Can you expound a bit on the Rerum Novarum? I’m not in a place where I can really read anything rn. I did look briefly at the Wikipedia page, it seems like it’s mostly some typical lib “we don’t like socialism but we’re also against ‘crony capitalism’” stuff. Is that generally correct?

I've read Rerum Novarum and it is basically trying to hew a middle ground between socialist control of the economy because, won't anyone think of the landlords and the business owners. That said, Leo XIII is considered the social pope that launched the concepts of Catholic Social Teaching, and very likely that without novarum we wouldn't have had liberation theology. And they would not have their own internal justifications coming from Church doctrine (not that it matters, but still!).

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 4 points 4 hours ago

Just to add on to this, from my own perspective as a Catholic, reading Rerum Novarum as a teen was a big moment for me that started to get me to seriously question capitalism. As a whole system. For a while I subscribed to the Church's Distributist ideology, but I realized that it was just a completely non-actionable ideology that had no real world backing. So I turned to reading Marx and Lenin and quickly understood that the criticisms the Church makes of socialism are not grounded on actual socialism, they're grounded on a misunderstanding of what we mean when we say private property, the state, etc etc.

I think there's a possibility to bring people around based on a path similar to this, but it is contingent on the willingness (in my case it sprang from disillusionment) to go and read Marx. It's incredibly rare for someone to read papal encyclicals and also Marx. I think that might be the reason they keep talking past each other.