Antidote

200 Words: We must use what we have for the good of others.

In times of crisis, the best antidote is truth:

I was born for this, I came into the world for this: to bear witness to the truth, and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice (John 18).

Pope Leo XIII issued ‘Of New Things’ (1891), providing a perennial paradigm for facing social issues. The Industrial Revolution enabled an explosion of material wealth with two challenges:

Disparity of wealth and the rise of Marxism.

Marx said solve disparity of wealth by abolishing the right to private property.

Leo XIII rebutted him, staunchly defending the right to private property. Communist countries, he said, will live in abject poverty since no initiative means no wealth to distribute. Leo was right.

Pope Pius XI (1931), faced with rising bureaucracies and lack of participation in society by the masses, articulated the principle of subsidiarity:

Higher bodies should not replace lower bodies, suffocating their freedom to act.

Pope John Paul II (1991) summed it up brilliantly:

Private action and private property have a social mortgage on them. We have a right to possession, but we must use what we have for the good of others.

Truth is the antidote.

Amen.