Money is one of the subjects on which people attribute the most contradictory opinions to the Catholic Church. For some, she supposedly demonized wealth to the point of making poverty a morbid ideal; for others, she accommodated every fortune and every injustice. The real doctrine is more demanding and more balanced than these caricatures. The Church teaches neither that money is evil nor that it is innocent: she teaches that it is a real but subordinate good, an instrument that can serve God and neighbor — or become an idol that enslaves the heart.
The key to everything is a distinction Saint Paul stated in a formula that has become proverbial: it is not money, but the love of money that is "the root of all evils"[1]. Money, like fire, is a good servant and a bad master. That is why Christ does not say that wealth is a sin, but that no one can serve two masters: "You cannot serve God and Money"[2]. The whole Catholic teaching on money rests on this tension: putting money back in its rightful place — as an instrument of good — and preventing it from taking God's place.
From this principle flow very concrete consequences, which this article surveys: to whom the goods of the earth ultimately belong, what ownership permits and what it obliges, the duties of justice (a just wage, refusal of usury and exploitation) even before the duties of charity (almsgiving), the preferential option for the poor, and finally the right use of money and the detachment of heart to which every Christian is called, rich or poor.
The Church has spoken about money over two thousand years: through the mouth of Christ and the Apostles, through the Church Fathers with their burning formulas, through Saint Thomas Aquinas, through the great social encyclicals since Leo XIII, and through the Catechism. This article gathers that teaching around the questions believers and seekers ask today. It does not treat in detail the insistence of Christ's parables — that is the subject of the article Why does Jesus talk so much about money? — nor the question of the Holy See's wealth, treated separately.
Is money evil in itself?
Before any morality of use, a fundamental misunderstanding must be cleared up. Many believe that Christianity condemns money as such, and that a consistent Christian should despise it. That is false, and the nuance is decisive.
"The root of all evils": what Saint Paul really says
The most quoted sentence about money in the whole Bible is often misreported. People say: "money is the root of all evils." But Saint Paul did not write that. He wrote:
"For the love of money is the root of all evils; in their eagerness for it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced their hearts with many pangs." — Saint Paul, First Letter to Timothy 6:10[3]
The Greek word used, philarguria, literally means the love of money, greed — not currency itself[4]. The nuance is no exegete's detail: it changes everything. What the Apostle denounces is a passion of the heart, a disordered attachment that makes money an end. The same Paul elsewhere recommends working with one's hands, earning one's bread, providing for one's household, and himself organizes a considerable collection of money for the poor of Jerusalem[5]. A man who despised money would not devote two whole chapters to organizing a collection.
Money in itself is therefore morally neutral. It becomes good or bad according to its use and according to the love we bear it. The Catechism speaks in this sense of a "disordered appetite for money" which "cannot fail to produce its perverse effects"[6]: it is not money that is disordered, it is the appetite.
Money: a good, an instrument, a measure
What is money? A tool. A conventional measure that makes exchange possible, preserves value, and rewards work. As such, it belongs to the order of goods: a gift of human intelligence that allows society to function. Catholic tradition has never denied this.
Saint Thomas Aquinas places it precisely. For him, the right relationship to exterior riches belongs to a virtue, liberality, which holds the just mean between two opposite vices: avarice (holding back, hoarding, refusing to give) and prodigality (squandering without measure)[7]. Money is therefore neither to be idolized nor wasted: it is to be well employed. Virtue lies not in fleeing money, but in mastering it.
"Exterior goods have the character of things useful for an end. Hence man's good in their regard consists in a certain measure: that is, that man seeks to possess exterior riches insofar as they are necessary for his life according to his condition." — Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIa-IIae, q. 118[8]
That is also why the Church has always known how to receive, administer, and make goods bear fruit — not in contradiction with the Gospel, but in order to direct them to worship, mission, and the care of the poor. The question is never "should there be money?" but "in the service of what?".
