communities.^[145] This gives them not only a functional autonomy (within their sphere of competence) but an autonomy over their goals.

Gundlach’s Neo-Thomistic approach centered on three institutions: private property, family, and state.^[146] For him, the “social market economy can only be understood if one understands the economy as a social process of internally interrelated human persons.”^[147] And the external order and organization resides primarily in the institution of private property (Privateigentumsinstitution).^[148] However, Gundlach distanced himself from the old notion of the source of private property; he rejected private property as the result of sin and the fall of man; for him it was natural in the sense that it develops naturally from man’s nature.^[149] But private property also has a social dimension: In Das Privateigentum und seine soziale Pflichtigkeit, he rejected the notion that private property stems from sin, viewing it as natural but socially conditioned. The state, he argued, must regulate rights, including the right to private property, to achieve social justice.^[150]

Unlike conservatives, Gundlach embraced mass organizations like unions, stressing their pursuit of a coherent common goal.^[151] Gundlach helped shape Germany’s social structure by addressing economic and social questions from a Neo-Thomistic perspective, contributing significantly to Catholic social thought.

Conclusion

The Catholic Church and the Jesuit order navigated a challenging path in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, responding to political, social, and economic upheavals. Conservatives like Castelein, Taparelli and Liberatore prioritized social order. However, persistent economic inequalities and workers’ needs demanded action. Progressive Jesuits like Pesch, Nell-Breuning, and Gundlach sought to reconcile order with solutions to capital-labor tensions. This was particularly evident in Germany after the Third Reich’s collapse, when Catholic influence grew. These thinkers incorporated solidarity and subsidiarity, grounding economic systems in cooperation and public welfare beyond mere competition and private interest.^[152] Together, they developed the concept of social justice, influencing modern economic thought and Western legislation.

Notes:

^[1]          To my parents, Voltaire and Gester, and to Hans, in gratitude.

^[2]          Holly Case, “The ‘Social Question,’ 1820–1920,” Modern Intellectual History 13, no. 3 (2016): 765.

^[3]          Joseph Biederlack, Die soziale Frage: Ein Beitrag zur Orientierung über ihr Wesen und ihre Lösung (F. Rauch, 1921), 1.

^[4]          Stefano Solari and Daniele Corrado, “Social Justice and Economic Order According to Natural Law,” Journal of Markets & Morality 12, no. 1 (2009): 52.

^[5]          Johann B. Schuster, “Das Verhältnis von Iustitia Legalis und Distributiva zur Iustitia Socialis in Quadragesimo anno mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Lehre von Heinrich Pesch S.J.,” Scholastik 11 (1936): 226.

^[6]          Franciszek Janusz Mazurek, “Die Konzeption des gesellschaftlichen Solidarismus nach Heinrich Pesch,” Jahrbuch für Christliche Sozialwissenschaften 21 (1980): 93.

^[7]          Frank Brown, “Catholic Social Teaching and Economic Science,” Catholic Social Science Review 1 (1996): 91.

^[8]          Thomas C. Behr, Social Justice and Subsidiarity: Luigi Taparelli and the Origins of Modern Catholic Social Thought (Catholic University of America Press, 2019), 25.

^[9]          Behr, Social Justice, 35.

^[10]         Samuel Fernández Eyzaguirre, “Base documental para el estudio de San Alberto Hurtado. Estado de la cuestión,” Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia 17 (2008): 314.

^[11]         Daniel Cosacchi, “Jesuits and Social Justice,” Journal of Jesuit Studies 6, no. 4 (2019): 657, https://doi.org/10.1163/22141332-00604005.

^[12]         Sándor Agócs, “The Road of Charity Leads to the Picket Lines: The Neo-Thomistic Revival and the Italian Catholic Labor Movement,” Church History 42, no. 1 (1973): 30.

^[13]         Oliver P. Rafferty, S.J., “Thomistic Revival and the Relationship between the Jesuits and the Papacy, 1878–1914,” Theological Studies 75, no. 4 (2014): 752.

^[14]         Ludwig Hödl, “Zur Wirkungsgeschichte der Enzyklika »Aeterni Patris« Leos XIII. in der deutschen Philosophie und Theologie,” Münchener Theologische Zeitschrift 30, no. 4 (1979): 242.

^[15]         Hector Scerri, “The Revival of Scholastic Sacramental Theology after the Publication of Aeterni Patris,” Irish Theological Quarterly 77, no. 3 (2012): 265.

^[16]         Joeri De Smet, “Neo-Thomism at Leuven’s Faculty of Law,” in Neo-Thomism in Action: Law and Society Reshaped by Neo-Scholastic Philosophy, 1880–1960, ed. Wim Decock, Bart Raymaekers, and Peter Heyrman (Leuven University Press, 2021), 68.

^[17]         Solari and Corrado, “Social Justice,” 54.

^[18]         Floreal Forni, Ada Freytes, and Germán Quaranta, “Frédéric Le Play: Un precursor de la economía social,” Serie Documentos de Trabajo 1 (April 2003): 8.

^[19]         António Almodovar and Pedro Teixeira, “The Ascent and Decline of Catholic Economic Thought, 1830–1950s,” History of Political Economy 40, no. suppl. 1 (2008): 65.

^[20]         Michael Walsh, “The Myth of Rerum novarum,” New Blackfriars 93, no. 1044 (March 2012): 161.

