Abstract

The proclamation of the encyclical Rerum Novarum by Leo XIII on 15 May 1891 gave rise to what is today called the social teaching of the Church, or more precisely of the Catholic Church, since Orthodox churches did not take up the subject and Protestant churches became occupied with social issues only in the last decades of the twentieth century. Experts agree that the proclamation of this encyclical is linked with the beginning of the social teaching of the Church. There was no previous official social teaching, if we take social teaching to be a series of formal statements made by the Magisterium of the Church. At the end of the nineteenth century the Church witnessed radical political, economic and social changes, finding itself under various influences of the prevailing ideologies. The so-called „second industrial revolution" in economic life took place in 1870-1914. Rerum Novarum is commonly considered the beginning of the social teaching of the Church in its modern approach/ Until then the faithful were only warned of errors.