Mammon: when money becomes an idol
If money is not evil, why does Christ speak of it with such gravity? Because no created good has as much power as money to take God's place. Jesus personifies this power under an Aramaic name, Mammon — Money erected as a master:
"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Money." — Jesus, Gospel according to Saint Matthew 6:24[9]
Christ does not set God in competition with an object, but with a rival cult. Money can become a false divinity that demands sacrifices, organizes a life, and promises security and happiness. The Catechism explicitly ranks this service of Money among the modern forms of idolatry: "One cannot serve God and wealth," it recalls when treating the first commandment[10]. Pope Francis gave this analysis a resounding formula:
"We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose." — Pope Francis, Evangelii gaudium, § 55[11]
There is the real danger: not possessing money, but being possessed by it. All the rest of Catholic doctrine consists in breaking this idolatry by putting money back in its place as a servant.
Why are riches dangerous?
Money, neutral in itself, becomes fearsome as soon as we grow attached to it. The Gospel multiplies warnings, not out of contempt for the rich, but out of lucidity about what wealth does to the human heart. These warnings are so dense that a whole article is devoted to them; their logic is retained here.
The rich young man and the camel
The scene is famous. A good man, faithful to the commandments, asks Christ what he still lacks. Jesus looks at him with love, then invites him to give everything to the poor and follow him. "The man went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions"[12]. Christ then comments:
"Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." — Jesus, Gospel according to Saint Matthew 19:23–24[13]
The warning is severe, but it is not a verdict: to the frightened disciples who ask "who then can be saved?", Jesus answers that "with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible"[14]. The danger of wealth is real, but God's grace can triumph over it. What condemns is not possession, but the attachment that makes one unable to leave everything for God.
The foolish rich man and the rich man without mercy
Two parables of Saint Luke specify the nature of the danger. The foolish rich man piles up harvests and barns and says to himself: "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry." But God says to him: "Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?"[15]. The rich man's sin is not having goods: it is having placed his security in them, forgetting God and others.
The rich man of the parable of Lazarus is graver still. He committed no crime; he simply feasted every day without seeing the poor man lying at his gate. It is this blindness of heart that destroys him[16]. Wealth appears here as a veil: it can blind us to the misery at our own door. The danger is not only the avarice that holds back, but the indifference that ignores.
Greed, a capital sin
Tradition has named this disorder of the heart avarice or greed, and ranked it among the seven capital sins — that is, among the roots from which other faults sprout. The Catechism treats it under the tenth commandment, which forbids covetousness: "The tenth commandment forbids avarice arising from a passion for riches and their power"[17]. The Church Fathers described this passion with a vigor never equaled since. Saint Basil of Caesarea, in the fourth century, unmasks the miser's self-justification:
"‘Whom do I wrong,’ says the miser, ‘by keeping what is mine?’ But tell me, what is yours? Where did you get it to bring it into this life? A good God made you steward of your fellow servants: do not think that everything was prepared for your belly." — Saint Basil of Caesarea, Homily "I will pull down my barns"[18]
Avarice is not merely a lack of generosity: it rests on a lie about the origin of goods, as if man were the source of what he has received. It is this lie that the doctrine of the universal destination of goods corrects.
To whom do the goods of the earth belong?
Here is the doctrinal heart of the question of money. Before saying what each person must do with his goods, the Church affirms a principle about their origin and finality. It is simply stated, but it governs the whole of social doctrine.
The universal destination of goods
The first principle is not ownership, but gift: God entrusted the earth to the whole of humanity, so that all may find in it what they need to live. This is what the Church calls the universal destination of goods.
"In the beginning God entrusted the earth and its resources to the common stewardship of mankind to take care of them, master them by labor, and enjoy their fruits. The goods of creation are destined for the whole human race." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2402[19]
This principle comes before and above every right of ownership: it is its foundation and its limit. Goods exist first for all. Every particular appropriation remains secondary to this first destination. The Compendium of social doctrine makes it "the first principle of the whole ethical and social order" in economic matters[20].
Private property: a real but not absolute right
The universal destination does not abolish private property — on the contrary, the Church firmly defends it as a natural right. Leo XIII, against nascent socialism, affirms that "private and personal ownership is of natural right for man"[21], and the Catechism judges it legitimate and even necessary: it guarantees freedom, initiative, responsibility, and a space for the family[22].
But this right is not absolute. It is ordered to the universal destination, which remains its criterion. Saint Thomas Aquinas had already fixed the decisive distinction: man may legitimately possess as his own, but he must use his goods as common.
