The Great Encyclicals: Volume One—The Social Letters

The reign of Pope Leo XIII is the fourth-longest of any papacy in the two-thousand-year history of the Catholic Church. Over the course of a full quarter-century, Leo XIII courageously engaged with the modern world, asserting the Church’s authority and wisdom in the face of unprecedented challenges and confusion. He was also a prolific author, issuing a total of eighty-six encyclical letters on matters both spiritual and social. Compiled and engagingly introduced by Leo L. Clarke, The Great Encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII comprises—across two volumes—thirty-one of those letters, to present the vibrant and courageous insights of this great shepherd to an age with a pronounced need of hearing and heeding his message.Volume One: The Social Letters contains fourteen of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclicals dedicated to expounding upon and explaining the principles which govern the life of Catholics in civil society, including his first, Inscrutabili dei consilio (on the evils of society); the forthright Longinqua (on Catholicism in the United States); and the most famous, Rerum novarum (on capital and labor). Read more