One key element of fascist feudalism is the governmental control of property. Redistribution of this wealth to the poor is at the discretion of those in power, and crimes such as theft can be excused if a personal need is found.

Remember the words of Pope Pius XI:

Under fascism, property owners may keep their property titles and deeds, but the use of their property is, as Leo XIII wrote, “common”...Under fascism, property titles and deeds are intact, but the institution of private property has disappeared.ⁱ

The Roman Catholic Church-State and Wealth Redistribution

John Robbins sums up the Papacy's views on wealth redistribution this way:

Whoever needs property ought to possess it. Need makes another’s goods one’s own. Need is the ultimate and only moral title to property. Neither possession, nor creation, nor production, nor gift, nor inheritance, nor divine commandment (with the exception of Roman Church-State property¹) grants title to property that is immune to the prior claim of need.ⁱⁱ

Let's look at some papal statements that are particularly relevant to today’s political and economic issues.

Pius XI says in his encyclical Quadragesimo Anno (1931) that the work of "picked men" to indoctrinate people and governments with Catholic economic views since the late 1800s, had a profound effect on 20^th-century politics:

Under the guidance and in light of Leo’s encyclical was thus evolved a truly Christian social science, which continues to be fostered and enriched daily by the tireless labours of those picked men whom we have named the auxiliaries of the Church...The doctrine of Rerum Novarum began little by little to penetrate among those who, being outside Catholic unity, do not recognize the authority of the Church; and these Catholic principles of sociology gradually became part of the intellectual heritage of the whole human race...Thus too, we rejoice that the Catholic truths proclaimed so vigorously by our illustrious Predecessor [Leo XIII in 1891’s Rerum Novarum], are advanced and advocated not merely in non-Catholic books and journals, but frequently also in legislative assemblies and in courts of justice” (emphasis added).ⁱⁱⁱ

This key quote is proof that Roman Catholic policies, principles, and doctrine have penetrated secular venues to such an extent that individuals who otherwise have no allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church are promoting its agenda. How many of those individuals don’t even know that they have been influenced to think as someone else would have them think?

These "picked men," "auxiliaries of the Church," can be none other than the Jesuits. They have sworn allegiance to the Pope, swearing to take any guise, even that of the Protestant, in order to achieve the Catholic Church’s aims.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky puts the role of the Jesuits into perspective for us:

The Jesuits...are simply the Romish army for the earthly sovereignty of the world in the future, with the Pontiff of Rome for emperor...that’s their ideal…It is simple lust of power, of filthy earthly gain, of domination—something like a universal serfdom with them as masters—that’s all they stand for. They don’t even believe in God perhaps (emphasis added).^iv

According to Pope Benedict’s most recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Populorum Progressio “deserves to be considered ‘the Rerum Novarum of the present age’”.^v

Rerum Novarum is one of the Roman Church-State’s most influential statements on economic matters, in which it lays down “unerring rules for the right solution of the difficult problem of human solidarity.”^vi

So what does Populorum Progressio have to say that is so pivotal for our day?

...each man has therefore the right to find in the world what is necessary for himself. The recent [Vatican II] Council reminded us of this: “God intended the earth and all that it contains for the use of every human being and people. Thus, as all men follow justice and unite in charity, created goods should abound for them on a reasonable basis.” All other rights whatsoever, including those of property and of free commerce, are to be subordinated to this principle (emphasis added).^vii

Today's "unerring rules" for humanity are that every person should abound with manufactured goods, even at the expense of all other rights?

Here is a statement from Vatican II Council document Gaudium et Spes:

if one is in extreme necessity he has the right to procure for himself what he needs out of the riches of others...Therefore, because private property is immoral, all men—individuals and governments—have the moral obligation to redistribute goods held unjustly by property owners (emphasis added).^viii

In this Vatican statement, stealing is clearly endorsed. And we are told by Pope Benedict that this document and its principles codified at Vatican II are to be considered today’s definitive statement on social doctrine.

Pope John Paul II echoed this statement in 1981 and again in 1987:

[all men must have] access to those goods which are intended for common use: both the goods of nature and manufactured goods.^ix

...the goods of this world are originally meant for all. The right to private property is valid and necessary, but it does not nullify the value of this principle. Private property, in fact, is under a ‘social mortgage’, which means that it has an intrinsically social function, based upon and justified precisely by the principle of the universal destination of goods.^x

In the same document, John Paul also wrote that in today’s world “we are faced with a serious problem of unequal distribution of the means of subsistence originally meant for everybody” (emphasis added).^xi

Redistribution of wealth is clearly being espoused here. But it gets worse. Covetousness and stealing are also a daily part of this Papacy-inspired lifestyle.

Theft, Needs, and Private Property

Because the goods of some are due to others according to Catholic natural law, it is not considered sinful for the poor take the goods of their neighbors. Thomas Aquinas, pivotal 13^th-century Catholic philosopher, says this:

In cases of need, all things are common property, so that there would seem to be no sin in taking another’s property, for need has made it common.^xii

Not only is such taking of another’s property not a sin, it is not even a crime, according to Thomas:

...it is lawful for a man to succor his own need by means of another’s property by taking it either openly or secretly; nor is this, properly speaking, theft and robbery...It is not theft, properly speaking, to take secretly and use another’s property in a case of extreme need; because that which he takes for the support of his life becomes his own property by reason of that need...In a case of a like need, a man may also take secretly another’s property in order to succor his neighbour in need.^xiii

According to this statement, your neighbor determines whether they need your stuff. And, according to Thomas Aquinas’ article, it is even lawful for you to steal for your neighbor’s need!

Stealing based on need is more than just the musings of a 13^th-century mystic. Paul VI made the point quite clear in his 1967 encyclical:

…each man has therefore the right to find in the world what is necessary for himself. The recent Council [Vatican II] reminded us of this: “God intended the earth and all that it contains for the use of every human being and people. Thus, as all men follow justice and unite in charity, created goods should abound for them on a reasonable basis.” All other rights whatsoever, including those of property and of free commerce, are to be subordinated to this principle.^xiv

This principle is being espoused in government thought and policy around the world. In the late 1960s, American President Lyndon Johnson said this:

We are going to try to take all the money that we think is unnecessarily being spent and take it from the "haves" and give it to the "have nots" that need it so much.^xv

Read our next article, which discusses the sustainability movement: another form of political control

This article is adapted from Professor Walter Veith's Rekindling the Reformation lecture The Beamable, Sustainable Princes.