^[21]         Peter Heyrman, “Catholic Charity and Public Poor Relief in Nineteenth-Century Belgium: Reconquest, Competition, Complementarity, Superiority,” European Journal for the History of Medicine and Health 79, no. 2 (2022): 262.

^[22]         André Habisch, “Practical Wisdom for Social Innovation: How Christian Entrepreneurs Triggered the Emergence of the Catholic Social Tradition in Europe,” in On the Economic Significance of the Catholic Social Doctrine, ed. Jürgen Backhaus, Günther Chaloupek, and Hans A. Frambach, European Heritage in Economics and the Social Sciences 19 (Springer International Publishing, 2017), 175.

^[23]         Stefano Solari, “Can a Catholic Be Liberal? Roman Catholicism and Liberalism in a Political Economy Perspective (1800–1970),” Journal of Philosophical Economics 16 (2023): 7, https://doi.org/10.46298/jpe.9252.

^[24]         Peter Heyrman, “A Conservative Reading of Rerum novarum through a Neo-Scholastic Lens: The Jesuit Auguste Castelein (1840–1922) and the Belgian ‘Patrons Catholiques,’” in Neo-Thomism in Action: Law and Society Reshaped by Neo-Scholastic Philosophy, 1880–1960, ed. Wim Decock, Bart Raymaekers, and Peter Heyrman (Leuven University Press, 2021), 201.

^[25]         Jon-Arild Johannessen, “The Long Depression: 1873–1893,” in Innovations Lead to Economic Crises: Explaining the Bubble Economy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 90.

^[26]         Florent Le Bot and Bruno Dumons, “Catholicisme social,” in Dictionnaire historique des patrons français, ed. Jean-Claude Daumas (Flammarion, 2010), 114.

^[27]         Paul Gérin, “Les écoles sociales belges et la lecture de Rerum novarum,” in “Rerum novarum”: Écriture, contenu et réception d’une encyclique, 267, Publications de l’École française de Rome 232 (École Française de Rome, 1997), 269.

^[28]         Kwinten Dewaele, “Neo-Thomism and the Debates on the Just Wage in Belgium (1879–1914),” in Neo-Thomism in Action: Law and Society Reshaped by Neo-Scholastic Philosophy, 1880–1960, ed. Wim Decock, Bart Raymaekers, and Peter Heyrman (Leuven University Press, 2021), 301.

^[29]         Heyrman, “Conservative Reading,” 209.

^[30]         Bruno Pinchard, “Rerum novarum: Une encyclique néo-scolastique? La question sociale ou le déclin de la communauté,” Publications de l’École Française de Rome 232, no. 1 (1997), 207.

^[31]         Jürgen Backhaus, Günther Chaloupek, and Hans A. Frambach, eds., On the Economic Significance of the Catholic Social Doctrine: 125 Years of Rerum novarum, European Heritage in Economics and the Social Sciences 19 (Springer International Publishing, 2017), 8.

^[32]         Walsh, “Myth of Rerum novarum,” 158.

^[33]         Guy Bedouelle, “De l’influence réelle de l’Union de Fribourg sur l’encyclique Rerum novarum,” Publications de l’École Française de Rome 232, no. 1 (1997): 242.

^[34]         Leo XIII, Rerum novarum, Encyclical (The Holy See, May 15, 1891), para. 22.

^[35]         Leo XIII, Rerum novarum, para. 49.

^[36]         Leo XIII, Rerum novarum, para. 15.

^[37]         Karim Schelkens, John A. Dick, Jürgen Mettepenningen, and David Schultenover, Aggiornamento?: Catholicism from Gregory XVI to Benedict XVI (Brill, 2013), 31.

^[38]         Martin J. O’Malley, “Currents in Nineteenth-Century German Law, and Subsidiarity’s Emergence as a Social Principle in the Writings of Wilhelm Ketteler,” Journal of Law, Philosophy and Culture 2 (2008): 23.

^[39]         Almodovar and Teixeira, “Ascent and Decline,” 70.

^[40]         Behr, Social Justice, 33.

^[41]         Behr, Social Justice, 35.

^[42]         Behr, Social Justice, 35.

^[43]         Solari, “Can a Catholic,” 14.

^[44]         Bernhard Knorn, S.J., “Johann Baptist Franzelin (1816–86): A Jesuit Cardinal Shaping the Official Teaching of the Church at the Time of the First Vatican Council,” Journal of Jesuit Studies 7, no. 4 (2020): 592.

^[45]         Prior to Taparelli, we can see other Catholic thinkers elaborating on this issue, especially arguing for the independence and autonomy of family and other mid-level bodies. But it was Taparelli who first systematizes the notion of Subsidiarity in a coherent and all-encompassing manner.

^[46]         Behr, Social Justice, 1.

^[47]         Behr, Social Justice, 110.

^[48]         Luigi Taparelli, Saggio teoretico di dritto naturale, appoggiato sul fatto, 6th ed., vol. 1 (Spese Degli, 1857), 290.

^[49]         Behr, Social Justice, 107.

^[50]         Leo XIII, Rerum novarum, para. 15.

^[51]         Leo XIII, Rerum novarum, para. 16.

^[52]         Leo XIII, Rerum novarum, para. 16.

^[53]         Heyrman, “Conservative Reading,” 211.