"Man ought not to hold exterior things as his own, but as common, so as readily to share them with others in their needs." — Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIa-IIae, q. 66, taken up by Leo XIII[23]
Ownership of the thing, but common use of its fruits: such is the classic formula. The Catechism repeats it: the owner is only a "steward of Providence," charged with making goods bear fruit and sharing them with others, beginning with his kin"[24]. Ownership is not an absolute right of enjoyment, but a responsible stewardship in the service of all.
The "social mortgage" on property
Saint John Paul II coined a striking juridical image for this. Upon all private property weighs a "social mortgage": it bears within itself, as an intrinsic quality, a social function founded precisely on the principle of the universal destination of goods[25]. In other words, we never possess only for ourselves: part of what we have entails a responsibility toward others, especially toward those who lack what is necessary.
This doctrine explains the most radical saying of the Church Fathers on almsgiving, which Paul VI raised to magisterial rank in Populorum progressio:
"It is not from your own goods that you give alms to the poor; you are giving back to him what belongs to him. For what is given in common for the use of all is what you arrogate to yourself. The earth is given to everyone, and not only to the rich." — Saint Ambrose of Milan, De Nabuthe, quoted by Paul VI in Populorum progressio, § 23[26]
The superfluous goods of the rich, in the face of the necessities of the poor, are therefore not merely a matter of optional generosity: they already belong, in a sense, to justice. It is this shift from charity to justice that grounds the concrete duties of the possessor.
| Two principles in fruitful tension | The universal destination of goods | Private property |
|---|---|---|
| Foundation | God's gift: the earth is entrusted to all (Gn 1) | The natural right of the person to the fruit of his labor |
| Rank | First principle, superior | Secondary principle, ordered to the first |
| What it guarantees | That no one be deprived of what is necessary | Freedom, initiative, responsibility, the family |
| Its limit | Must pass through concrete appropriations | Burdened with a "social mortgage" (John Paul II) |
| Reference | CCC § 2402; Compendium § 171 | CCC §§ 2403–2406; Rerum novarum |
The duties of the rich: first justice, then charity
The most frequent mistake is to believe that the duty of the possessor is reduced to almsgiving, that is, to a surplus of kindness. The Church teaches the reverse of the usual order: justice comes before charity. One does not first give in alms what one first took away by injustice. Three duties structure this chapter.
A just wage and the refusal of exploitation
The first duty is not to give, but not to take unjustly. The remuneration of work must be just: a wage that allows the worker and his family to live with dignity. Leo XIII broke with the liberal idea that a freely agreed wage is always just:
"Wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earner." — Leo XIII, Rerum novarum, 1891[27]
The Catechism makes it a demand of justice that no mere agreement can evade: "A just wage is the legitimate fruit of work. To refuse or withhold it can be a grave injustice"[28]. Defrauding the worker of his wages is one of the sins that cry to heaven for vengeance, in the biblical words of Saint James: "The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord"[29]. Social justice is therefore not a political supplement added to the Gospel: it is one of its direct demands.
Usury: why the Church condemned it
For centuries, the Church condemned usury — in the classic sense: demanding interest by the mere fact of lending money, without legitimate title. Its foundation is scriptural (the Old Testament forbids lending at interest to one's poor brother[30]) and rational: for Saint Thomas, money lent for consumption produces nothing by itself; charging for its use as if it were fruitful amounts to "selling what does not exist," hence to an injustice[31]. The last great doctrinal clarification is the encyclical of Benedict XIV, Vix pervenit (1745):
"The sin of usury consists in willing, by virtue of the loan contract itself, to receive more than one has lent; in holding that, by the loan contract, a gain is due beyond the principal." — Benedict XIV, encyclical Vix pervenit, November 1, 1745[32]
The same encyclical nevertheless recognizes that other titles — real risk incurred, damage suffered, lost profit, partnership contracts — can legitimately justify interest[33]. The doctrine was therefore not abolished but clarified: what the Church always condemned is the exploitation of another's need through lending — what ordinary language still calls usury today. The Catechism ranks it among practices contrary to the dignity of the person and the common good[34].
