Pius XI: 'Quadragesimo Anno'...

(Vatican Radio) It was 1931 and fourty years on from Leo XIII's social encyclical 'Rerum Novarum' the Pope of the time, Pius XI, followed suit by picking up on this document.

The result was a second social encyclical in which this twentieth century Pope went beyond addressing the condition of workers. Calling for a social order based on the principle of solidarity and subsidiarity.

Placing this encyclical into its' historical context Veronica Scarisbrick asks Professor of Catholic Social Teaching at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas here in Rome, Father Alejandro Crosthwaite, how the document was received by the totalitarian regimes of the time: "...in totalitarian states it was really hard to present the document and present those principles. By that time we have 'Catholic Action' and they take on those principles and try to live them out . But as we know, for example in Nazi Germany all kinds of social groups or church groups were being basically disbanded..."..

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