^[54]         Taparelli, Saggio teoretico, 1:126.

^[55]         Behr, Social Justice, 80.

^[56]         Taparelli, Saggio teoretico, 1:112.

^[57]         Taparelli, Saggio teoretico, 1:113.

^[58]         Taparelli, Saggio teoretico, 1:82.

^[59]         Peter Henrici, “Matteo Liberatore und Joseph Kleutgen, zwei Pioniere der Neuscholastik,” Gregorianum 91, no. 4 (2010), 770.

^[60]         Rafferty, “Thomistic Revival,” 752.

^[61]         Henrici, “Matteo Liberatore,” 776.

^[62]         Henrici, “Matteo Liberatore,” 777.

^[63]         Stefano Solari, “The Corporative Third Way in Social Catholicism (1830 to 1918),” The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 17, no. 1 (2010): 106.

^[64]         Alejandro A. Chafuen, “Austrian Economics and the Social Doctrine of the Church: A Reflection Based on the Economic Writings of Mateo Liberatore and Oswald von Nell-Breuning,” Journal des Économistes et des Études Humaines 13, no. 2 (2003): 5.

^[65]         Paul Misner, “The Predecessors of Rerum novarum within Catholicism,” Review of Social Economy 49, no. 4 (1991): 461.

^[66]         Matteo Liberatore, Principles of Political Economy, trans. Edward Heneage Dering (Art and Book Company, 1891), 137.

^[67]         Stefano Solari, “Roman Catholicism and the Founding Principles of Liberalism: Liberty and Private Property,” Forum for Social Economics 49, no. 4 (2020): 425.

^[68]         Dewaele, “Neo-Thomism,” 298.

^[69]         Liberatore, Principles of Political Economy, 146.

^[70]         Backhaus, Chaloupek, and Frambach, On the Economic Significance, 8.

^[71]         Liberatore, Principles of Political Economy, 134.

^[72]         Leo XIII, Rerum novarum, para. 15.

^[73]         Walsh, “Myth of Rerum novarum, 161.

^[74]         Leo XIII, Rerum novarum, para. 15.

^[75]         Liberatore, Principles of Political Economy, 181.

^[76]         Misner, “Predecessors of Rerum novarum,” 462.

^[77]         Heyrman, “Conservative Reading,” 230.

^[78]         Heyrman, “Conservative Reading,” 206.

^[79]         Jean-Pierre Delville, “Antoine Pottier and the Neo-Thomistic Roots of Social Justice,” in Neo-Thomism in Action: Law and Society Reshaped by Neo-Scholastic Philosophy, 1880–1960, ed. Wim Decock, Bart Raymaekers, and Peter Heyrman (Leuven University Press, 2021), 279.

^[80]         Almodovar and Teixeira, “Ascent and Decline,” 71.

^[81]         Peter Heyrman, “Belgian Catholic Entrepreneurs’ Organizations, 1880 to 1940: A Dialogue on Social Responsibility,” Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte 56, no. 2 (2011), 169.

^[82]         Heyrman, “Belgian Catholic Entrepreneurs’ Organizations,” 169.

^[83]         Heyrman, “Catholic Charity,” 10.

^[84]         Heyrman, “Conservative Reading,” 215.

^[85]         Heyrman, “Conservative Reading,” 215.

^[86]         Leo XIII, Rerum novarum, para. 15.

^[87]         Hermann-Josef Grosse Kracht, “Brückenschläge von der Neuscholastik zur Moderne?,” in Religionssoziologie um 1900, ed. Volkhard Krech and Hartmann Tyrell (Ergon Verlag, 2020), 747.

^[88]         Hans A. Frambach, “Solidarism as the Center of Economy: The Economics of Heinrich Pesch,” in On the Economic Significance of the Catholic Social Doctrine, ed. Jürgen Backhaus, Günther Chaloupek, and Hans A. Frambach, The European Heritage in Economics and the Social Sciences 19 (Springer International Publishing, 2017), 31.

^[89]         Grosse Kracht, “Brückenschläge,” 747.

^[90]         Edward J. O’Boyle, “Heinrich Pesch, S.J.: Grandpère of Solidarist Economics,” Journal of Economics, Theology and Religion 1, no. 1 (2020): 3.

^[91]         Heinrich Pesch, S.J., Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie, vol. 5 (Herder, 1922), 805.

^[92]         Pesch, Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie, 4:123.

^[93]         Pesch, Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie, 4:104.

^[94]         Pesch, Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie, 4:539.

^[95]         Pesch, Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie, 5:600.

^[96]         Pesch, Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie, 5:319.

^[97]         Pesch, Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie, 5: 324.

^[98]         Pesch, Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie, 5: 317.

^[99]         Pesch, Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie, 4:152.

^[100]       Pesch, Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie, 5:38.

^[101]       Pesch, Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie, 4:180.

^[102]       Pesch, Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie, 5:80.

^[103]       Pesch, Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie, 5:628.

^[104]       Hermann-Josef Grosse Kracht, “Rekonstruktionen zur Kapitalismustheorie der katholischen Soziallehre: To End Capitalism as We Know It,” in Kapitalismus – ein Feindbild für die Kirchen?, ed. Stephan Wirz (Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2018), 46.

^[105]       Chafuen, “Austrian Economics,“ 3.

