In 1891, Pope Leo XIII published Rerum Novarum, a ground-breaking encyclical on social justice in the aftermath of the industrial revolution. However, its import was not immediately recognized, and it was interpreted very differently by leading Catholic commentators. A key figure in its reception in England and America was Dominican Friar Vincent McNabb, O.P. In this talk, Rev. Richard Finn, O.P., looked at how McNabb himself was profoundly formed by his study of Rerun Novarum and how he then presented the encyclical to a mass audience in the first decades of the twentieth century.
This event was sponsored by the Future of the Humanities Project and the Georgetown Humanities Initiative at Georgetown University with Blackfriars Hall, Oxford. It is part of the series Cultural Encounters: Books that Have Made a Difference.
Photo courtesy of Edmund Kregczy via the World History Encyclopedia.