Pope Leo XIV and Orthodox Social Thought

With the new American pope taking the name of a predecessor known for his social teaching, it is hoped that both Rome and Constantinople will learn from each other

The new pontiff of Rome has already set a tone for his papacy with the choice of his name:

I chose to take the name Leo XIV. There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew will attend Leo XIV’s enthronement on Sunday, and he has remarked on the pope’s choice of name as well:

Indeed, a Pope of American origin has been elected, who took the name Leo the Fourteenth. From what I remember during my time in Rome, Leo XIII was distinguished for his social teachings. We hope that Leo XIV will also embrace the Church’s contribution to the world, not only in the social sphere but by offering answers to the existential questions that continue to concern humanity.

Pope Leo XIII wrote 88 encyclicals, including the abovementioned Rerum Novarum (May 15, 1891), inaugurating the tradition of modern Roman Catholic social teaching. In total, 14 of his encyclicals are considered “social encyclicals.”

Leo XIV’s immediate predecessor, Pope Francis, by contrast, issued only four encyclicals, just two of which are considered social. Yet those who hope for continued reconciliation between Rome and the Orthodox Church can point to Francis, who advanced ecumenical dialogue by referencing in particular Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in both of his social encyclicals, but especially in Laudato Si’. “In the preparation of Laudato Si’,” he wrote in Fratelli Tutti, “I had a source of inspiration in my brother Bartholomew, the Orthodox Patriarch, who has spoken forcefully of our need to care for creation.”

And just this week, speaking to Eastern Catholic participants in the Jubilee of the Oriental Churches, Leo XIV affirmed, “The Church needs you. The contribution that the Christian East can offer us today is immense!” Among potential contributions, he listed Eastern liturgy and asceticism, warning, “It is vital, then, that you preserve your traditions without attenuating them, for the sake perhaps of practicality or convenience, lest they be corrupted by the mentality of consumerism and utilitarianism.”

As an Orthodox Christian who has admired Roman Catholic social teaching for years, I hope we will see with Leo XIV a combination of Leo XIII’s and Francis’s contributions … and a return of the favor.

The Orthodox Church lags behind other Christian traditions when it comes to modern social thought. That is not to say that we have none, but it is often under-theorized and under-systematized. Take for example the document For the Life of the World, produced in 2020 by a commission of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in response to the encyclical of the Council of Crete in 2016.

In contrast to Leo XIII’s defense of private property and industrial workers’ well-being, informed by his wide-reaching study of theology, philosophy, and even economics, For the Life of the World’s section on wealth and poverty sets a far more negative tone. It does not even once affirm private property, much less reflect on the importance of this fundamental human right, as acknowledged, for example, by the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 17, the principle drafters of which included the Lebanese diplomat Charles Malik, an archon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Despite the editors’ intention “to abstain altogether from the language and intonations of judgment or condemnation,” the section of For the Life of the World on wealth and poverty contains nine different instances of the word “condemn.” While highlighting some real—and many imaginary—challenges of our modern economies, it does not continue the more charitable and balanced tone of other sections of the document, such as in its treatments of religious liberty, democracy, and bioethics. Instead, modern economies are simply denounced, with no appreciation for the huge gains in poverty alleviation and even, in recent decades, reduction in inequality that have come from those economies. Indeed, it asserts, contrary to the facts, that poverty and inequality have grown, even appealing to Marxist memes of “wage slavery” and “late capitalism.”

In their defense, I don’t think any of the commission members are Marxists. They aren’t atheists or materialists. They don’t believe that all of history is the result of a deterministic social dialectic of class conflict. But unlike other topics, which they addressed with greater nuance and expertise, there was no economist or business specialist on the commission to steer them in a sounder direction. And unfortunately, most other disciplines do not often recognize that Marxist analysis is considered pseudoscientific by mainstream economic science today.

While I would love for my fellow Orthodox theologians to read more economics, there is a pretty solid shortcut should there ever be a second edition or sequel to For the Life of the World: Read more Roman Catholic social teaching. Rerum Novarum would be a great place to start. Engaging in just a little more ecumenism in this way would have surely corrected some of the less-helpful passages on economic topics in For the Life of the World.

To be clear: I don’t think we should just outsource economic commentary to Roman Catholics. But we can, as Pope Francis did, learn from each other and explicitly acknowledge each other’s inspiration. Yes, we have our own contributions. Francis noted our emphasis on asceticism, for example. Leo XIV would do well to continue drawing from Orthodox—and, for that matter, Western—ascetic theology in his pastoral social commentary. But we also have a lot of common ground, like natural law, and greater familiarity with Roman Catholic social thought could clarify the place of natural law in modern Orthodox social thought, whether contributions from patriarchs, councils, bishops, priests, or lay scholars.

If Leo XIV follows in his namesake’s footsteps, as he intends to, we can expect a lot of new contributions to Roman Catholic social teaching. Let’s hope that Leo XIV will also heed Pope John Paul II’s call that “the Church must breathe with her two lungs!” as Francis attempted to do. We Orthodox should do the same.

Dylan Pahman

Dylan Pahman is a research fellow at the Acton Institute, where he serves as executive editor of the Journal of Markets & Morality. He earned his MTS in historical theology from Calvin Theological Seminary. In addition to his work as an editor, Dylan has authored several peer-reviewed articles, conference papers, essays, and one book: Foundations of a Free & Virtuous Society (Acton Institute, 2017). He has also lectured on a wide variety of topics, including Orthodox Christian social thought, the history of Christian monastic enterprise, the Reformed statesman and theologian Abraham Kuyper, and academic publishing, among others.