^[106]       Erik Boettcher, “Zwischen Glaube und Wissenschaft: Laudatio für Professor Dr. Oswald von Nell-Breuning,” Jahrbuch für Christliche Sozialwissenschaften 22 (1981): 121.

^[107]       Matthias Möhring-Hesse, “Solidaristische Gefahren: Oswald von Nell-Breunings sozialpolitische Impulse für die Gegenwart,” in Den Kapitalismus bändigen: Festschrift für Franz-Xaver Kaufmann, ed. Hans Günter Hockerts and Bernhard Emunds (Brill | Schöningh, 2015), 241.

^[108]       Oswald von Nell-Breuning, “Auseinandersetzung mit Karl Marx,” in Theologische Fragen heute, ed. Max Müller and Alois Halder (Max Hueber Verlag, 1969), 88.

^[109]       Hermann-Josef Grosse Kracht, “Den Kapitalismus im Kapitalismus überwinden: Prokapitalistische Anfänge und bleibende Kapitalismuskritik bei Oswald von Nell-Breuning,” in Den Kapitalismus bändigen: Festschrift für Franz-Xaver Kaufmann, ed. Hans Günter Hockerts and Bernhard Emunds (Brill | Schöningh, 2015), 27.

^[110]       Grosse Kracht, “Den Kapitalismus im Kapitalismus,” 3.

^[111]       Grosse Kracht, “Den Kapitalismus im Kapitalismus,” 2.

^[112]       Grosse Kracht, “Den Kapitalismus im Kapitalismus,” 6.

^[113]       Nell-Breuning, “Auseinandersetzung,” 25.

^[114]       Hermann-Josef Grosse Kracht, “. . . auf den Schultern von Karl Marx: Oswald von Nell-Breuning SJ und die Marx-Rezeption der katholischen Soziallehre,” (preprint, Universitaet Tuebingen, 2018), 75.

^[115]       Bernhard Emunds and Stephan Rixen, “Einleitung: Oswald von Nell-Breuning weiterdenken—Solidarische Perspektiven für das 21. Jahrhundert,” in Oswald von Nell-Breuning weiterdenken: Solidarische Perspektiven für das 21. Jahrhundert, ed. Bernhard Emunds and Stephan Rixen (Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2022), 11.

^[116]       Albert L. Brancato, “Review of Oswald von Nell-Breuning SJ: Aufbrüche der katholischen Soziallehre in der Weimarer Republik, by Jonas Hagedorn,” Journal of Jesuit Studies 6, no. 2 (2019): 382.

^[117]       Oswald von Nell-Breuning, Reorganization of Social Economy: The Social Encyclical Developed and Explained, trans. and ed. Bernard W. Dempsey (Bruce Publishing, 1936), 167.

^[118]       Möhring-Hesse, “Solidaristische Gefahren,” 244.

^[119]       Möhring-Hesse, “Solidaristische Gefahren,” 246.

^[120]       Möhring-Hesse, “Solidaristische Gefahren,” 247.

^[121]       Behr, Social Justice, 100.

^[122]       Nell-Breuning, “Auseinandersetzung,” 111.

^[123]       Stephen Nakrosis, “The Ethics of Speculation in the Works of Oswald von Nell-Breuning,” Catholic Social Science Review 18 (2013): 176.

^[124]       Nell-Breuning, Reorganization of Social Economy, 171.

^[125]       Pius XI, Quadragesimo anno, Encyclical (The Holy See, May 15, 1931), para. 65.

^[126]       Nell-Breuning, Reorganization of Social Economy, 164.

^[127]       Oswald von Nell-Breuning, “Der Arbeitsmarkt unter individual- und sozialethischer Sicht,” Jahrbuch für Christliche Sozialwissenschaften 22 (1981): 133.

^[128]       Michael Jäckel, “Über Eigenwohl und Gemeinschaftswohl: Eine Erinnerung an Oswald von Nell-Breuning,” Communicatio Socialis 54, no. 3 (2021), 403.

^[129]       Grosse Kracht, “Den Kapitalismus im Kapitalismus,” 15.

^[130]       Gerhard Kruip, “Ökologisch-soziale Transformation: Wirtschaften als Sozialprozess—Oswald von Nell-Breuning und Papst Franziskus zu den‚ Grenzen des Wachstums,” in Oswald von Nell-Breuning weiterdenken: Solidarische Perspektiven für das 21. Jahrhundert, ed. Bernhard Emunds and Stephan Rixen (Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2022), 107.

^[131]       Hans Günter Hockerts, “Nell-Breunings solidarisches Denken—Impulse für die Gegenwart?,” in Oswald von Nell-Breuning weiterdenken: Solidarische Perspektiven für das 21. Jahrhundert, ed. Bernhard Emunds and Stephan Rixen (Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2022), 47.

^[132]       Edward J. O’Boyle, Personalist Economics: Moral Convictions, Economic Realities, and Social Action (Springer US, 1998), 8.

^[133]       Johannes Schwarte, “Die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Sozialismus bei Gustav Gundlach SJ (1892–1963),” Jahrbuch für Christliche Sozialwissenschaften 16 (1975): 84.

^[134]       Wilhelm Weber, Die Ordnung der menschlichen Gesellschaft, ed. Katholische Sozialwissenschaftliche Zentralstelle Mönchengladbach (Verlag der Katholischen Sozialwissenschaftlichen Zentralstelle, 1967), 566.