Almsgiving: a duty of justice, not an option
Finally comes charity — but a charity which, in the face of distress, takes the form of a duty. Almsgiving is not, in tradition, a luxury of the generous soul: it is owed. The Catechism quotes on this point one of the strongest sayings of Saint John Chrysostom:
"Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs." — Saint John Chrysostom, quoted in the Catechism § 2446[35]
Giving the poor what they need and lack is therefore not, properly speaking, giving a gift: it is "performing a duty of justice rather than an act of charity," in the formula of Saint Gregory the Great taken up by tradition[36]. The Catechism lists almsgiving among the works of mercy by which we come to the aid of our neighbor in his necessities, and calls it a "witness to fraternal charity" that is also "a work of justice pleasing to God"[37]. Scripture even links it to salvation: "Almsgiving delivers from death, and it will purge away every sin," says the book of Tobit[38]. Giving does not impoverish: it is laying up treasure in heaven.
The preferential option for the poor
From these principles — universal destination of goods, primacy of justice, duty of almsgiving — the Church draws an overall orientation she calls the preferential option for the poor. It is not a political opinion, but an evangelical demand rooted in Christ's own attitude.
Christ in the poor
The foundation is a saying of the Last Judgment in which Jesus identifies himself with the poor. What is done — or not done — to the least is done to Christ himself:
"I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink... Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me." — Jesus, Gospel according to Saint Matthew 25:35, 40[39]
This text makes our attitude toward the poor a criterion of salvation. The Catechism stresses it: "The Church's love for the poor... is a part of her constant tradition," inspired by the Gospel of the Beatitudes and the poverty of Jesus[40]. The poor man is not first a social problem: he is a sacrament of Christ.
The poor, "treasures of the Church"
This conviction shaped the saints. Summoned by the prefect of Rome to hand over the treasures of the Church, the deacon Saint Lawrence gathered the poor, the sick, and the crippled, and declared: "Here are the treasures of the Church." He paid for it with his life in 258[41]. Saint Francis of Assisi wedded "Lady Poverty" and made voluntary stripping a living prophecy against the idolatry of money[42]. These figures do not despise money out of disgust: they relativize it out of love, placing the poor at the center.
Neither unbridled capitalism nor collectivism
Applied to the economy, this orientation leads the Church to refuse two symmetrical extremes. She condemns atheistic collectivism, which denies ownership and the freedom of the person; but she equally refuses a capitalism left to itself, in which profit would be the sole rule.
"The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modern times with ‘communism’ or ‘socialism.’ She has likewise refused to accept, in the practice of ‘capitalism,’ individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace over human labor." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2425[43]
The Catechism specifies that "a theory that makes profit the exclusive norm and ultimate end of economic activity is morally unacceptable"[44]. This narrow ridge — neither extreme — is the path of the whole of social doctrine, from Leo XIII to Francis. As early as 1931, Pius XI denounced "the international imperialism of money"[45]; Paul VI demanded that development benefit all; John Paul II distinguished an acceptable capitalism, framed by law and at the service of freedom, from a "savage" capitalism to be rejected[46]; and Pope Francis issued his sharpest warning:
"Just as the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills." — Pope Francis, Evangelii gaudium, § 53[47]
| Three views of the economy | Atheistic collectivism | Catholic social doctrine | Unbridled capitalism |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private property | Denied or abolished | Recognized, but with a social function | Absolutized, without duties |
| The ultimate criterion | The State and the collective | The person and the common good | Profit and the market |
| The worker | Subject to the collective | A subject of rights, owed a just wage | A variable of adjustment |
| The Church's verdict | Rejected (CCC § 2425) | Promoted | Refused (CCC §§ 2424–2425) |
Money, at the scale of societies as of persons, must therefore serve and not govern: "Money must serve, not rule!" sums up Francis[48].
The right use of money: what must the Christian do?
Doctrine does not remain abstract: it issues in practice. What must a Christian concretely do with his money? Three ordered gestures.
Earn honestly, provide for one's own
The first duty is positive: earning one's bread by honest work and providing for one's family's needs. Saint Paul is uncompromising: "If any one will not work, let him not eat"[49], and "any one who does not provide for his relatives has disowned the faith"[50]. Earning money licitly, saving with measure, securing one's family's future: all this is not only permitted but commanded. The question of work and its just remuneration is developed separately[51].
