This chapter argues that in reading the social teaching of Pope Francis what is needed is the deployment of a “hermeneutic of continuity,” one that forthrightly reads Francis’s continuities and discontinuities within the context of the tradition of Catholic thought that preceded him. This chapter closely examines the central themes of the pope’s teaching in the following texts: Caring for Our Common Home, The Joy of the Gospel, The Church and Europe, The Church and America, In the Name of Mercy, and The Family in the Modern World. It then considers “The Other Francis,” the Francis who is prone to troubling off-the-cuff remarks that lack any authoritative status as Catholic teaching or doctrine. The essay concludes with a brief discussion of the “Crisis in the Church” which has arisen from Francis’s tendency to question the teachings of his predecessors and to ignore reasonable requests for the clarification of Catholic teaching.

This chapter is an analytical summary of Rerum novarum. Its goal is to illuminate the purpose of the encyclical and the main lines of Pope Leo’s reasoning, his key premises and central ethical conclusions, and in this way, to articulate as clearly as possible the teaching that comprises Rerum novarum. Rerum’s influence on Catholic teaching and practice is most manifest in the Church’s “social teaching,” which in various ways identifies the encyclical as its founding statement. This identification is made in the names and citations of some of the most important papal contributions to Catholic Social Teaching (CST) and is pervasive throughout the corpus of CST. And it is revealed in the ways in which the accepted principles of CST are present or anticipated in Rerum novarum. Although the chapter does not undertake the large and formidable task of characterizing CST, it does indicate how these principles figure in Pope Leo’s analysis. It also underlines the extent to which these principles are not the main point of Rerum novarum, but stand in the service of the moral and religious reform urged by Pope Leo.