^[135]       Joseph Höffner, “Gustav Gundlach: Biographische Skizze,” Jahrbuch für Christliche Sozialwissenschaften 3 (1962): 11.

^[136]       Franz H. Mueller, “In Memoriam: Gustav Gundlach, S.J. 1892–1963,” Review of Social Economy 22, no. 2 (1964): 132.

^[137]       Anton Rauscher, “Gustav Gundlach, S.J.: One of the Architects of Christian Social Thinking,” Homiletic and Pastoral Review 103, no. 1 (2002): 31.

^[138]       Mueller, “In Memoriam,” 132.

^[139]       Schwarte, “Die Auseinandersetzung,” 86.

^[140]       Gustav Gundlach, “Das Privateigentum und seine soziale Pflichtigkeit,” in Eigentum und Eigentümer in unserer Gesellschaftsordnung, ed. Ludwig Vaubel (VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 1960), 27.

^[141]       Heinz Sproll, “Gustav Gundlach S.J. (1892–1963) Diskurs mit der liberalen Soziologie Werner Sombarts (1863–1941) und Max Webers (1864–1920): Die Begründung der katholischen Sozialwissenschaft aus der Naturrechtslehre Francisco Suárez’ (1548–1617),” Annales Theologici 25, no. 1 (2011): 81.

^[142]       Gustav Gundlach, “Vom Wesen der Demokratie,” Gregorianum 28, no. 4 (1947): 570.

^[143]       Gustav Gundlach, “Solidarismus, Einzelmensch, Gemeinschaft,” Gregorianum 17, no. 2 (1936): 277.

^[144]       Gundlach, “Solidarismus,” 276.

^[145]       Gundlach, “Solidarismus,” 277.

^[146]       Gundlach, “Privateigentum,” 28.

^[147]       Gundlach, “Privateigentum,” 22.

^[148]       Gundlach, “Privateigentum,” 23.

^[149]       Gundlach, “Privateigentum,” 24.

^[150]       Gundlach, “Privateigentum,” 27.

^[151]       Sproll, “Gustav Gundlach S.J. (1892–1963),” 95.

^[152]       Hermann-Josef Grosse Kracht, “. . . nichts gegen die Soziale Marktwirtschaft, denn das ist verboten (Konrad Adenauer): Sondierungen zur religiösen Tiefengrammatik des deutschen Wirtschafts- und Sozialmodells im Anschluss an Alfred Müller-Armack und Oswald von Nell-Breuning,” Ethik und Gesellschaft 1, no. 1 (2010): 3.

Agócs, Sándor. “The Road of Charity Leads to the Picket Lines: The Neo-Thomistic Revival and the Italian Catholic Labor Movement.” International Review of Social History 18, no. 1 (1973): 28–50. https://doi.org/10.1017/S002085900000417X.

Almodovar, António, and Pedro Teixeira. “The Ascent and Decline of Catholic Economic Thought, 1830–1950s.” History of Political Economy 40, no. 5 (2008): 62–87. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-2007-060.

Backhaus, Jürgen, Günther Chaloupek, and Hans A. Frambach, eds. On the Economic Significance of the Catholic Social Doctrine: 125 Years of Rerum novarum. European Heritage in Economics and the Social Sciences 19. Springer International Publishing, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52545-7. 

Bedouelle, Guy. “De l’influence réelle de l’Union de Fribourg sur l’encyclique Rerum novarum.” Publications de l’École Française de Rome 232 (1997): 241–54. https://www.persee.fr/doc/efr_0223-5099_1997_act_232_1_5133. 

Behr, Thomas C. Social Justice and Subsidiarity: Luigi Taparelli and the Origins of Modern Catholic Social Thought. Catholic University of America Press, 2019.

Biederlack, Joseph. Die sociale Frage: Ein Beitrag zur Orientierung über ihr Wesen und ihre Lösung. F. Rauch, 1921.

Boettcher, Erik. “Zwischen Glaube und Wissenschaft: Laudatio für Professor Dr. Oswald von Nell-Breuning.” Jahrbuch für Christliche Sozialwissenschaften 22 (1981): 117–29.

Brancato, Albert L. “Review of Oswald von Nell-Breuning SJ: Aufbrüche der katholischen Soziallehre in der Weimarer Republik, written by Jonas Hagedorn.” Journal of Jesuit Studies 6, no. 2 (2019): 381–83. https://doi.org/10.1163/22141332-00602008-21. 

Brown, Frank. “Catholic Social Teaching and Economic Science.” Catholic Social Science Review 1 (1996): 91–97. https://doi.org/10.5840/cssr1996113. 

Case, Holly. “The ‘Social Question,’ 1820–1920.” Modern Intellectual History 13, no. 3 (2016): 747–75. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479244315000037. 

Chafuen, Alejandro A. “Austrian Economics and the Social Doctrine of the Church: A Reflection Based on the Economic Writings of Mateo Liberatore and Oswald von Nell-Breuning.” Journal des Économistes et des Études Humaines 13, no. 2 (2003): 247–68. https://doi.org/10.2202/1145-6396.1094. 

Cosacchi, Daniel. “Jesuits and Social Justice.” Journal of Jesuit Studies 6, no. 4 (2019): 651–75. https://doi.org/10.1163/22141332-00604005. 

