Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

the rule of the Czars, but have returned to a new „rule of power,“ a new villeinage (NZZ, June
4, l974). During a visit to a communist state, someone once said to me: „Communism is the
miserable self-administration of self-made misery.“
§ 4 The Natural-Law Character of Private Ownership
l. The Issue at Question.
The natural-law character of private ownership has stood in the centre of lively discussions
for the last few decades. In l929, Alexander Horvàth, O.P. thought that it was not the natural
law, which „leaves the subject of the right of ownership undetermined,“ but the jus gentium
that authorizes man „to take possession of earthly goods through work and to administer them
personally.“ 48 In l950, however, L‚on de Sousberghe, S.J. advanced the thesis that the Catholic
teaching on the natural-law character of private ownership first arose „in the middle of the
nineteenth century.“ 49 The scholastic tradition was allegedly interrupted by the Enlightenment
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and gradually „rediscovered and brought to life“
by the Neo-Scholasticism of the nineteenth century, whereby the traditional teaching on property
had been transformed in a number of important points. For, whereas the private ownership
of the old scholasticism had been grounded in the jus gentium and not in the jus naturae,
Luigi Taparelli d’Azeglio (l793-l862) was, in l840, the first to teach that private ownership
stems „from natural law.“ Following this, the thesis of the natural-law character of private
ownership „found its solemn and definitive entry into neoscholastic literature and into the
social teaching of the Church.“ In l955, Hans Lutz also asserted that „modern Catholic social
teaching“ has „followed paths that do not do justice to the teaching of Thomas.“ 50 The encyclical
Rerum novarum, which designates private ownership „as a natural right“ cannot „appeal
to Thomas.“ Why, then, does one shy from „giving up Leo’s natural-law foundation?“
2. The Correct Interpretation of the Traditional Teaching
The natural-law character of private ownership ultimately follows from the weight of the reasons
advanced by Christian social teaching Concerning the discussion whether it is a question
of the jus naturae or the jus gentium, the following is to be observed:
a) Luigi Taparelli introduced no innovation when, in l840, he grounded private ownership in
natural law. In the middle of the age of Enlightenment, Alphonsus Maria di Liguori (l696l787)
wrote point-blank that property is acquired „on the basis of the natural law or of the jus
gentium,“ whereby the equivalence of jus naturae and jus gentium is to be noted. 51 In the seventeenth
century, Juan de Lugo (l583-l660) taught that in this age--i.e., since the Fall--“the
natural law itself, independently of any human law,“ has made the introduction of private
ownership obligatory. 52 Along the same lines, Luis de Molina (l535-l600) had declared a generation
earlier that the „obligation“ to introduce the system of private ownership „could be
derived from natural law,“ not always, of course,“ but only when serious evils would follow
from the failure to introduce it, and only among those among whom these evils would appear.“
53 Here Molina must have been alluding to the distinction that was common in the traditional
social teaching between the paradisiacal state and the state of fallen humanity in which
- if one excepts the family and the monastery -the system of private ownership is necessary.
As proof of the natural-law obligation, which is especially binding upon the leader of the state
48
A. Horvàth, Das Eigentumsrecht nach dem hl. Thomas von Aquin (Graz, 1929), 135f.
49
Op. cit., 580ff.
50
In Gewerkschaftliche Monatshefte (1955): 413ff.
51
Theologia moralis, Lib. IV, Tr. 5, n. 493.
52
Disputatio de Justitia et Jure, I, disp. 6, sect. 1, n. 4.
53
De Justitia et Jure, Tr. II, disp. 20, n. 7.
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