Give: almsgiving, support of the Church and the common good
The second gesture is giving, in all its forms: direct alms to the poor, support of charitable works, contribution to the needs of the Church and the common good. Scripture invites us to give not under constraint but with joy: "God loves a cheerful giver"[52]. The measure is not fixed by a mechanical percentage: it is taken from the superfluous, and, in grave necessity of others, may go so far as to draw on what is necessary. The evangelical criterion is not the amount given but the love that gives — as illustrated by the widow's mite, whose two coins are worth more, in Christ's eyes, than the largesse of the rich, "for they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty"[53].
Detachment of heart: poverty in spirit
The third gesture is interior, and it concerns all Christians, rich or poor: poverty in spirit, or detachment of heart. The first beatitude — "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven"[54] — does not canonize material misery: it blesses the interior freedom of one who does not set his heart on money. The Catechism explains:
"The Lord grieves over the rich, because they find their consolation in the abundance of goods. ‘Let the proud seek and love earthly kingdoms, but blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.’ Abandonment to the providence of the Father in heaven frees us from anxiety about tomorrow." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2547[55]
This freedom is not reserved for monks. Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati, a rich young sportsman from twentieth-century Turin, canonized by Pope Leo XIV on September 7, 2025, lived in the midst of the world while secretly giving to the poor even his pocket money and train tickets:
"Our life, in order to be Christian, must be a continual renunciation, a continual sacrifice... when one thinks of the small number of years of hardship compared with an eternity of happiness." — Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati, address to the young people of the "Catholic Youth" of Pollone, 29 July 1923[56]
Detachment is not contempt for created goods: it is the absolute priority given to God, which finally makes money available to serve.
Must one be poor to be saved?
One last question, often asked, deserves a clear answer. Does the Gospel condemn the rich as such? Must one strip oneself of everything to enter heaven?
Rich men saved and poor men lost
Tradition's answer is clear: wealth is neither a merit nor a sin. Scripture knows holy rich men — Abraham, rich in flocks; Joseph of Arimathea, a "rich man" who buried Christ[57]; Zacchaeus, the wealthy tax collector who, without abandoning everything, gives half his goods to the poor and repays fourfold what he stole, and hears: "Today salvation has come to this house"[58]. History also knows holy kings, like Saint Louis, and countless benefactors whose fortunes fed the poor and built hospitals. Conversely, suffered poverty is not automatically virtuous: a poor man can be gnawed by envy, theft, or greed for the little he covets.
The decisive criterion is therefore not the amount possessed, but the ordering of the heart and the use of goods. The case of Zacchaeus shows it perfectly: he is saved not because he becomes poor, but because he becomes just and generous.
The evangelical counsels and the common path
Two calls must be distinguished. To all, the Gospel commands right use and detachment of heart. To some, it further proposes a counsel — not a commandment —: to leave everything to follow him in voluntary poverty. This is the way of the evangelical counsels (poverty, chastity, obedience) embraced by consecrated persons. Religious poverty is a prophetic sign at the heart of the Church; it is not the rule imposed on every baptized person. The layman, for his part, is called to sanctify temporal realities — money among them — by ordering them to God and neighbor, not to flee them.
"Let those who deal with the world live as though they had no dealings with it. For the form of this world is passing away." — Saint Paul, First Letter to the Corinthians 7:31[59]
Using goods "as though not using them": here is the formula that reconciles possession and freedom. One can have money without belonging to it.
Money: servant or master
The whole teaching of the Church on money can be reduced to a single question: which is the first master served. Money is an excellent servant and a fearsome tyrant. Placed at the service of God and neighbor — earned justly, spent soberly, shared generously, possessed with a free heart — it becomes an instrument of charity and matter for salvation. Erected as a master, it becomes Mammon, the idol that "pierces the heart with many pangs." Between the two, there is no lasting neutrality: "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also"[60].
For further reading
- Why does Jesus talk so much about money? — Christ's evangelical insistence and the meaning of the parables on wealth.
- What does the Church say about work? — work, the just wage, and the dignity of the worker.
- What does the Church say about gambling? — gaming, betting, and the moral measure of one's relationship to gain.
- How to answer the objection about the Vatican's money? — the goods of the Holy See, their history and their use.
- What is the difference between temptation and sin? — the interior combat, of which greed is one of the major fronts.