Decock, Wim. “Jesuits and Jurisprudence.” In Jesuit Historiography Online, edited by Robert Maryks. Brill, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1163/2468-7723_jho_COM_209877. 

De Smet, Joeri. “Neo-Thomism at Leuven’s Faculty of Law.” In Neo-Thomism in Action: Law and Society Reshaped by Neo-Scholastic Philosophy, 1880–1960, edited by Wim Decock, Bart Raymaekers, and Peter Heyrman. Leuven University Press, 2021. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1r1nqsw.6. 

Delville, Jean-Pierre. “Antoine Pottier and the Neo-Thomistic Roots of Social Justice.” In Neo-Thomism in Action: Law and Society Reshaped by Neo-Scholastic Philosophy, 1880–1960, edited by Wim Decock, Bart Raymaekers, and Peter Heyrman. Leuven University Press, 2021. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1r1nqsw.15. 

Dewaele, Kwinten. “Neo-Thomism and the Debates on the Just Wage in Belgium (1879–1914).” In Neo-Thomism in Action: Law and Society Reshaped by Neo-Scholastic Philosophy, 1880–1960, edited by Wim Decock, Bart Raymaekers, and Peter Heyrman. Leuven University Press, 2021. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1r1nqsw.16. 

Emunds, Bernhard, and Stephan Rixen. “Einleitung: Oswald von Nell-Breuning weiterdenken—Solidarische Perspektiven für das 21. Jahrhundert.” In Oswald von Nell-Breuning weiterdenken: Solidarische Perspektiven für das 21: Jahrhundert, edited by Bernhard Emunds and Stephan Rixen. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2022.

Fernández Eyzaguirre, Samuel. “Base documental para el estudio de San Alberto Hurtado: Estado de la cuestión.” Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia 17 (2008): 313–19. https://doi.org/10.15581/007.17.9964. 

Forni, Floreal, Ada Freytes Frey, and Germán Quaranta. “Frédéric Le Play: Un precursor de la economía social.” Working Paper No. SDTI001. Instituto de Investigación en Ciencias Sociales (IDICSO), Universidad del Salvador, April 2003.

Frambach, Hans A. “Solidarism as the Center of Economy: The Economics of Heinrich Pesch.” In On the Economic Significance of the Catholic Social Doctrine, edited by Jürgen Backhaus, Günther Chaloupek, and Hans A. Frambach. European Heritage in Economics and the Social Sciences 19. Springer International Publishing, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52545-7_3. 

Gérin, Paul. “Les écoles sociales belges et la lecture de Rerum Novarum.” In Rerum novarum: Écriture, contenu et réception d’une encyclique. Publications de l’École française de Rome, 1997.

Grosse Kracht, Hermann-Josef. “Brückenschläge von der Neuscholastik zur Moderne?” In Religionssoziologie um 1900, edited by Volkhard Krech and Hartmann Tyrell. Ergon Verlag, 2020.

Grosse Kracht, Hermann-Josef. “Den Kapitalismus im Kapitalismus überwinden: Prokapitalistische Anfänge und bleibende Kapitalismuskritik bei Oswald von Nell-Breuning.” In Den Kapitalismus bändigen: Festschrift für Franz-Xaver Kaufmann, edited by Hans Günter Hockerts and Bernhard Emunds. Brill | Schöningh, 2015.

Grosse Kracht, Hermann-Josef. “ . . . auf den Schultern von Karl Marx: Oswald von Nell-Breuning SJ und die Marx-Rezeption der katholischen Soziallehre.” Preprint, Universität Tübingen, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.15496/publikation-74449. 

Grosse Kracht, Hermann-Josef. “‘ . . . nichts gegen die Soziale Marktwirtschaft, denn das ist verboten’ (Konrad Adenauer): Sondierungen zur religiösen Tiefengrammatik des deutschen Wirtschafts- und Sozialmodells im Anschluss an Alfred Müller-Armack und Oswald von Nell-Breuning.” Ethik und Gesellschaft 1, no. 1 (2010): 1–55. https://doi.org/10.18156/eug-1-2010-art-9. 

Gundlach, Gustav. “Das Privateigentum und seine soziale Pflichtigkeit.” In Eigentum und Eigentümer in unserer Gesellschaftsordnung, edited by Ludwig Vaubel. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 1960.

Gundlach, Gustav. “Solidarismus, Einzelmensch, Gemeinschaft.” Gregorianum 17, no. 2 (1936): 265–95. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23567387. 

Gundlach, Gustav. “Vom Wesen der Demokratie.” Gregorianum 28, no. 4 (1947): 564–73. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23569861. 

Habisch, André. “Practical Wisdom for Social Innovation: How Christian Entrepreneurs Triggered the Emergence of the Catholic Social Tradition in Europe.” In On the Economic Significance of the Catholic Social Doctrine: 125 Years of Rerum Novarum, edited by Jürgen Backhaus, Günther Chaloupek, and Hans A. Frambach. European Heritage in Economics and the Social Sciences 19. Springer International Publishing, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52545-7_12. 

Henrici, Peter. “Matteo Liberatore und Joseph Kleutgen, zwei Pioniere der Neuscholastik.” Gregorianum 91, no. 4 (2010): 768–89. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23582624. 

