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Considered the first of the modern social encyclicals. Pope Leo XIII was acutely aware of the poverty of many workers and of the growth in power of socialist movements. It was Pope Leo who told Frances Cabrini to go “not to the East, but to the West” to help the thousands of Italian immigrants in the United States. Mother Cabrini came to New York in March 1889. St. Frances Cabrini's life illustrates that formation and spiritual development are inextricably intertwined with social action.
"Catholic Social Teaching emerges from the thought and practice of those engaged in social justice practice today and over the last two thousand years, stretching back to the composition and collection of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, respectively.
The thought and practice of social justice is grounded in faith.
The teaching is articulated officially in the papal social encyclicals over a 100 year (and counting) tradition from Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (1891) to Pope Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate (2009)."
--A Vision for Mission at Cabrini College, October, 2012.
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