- What is moral conscience? — the interior forum where the right use of goods is decided.
Notes and References
First Letter of Saint Paul to Timothy 6:10 (AELF liturgical translation): "The love of money is the root of all evils." The Greek philarguria means the love/greed for money, not currency itself.
1 3Gospel according to Saint Matthew 6:24 (AELF): "You cannot serve God and Money (Mammon)." Parallel in Lk 16:13.
2 9On the meaning of the Greek term philarguria (literally "love of money," greed), cf. the apparatuses of the critical editions of the New Testament (Nestle-Aland) and the Jerusalem Bible, note on 1 Tim 6:10, Éd. du Cerf.
4Second Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians 8–9 (AELF): organization of the collection for the poor of Jerusalem; "God loves a cheerful giver" (9:7).
5Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2424, Libreria Editrice Vaticana / Mame-Plon, Paris, 1992: "A theory that makes profit the exclusive norm and ultimate end of economic activity is morally unacceptable. The disordered desire for money cannot but produce perverse effects."
6 44Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIa-IIae, q. 117–119: liberality, the virtue of the right relationship to riches, between avarice (q. 118) and prodigality (q. 119).
7Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIa-IIae, q. 118, a. 1: exterior goods are means ordered to an end; man's good in their regard consists in a just measure.
8Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2113, op. cit.: "Idolatry is a perversion of man's innate religious sense... One cannot serve God and wealth (Mt 6:24)."
10Pope Francis, apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium, November 24, 2013, § 55, official text on vatican.va: "The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy."
11Gospel according to Saint Matthew 19:22 (AELF): the rich young man goes away sorrowful, "for he had great possessions."
12Gospel according to Saint Matthew 19:23–24 (AELF): "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
13Gospel according to Saint Matthew 19:25–26 (AELF): "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."
14Gospel according to Saint Luke 12:16–21 (AELF): parable of the foolish rich man; "Fool! This night your soul is required of you."
15Gospel according to Saint Luke 16:19–31 (AELF): parable of the rich man and poor Lazarus.
16Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2536, op. cit.: "The tenth commandment forbids avarice arising from a passion for riches and their power."
17Saint Basil of Caesarea, Homily on the words of the Gospel: "I will pull down my barns" (Hom. VI–VII, against avarice), text on remacle.org; reference translation S. Giet, Les idées et l'action sociale de saint Basile, Paris, 1941. Text: "'Whom do I wrong,' says the miser, 'by keeping what is mine?'"
18Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2402, op. cit.: "In the beginning God entrusted the earth and its resources to the common stewardship of mankind... The goods of creation are destined for the whole human race."
19Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2004, §§ 171–172: the universal destination of goods as "the first principle of the whole ethical and social order."
20Leo XIII, encyclical Rerum novarum, May 15, 1891, official text on vatican.va: "Private and personal ownership is of natural right for man."
21Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2403, op. cit.: the right to private property, acquired or received in a just way, does not do away with the original gift of the earth to the whole of humanity.
22Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIa-IIae, q. 66, a. 2: man may possess as his own, but must use exterior things as common. Taken up by Leo XIII, Rerum novarum.
23Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2404, op. cit.: "In his use of things man must never hold the things... as belonging to him alone... Ownership of any property makes its holder a steward of Providence."
24John Paul II, encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis, December 30, 1987, § 42, official text on vatican.va: upon private property weighs "a social mortgage," an intrinsic function founded on the universal destination of goods. The same paragraph establishes "the option or preferential love for the poor."
25Paul VI, encyclical Populorum progressio, March 26, 1967, § 23, quoting Saint Ambrose, De Nabuthe, ch. 12, n. 53 (P.L. 14, 747): "It is not from your own goods that you give alms to the poor; you are giving back to him what belongs to him... The earth is given to everyone, and not only to the rich."
26Leo XIII, Rerum novarum, 1891, op. cit.: wages must not be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved worker; justice takes precedence over mere free agreement.
27Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2434, op. cit.: "A just wage is the legitimate fruit of work. To refuse or withhold it can be a grave injustice."
28Letter of Saint James 5:4 (AELF): "The wages of the laborers... which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord." Cf. CCC § 1867 (sins that cry to heaven).