Heyrman, Peter. “Belgian Catholic Entrepreneurs’ Organizations, 1880 to 1940: A Dialogue on Social Responsibility.” Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte 56, no. 2 (2011): 163–86. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23343033. 

Heyrman, Peter. “A Conservative Reading of Rerum novarum through a Neo-Scholastic Lens: The Jesuit Auguste Castelein (1840–1922) and the Belgian ‘Patrons Catholiques.’” In Neo-Thomism in Action: Law and Society Reshaped by Neo-Scholastic Philosophy, 1880–1960, edited by Wim Decock, Bart Raymaekers, and Peter Heyrman. Leuven University Press, 2021.

Heyrman, Peter. “Catholic Charity and Public Poor Relief in Nineteenth-Century Belgium: Reconquest, Competition, Complementarity, Superiority.” European Journal for the History of Medicine and Health 79, no. 2 (2022): 253–83. https://doi.org/10.1163/26667711-bja10017. 

Hödl, Ludwig. “Zur Wirkungsgeschichte der Enzyklika ‘Aeterni Patris’ Leos XIII. In der deutschen Philosophie und Theologie.” Münchener Theologische Zeitschrift 30, no. 4 (1979): 241–56. https://doi.org/10.5282/mthz/2891. 

Höffner, Joseph. “Gustav Gundlach: Biographische Skizze.” Jahrbuch für Christliche Sozialwissenschaften 3 (1962): 7–13.

Jäckel, Michael. “Über Eigenwohl und Gemeinschaftswohl: Eine Erinnerung an Oswald von Nell-Breuning.” Communicatio Socialis 54, no. 3 (2021): 401–6. https://doi.org/10.5771/0010-3497-2021-3-401. 

Johannessen, Jon-Arild. “The Long Depression: 1873–1893.” In Innovations Lead to Economic Crises: Explaining the Bubble Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

Knorn, Bernhard, S.J. “Johann Baptist Franzelin (1816–86): A Jesuit Cardinal Shaping the Official Teaching of the Church at the Time of the First Vatican Council.” Journal of Jesuit Studies 7, no. 4 (2020): 592–615. https://doi.org/10.1163/22141332-00704005. 

Kruip, Gerhard. “Ökologisch-soziale Transformation: Wirtschaften als Sozialprozess—Oswald von Nell-Breuning und Papst Franziskus zu den ‘Grenzen des Wachstums.’” In Oswald von Nell-Breuning weiterdenken: Solidarische Perspektiven für das 21: Jahrhundert, edited by Bernhard Emunds and Stephan Rixen. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2022.

Le Bot, Florent, and Bruno Dumons. “Catholicisme social.” In Dictionnaire historique des patrons français, edited by Jean-Claude Daumas. Flammarion, 2010.

Leo XIII. Rerum Novarum. Encyclical. The Holy See, May 15, 1891. https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum.html. 

Liberatore, Matteo. Principles of Political Economy. Translated by Edward Heneage Dering. London, 1891.

Mazurek, Franciszek Janusz. “Die Konzeption des gesellschaftlichen Solidarismus nach Heinrich Pesch.” Jahrbuch für Christliche Sozialwissenschaften 21 (1980): 73–98.

Misner, Paul. “The Predecessors of Rerum novarum within Catholicism.” Review of Social Economy 49, no. 4 (1991): 444–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/00346769100000039. 

Möhring-Hesse, Matthias. “Solidaristische Gefahren: Oswald von Nell-Breunings sozialpolitische Impulse für die Gegenwart.” In Den Kapitalismus bändigen: Festschrift für Franz-Xaver Kaufmann, edited by Hans Günter Hockerts and Bernhard Emunds. Brill | Schöningh, 2015.

Mueller, Franz H. “In Memoriam: Gustav Gundlach, S.J. 1892–1963.” Review of Social Economy 22, no. 2 (1964): 130–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/00346766400000029. 

Nakrosis, Stephen. “The Ethics of Speculation in the Works of Oswald von Nell-Breuning.” Catholic Social Science Review 18 (2013): 169–86. https://doi.org/10.5840/cssr20131813. 

Nell-Breuning, Oswald von. “Auseinandersetzung mit Karl Marx.” In Theologische Fragen heute, edited by Max Müller and Alois Halder. Max Hueber Verlag, 1969.

Nell-Breuning, Oswald von. “Der Arbeitsmarkt unter individual- und sozialethischer Sicht.” Jahrbuch für Christliche Sozialwissenschaften 22 (1981): 131–40.

Nell-Breuning, Oswald von. Reorganization of Social Economy: The Social Encyclical Developed and Explained. Translated and edited by Bernard W. Dempsey. Bruce Publishing, 1936.

O’Boyle, Edward J. “Heinrich Pesch, S.J.: Grandpère of Solidarist Economics.” https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340950046_Heinrich_Pesch_SJ_Grandpere_of_Solidarist_Economics. 

O’Boyle, Edward J. Personalist Economics: Moral Convictions, Economic Realities, and Social Action. Springer US, 1998.

O’Malley, Martin J. “Currents in Nineteenth-Century German Law, and Subsidiarity’s Emergence as a Social Principle in the Writings of Wilhelm Ketteler.” Journal of Law, Philosophy and Culture 2, no. 1 (2008): 1–58.

         Pesch, Heinrich, S.J. Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie. Vol. 4. Herder, 1922.

