The Lasting Impact of Pope Leo XIII on American Politics

**Pope Leo XIII and the American Body Politic: Why 130-Year-Old Papal Thought Still Haunts Our Partisan Divide** By CivicAI Editorial Board When New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post contributor Jonathan Capehart recently dissected the legacy of Pope Leo XIII in conversation, many listeners likely raised an eyebrow. What could a 19th-century Italian pope, dead for over a century, have to do with modern American politics? Quite a bit, actually. The more unsettling truth is that Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical *Rerum Novarum*—a densely theological treatise on labor, capital, and the social order—still casts a long ideological shadow over today’s most polarizing debates, from labor rights to economic inequality to the role of religion in public life. Brooks and Capehart’s discussion rightly framed Pope Leo XIII—not as an archaic curiosity—but as a foundational architect of modern Catholic social teaching. What’s been less appreciated, however, is the peculiar way in which his legacy continues to influence not only Catholic institutions, but also secular U.S. policymaking, often in contradictory and surprising ways. **Rerum Novarum: The Papal Manifesto We Didn’t Know We Inherited** At the center of Pope Leo’s influence lies *Rerum Novarum* (“Of New Things”), his revolutionary encyclical that addressed the rights of workers, the responsibilities of employers, and the moral role of the state. Issued in 1891 at a time of severe class conflict across Europe and the United States, it condemned both unregulated capitalism and socialist collectivism—marking a “third way” rooted in Catholic ethics. The groundbreaking document called for living wages, labor unions, the right to private property, and state intervention against exploitative practices. “[T]he state must not absorb the individual or the family,” Leo wrote, “both should be allowed free and untrammeled action so far as is consistent with the common good… but… it must intervene when justice requires.” It was, in many ways, the original blueprint for what today we might call the social safety net. **American Echoes: From the New Deal to the Notre Dame Caucus** While *Rerum Novarum* might seem remote from American civil discourse, its ideological DNA has threaded through U.S. politics in both overt and subliminal ways. There is no New Deal without Leo. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s policies, championed by generations of Catholics and non-Catholics alike, relied heavily on the moral logic put forth in *Rerum Novarum*. Roosevelt consultant Monsignor John A. Ryan—nicknamed “Right Reverend New Dealer”—systematically drew from Pope Leo’s teachings to argue for a minimum wage, social insurance, and collective bargaining (Stabile, 2008). On Capitol Hill today, one bipartisan congressional group even calls itself the “Common Good Caucus”—a term rooted in Leo’s encyclical and long championed by Catholic theologians. This group (representing both center-right and center-left legislators) explicitly aims to recenter politics around shared moral principles rather than tribal party affiliation. But Leo’s influence is not confined to idealistic centrists. A deeper—and more contentious—appropriation of his legacy can be found in modern conservative populism, particularly in the voice of Catholic intellectuals and lawmakers who reject both neoliberal capitalism and progressive secularism. Senators like Josh Hawley (R-MO) and J.D. Vance (R-OH) echo Leo’s critique of “soulless materialism” in their calls for economic nationalism and renewed “family values.” Strange as it sounds, their blend of moral traditionalism and labor-friendly rhetoric owes more to *Rerum Novarum* than to Reaganomics. **Religious Morality in a Secular Republic** The ongoing relevance of Pope Leo reveals a paradox in U.S. civic culture: while the Constitution erects a wall between Church and State, religious teachings—particularly Catholic doctrine—remain embedded in policy arguments. The Supreme Court’s recent overturning of *Roe v. Wade*, for instance, drew from a long-standing Catholic pro-life ethic. Yet Catholic teaching under Pope Leo also urges far more robust support for poor families than many current anti-abortion politicians advocate—highlighting a moral incoherence that would have likely dismayed him. Similarly, immigrant rights advocacy within the Catholic Church—rooted again in Leo’s call for the dignity of laborers and family integrity—puts Catholic institutions at odds with many anti-immigration politicians within the Republican Party. It’s here that the legacy of Leo XIII becomes less about one man’s encyclical and more about the unfinished project of weaving a moral narrative through a polarized political fabric. **What This Means for Our Politics Now** The key lesson from Pope Leo’s peculiar political afterlife is that moral discourse need not—and in fact, should not—be monopolized by any one party. His holistic view of justice, dignity, and the limits of both state and market ideology cuts across conventional political boundaries. Yet that kind of nuanced thinking is much in retreat. Today’s partisans often cherry-pick selective moral teachings to serve narrow political ends. Pope Leo saw ethical duties as inseparably linked—rights of labor and property upheld together, state power wielded responsibly but decisively, religion advising politics without ruling over it. If Brooks and Capehart nudged us to reconsider Leo’s relevance, then the next step is applying that full, unedited moral vision to every corner of our discourse—from tech worker rights in Silicon Valley to climate resiliency policy in Appalachia. The irony is sharp: in an era increasingly skeptical of religious authority, one of modern America’s most enduring civic influences remains a Vatican scholar from the 1800s. Leo XIII’s ghost isn’t gone—it’s just waiting for someone willing to take the moral conversation seriously again. *This article was generated by CivicAI, an experimental platform for AI-assisted civic discourse. No human editing or fact-checking has been applied.*