Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

al order of being and thus ultimately in God, the Creator, and can be recognized by human
reason. If one applies natural-law principles to the fallen state of man in this age, there follow
certain juridical propositions which form the scholastic jus gentium. The jus gentium is thus a
deduction from natural-law principles performed by human reason in view of the state of human
nature in the fallen age - a deduction that is „not very remote from its principles,“ so that
it itself bears a natural-law character and can in some way be called „natural to man“ (Thomas
Aquinas, I-II, 95, 4).
c) A typical case of such a „deduction“ is the right of ownership which, according to Thomas
Aquinas, is therefore grounded in the jus gentium. Thomas here distinguishes the use or using-up
of goods, thus the realm of consumption (usus), from the realm of procuring and dispensing
goods (potestas procurandi et dispensandi). With respect to the realm of consumption,
man should consider earthly goods „not as his own, but as common, so that, to wit, he is ready
to communicate them to others in their need.“ For the realm of procuring and dispensing,
Thomas makes two statements: man is first of all justified in taking earthly goods into his
possession in order to procure and dispense them
- a right which man would have possessed even in the paradisiacal state. Second, in the fallen
age, that right becomes a necessity and an obligation because otherwise the disinclination to
work, disorder, and unrest would frustrate the attainment of the material end of the economy
(II-II, 66, 2).
d) The content of the scholastic jus gentium is substantially identical with the content of the
‘secondary natural law’ as understood in Catholic social philosophy in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. There is thus no question of a break in the Catholic teaching on property,
but of a change of terminology for the same matter. Nevertheless, some of the great theologians
of the sixteenth century did loosen the inner bond of the jus gentium with natural-law
principles, which is probably connected with the fact that towards the end of the sixteenth
century, especially with Francisco Suarez, the concept of jus gentium was narrowed down to
the concept of the law of nations in the modern sense,
which explains in turn why the term ‘secondary natural law’ or natural law was later chosen
to designate what jus gentium had formerly meant. It thus becomes intelligible why, without
mentioning the traditional jus gentium teaching, the encyclical Rerum novarum designates
man’s right „to own property privately“ as a right that „is fully in accordance with nature
„(n.8) „Nature
rather the Creator Himself,“ says the encyclical Quadragesimo
anno „ has given man the right to private ownership“ (n.45). Pius XII, however, declared that
the Church has „at all times recognized the natural right to property“ (September, l, l944). The
encyclical Mater et Magistra summarizes the traditional teaching by saying: „The right of
private ownership of goods, including productive goods, has permanent validity. It is part of
the natural order“ (n. 109).
§ 5 The Twofold Aspect of Ownership (Its Individual and Social Function)
l. The Liberalist Thesis of the „Unrestrictedness” of Property as a Matter of Principle
In the nineteenth century, the liberalist thesis of the ‘unrestrictedness of property as a matter
of principle’ gained a great deal of influence 59 . The manifestation of absolute, limitless private
autonomy was seen in the „inviolable and sacred right“ of property. Property as such is allegedly
„limitless,“ the „negation of limitation.“ 60 It is an „egoistically oriented force tending
59 Cf. Art. 544 Code Civi1, § 903 BGB
60 Pendekten I:857f.
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