Pinchard, Bruno. “Rerum Novarum: Une encyclique néo-scolastique? La question sociale ou le déclin de la communauté.” Publications de l’École Française de Rome 232 (1997): 207–20. https://www.persee.fr/doc/efr_0223-5099_1997_act_232_1_5128. 

Pius XI. Quadragesimo Anno. Encyclical. The Holy See, May 15, 1931. https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19310515_quadragesimo-anno.html. 

Rafferty, Oliver P., S.J. “Thomistic Revival and the Relationship between the Jesuits and the Papacy, 1878–1914.” Theological Studies 75, no. 4 (2014): 746–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/0040563914548652. 

Rauscher, Anton. “Gustav Gundlach, S.J.: One of the Architects of Christian Social Thinking.” Homiletic and Pastoral Review 103, no. 1 (2002): 29–50.

Schelkens, Karim, John A. Dick, Jürgen Mettepenningen, and David Schultenover. Aggiornamento? Catholicism from Gregory XVI to Benedict XVI. Brill, 2013.

Scerri, Hector. “The Revival of Scholastic Sacramental Theology after the Publication of Aeterni Patris.” Irish Theological Quarterly 77, no. 3 (2012): 265–85. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021140012443760. 

Schuster, Johann B. “Das Verhältnis von Iustitia Legalis und Distributiva zur Iustitia Socialis in Quadragesimo Anno mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Lehre von Heinrich Pesch S.J.” Scholastik 11, no. 2 (1936): 225–42. https://doi.org/10.71742/sch.v11i2.83995. 

Schwarte, Johannes. “Die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Sozialismus bei Gustav Gundlach S.J. (1892–1963).” Jahrbuch für Christliche Sozialwissenschaften 16 (1975): 83–137.

Solari, Stefano. “The Corporative Third Way in Social Catholicism (1830 to 1918).” European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 17, no. 1 (2010): 87–113. https://doi.org/10.1080/09672560903204551. 

Solari, Stefano. “Can a Catholic Be Liberal? Roman Catholicism and Liberalism in a Political Economy Perspective (1823–1971).” Journal of Philosophical Economics: Reflections on Economic and Social Issues 16 (2023): 1–31. https://doi.org/10.46298/jpe.9252. 

Solari, Stefano. “Roman Catholicism and the Founding Principles of Liberalism: Liberty and Private Property.” Forum for Social Economics 49, no. 4 (2020): 414–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/07360932.2017.1402358. 

Solari, Stefano, and Daniele Corrado. “Social Justice and Economic Order According to Natural Law.” Journal of Markets & Morality 12, no. 1 (2009): 47–62. 

Sproll, Heinz. “Gustav Gundlach SJ (1892–1963) Diskurs mit der liberalen Soziologie Werner Sombarts (1863–1941) und Max Webers (1864–1920): Die Begründung der katholischen Sozialwissenschaft aus der Naturrechtslehre Francisco Suárez’ (1548–1617).” Annales Theologici 25, no. 1 (2011): 77–98. 

Taparelli, Luigi. Saggio teoretico di dritto naturale, appoggiato sul fatto. 6th ed. Vol. 1. Palermo, 1857.

Walsh, Michael. “The Myth of Rerum Novarum.” New Blackfriars 93, no. 1044 (2012): 155–62. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-2005.2011.01473.x. 

Weber, Wilhelm. Die Ordnung der menschlichen Gesellschaft. Verlag der Katholischen Sozialwissenschaftlichen Zentralstelle, 1967.

Title: Jesuits, the Social Question, and the Divide between Conservative and Progressive Neo-Thomists
Author(s): Marcelo Muñoz Perdiguero
Article Type: Research Article
DOI: https://doi.org/10.51238/jeq.X751rEd
Language: English
Pages: 267–288
Keywords: Jesuits; Neo-Thomism; labor; social justice; economy
In: Jesuit Educational Quarterly
In: 2nd ser., Volume 2, Issue 2
Received: 29 August 2025
Accepted: 09 October 2025
Publication Date: 22 July 2026
Last Updated: 22 July 2026
Publisher: Institute of Jesuit Sources
Print ISSN: 2688-3872
E-ISSN: 2688-3880

APA

Perdiguero, M. M. (2026). Jesuits, the social question, and the divide between conservative and progressive neo-Thomists. Jesuit Educational Quarterly, 2(2), 267–288. https://doi.org/10.51238/jeq.X751rEd

CMOS

Perdiguero, Marcelo Muñoz. “Jesuits, the Social Question, and the Divide between Conservative and Progressive Neo-Thomists.” Jesuit Educational Quarterly, 2nd ser., 2, no. 2 (2026): 267–88. https://doi.org/10.51238/jeq.X751rEd.

MLA

Perdiguero, Marcelo Muñoz. “Jesuits, the Social Question, and the Divide between Conservative and Progressive Neo-Thomists.” Jesuit Educational Quarterly, 2nd ser., vol. 2, no. 2, 2026, pp. 267–88. https://doi.org/10.51238/jeq.X751rEd.

Turabian

Perdiguero, Marcelo Muñoz. 2026. “Jesuits, the Social Question, and the Divide between Conservative and Progressive Neo-Thomists.” Jesuit Educational Quarterly. 2nd ser., 2 (2): 267–88. https://doi.org/10.51238/jeq.X751rEd.