Private Property
The Church has a role in discussing these issues. Social and economic issues are vital to her not from a technical point of view but in terms of moral and ethical issues involved. Ethical considerations include the nature of private property concerning which, within the Catholic Church, several conflicting views had developed. Pope Pius XI proclaims private property to be essential for the development and freedom of the individual. Those who deny private property deny personal freedom and development. But, says Pius, private property has a social function as well. Private property loses its morality if it is not subordinated to the common good. Therefore governments have a right to pursue redistribution policies. In extreme cases, the Pope recognises that the State has a right to expropriate private property.
Read more about this topic: Quadragesimo Anno
Famous quotes containing the words private and/or property:
“It is an old adage, “All is fair in love as in war,” but I thought not of general laws, and only felt a private grievance.”
—Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)
“By avarice and selfishness, and a groveling habit, from which none of us is free, of regarding the soil as property, or the means of acquiring property chiefly, the landscape is deformed, husbandry is degraded with us, and the farmer leads the meanest of lives. He knows Nature but as a robber.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)