29Deuteronomy 23:20–21 (AELF): prohibition on lending at interest to one's brother. Cf. Exodus 22:24; Leviticus 25:35–37.
30Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIa-IIae, q. 78, a. 1: receiving interest for the mere loan of money (a consumable thing) amounts to selling what does not exist — an injustice.
31Benedict XIV, encyclical Vix pervenit, November 1, 1745: usury consists in demanding, by virtue of the loan itself, more than the principal lent; but other titles (risk, damage, lost profit, partnership contract) can legitimize interest.
32 33Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§ 2438–2439, op. cit.: denunciation of financial mechanisms that worsen the misery of poor nations; demand for justice in economic relations.
34Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2446, op. cit., quoting Saint John Chrysostom, Homily on Lazarus 2, 5 (PG 48, 992): "Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs."
35Saint Gregory the Great, Pastoral Rule, III, 21: in giving the poor what they need, "we perform a duty of justice rather than an act of charity."
36Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2447, op. cit.: the works of mercy; "Almsgiving to the poor is one of the chief witnesses to fraternal charity: it is also a work of justice pleasing to God."
37Book of Tobit 4:7–11 and 12:8–9 (AELF): "Almsgiving delivers from death, and it will purge away every sin."
38Gospel according to Saint Matthew 25:31–46 (AELF): the Last Judgment; "As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me."
39Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§ 2443–2444, op. cit.: "The Church's love for the poor... is a part of her constant tradition."
40Saint Ambrose, De officiis ministrorum, II, 28, reports the saying of Saint Lawrence, deacon of Rome martyred in 258, presenting the poor as "the treasures of the Church."
41Franciscan sources (Legend of the Three Companions, Vita prima of Thomas of Celano): the symbolic marriage of Saint Francis of Assisi with "Lady Poverty."
42Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2425, op. cit.: "The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated... with ‘communism’ or ‘socialism.’ She has likewise refused to accept, in the practice of ‘capitalism,’ individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace over human labor."
43Pius XI, encyclical Quadragesimo anno, May 15, 1931, official text on vatican.va: denunciation of "the international imperialism of money."
45John Paul II, encyclical Centesimus annus, May 1, 1991, § 42: distinction between a market economy framed by law and at the service of human freedom, and a "savage" capitalism to be rejected.
46Pope Francis, Evangelii gaudium, § 53, op. cit.: "Today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills."
47Pope Francis, Evangelii gaudium, §§ 57–58, op. cit.: "Money must serve, not rule!"
48Second Letter of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians 3:10 (AELF): "If any one will not work, let him not eat."
49First Letter of Saint Paul to Timothy 5:8 (AELF): "If any one does not provide for his relatives... he has disowned the faith: he is worse than an unbeliever."
50On the doctrine of work and wages, see the Ignispedia article What does the Church say about work? and John Paul II, encyclical Laborem exercens, September 14, 1981.
51Second Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians 9:7 (AELF): "God loves a cheerful giver."
52Gospel according to Saint Luke 21:1–4 (AELF); parallel Mk 12:41–44: the widow's mite, who "contributed out of her poverty."
53Gospel according to Saint Matthew 5:3 (AELF): "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
54Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 2547, op. cit.: "The Lord grieves over the rich, because they find their consolation in the abundance of goods... Abandonment to the providence of the Father in heaven frees us from anxiety about tomorrow."
55Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati (1901–1925), canonized on September 7, 2025 by Pope Leo XIV, address to the members of the "Catholic Youth" of Pollone, Sunday, 29 July 1923 (blessing of the flag; text reproduced on usccb.org): "Our life, in order to be Christian, must be a continual renunciation, a continual sacrifice... when one thinks of the small number of years of hardship compared with an eternity of happiness."
56Gospel according to Saint Matthew 27:57 (AELF): Joseph of Arimathea, "a rich man," a disciple of Jesus, who buried him in his new tomb.
57Gospel according to Saint Luke 19:1–10 (AELF): Zacchaeus gives half his goods to the poor and repays fourfold; "Today salvation has come to this house."
58First Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians 7:29–31 (AELF): "Let those who deal with the world live as though they had no dealings with it, for the form of this world is passing away."
59Gospel according to Saint Matthew 6:21 (AELF): "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
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