There is no shortage of nourishing Catholic food for thought, but there is a shortage of people telling you where to find it. COMPASS wants to reverse the shortage. Each week we recommend a book worth reading - and we tell you why; then we tell you where you can buy it on-line, for cheap. St Augustine read his way up to the heights of holiness, why can't we?
If you are studying political science, economics, history, or international relations, this incomparable document should be first on your syllabus; it will give you more insight into the forces that shaped the modern world than any other single literary work. The twentieth century witnessed more Christian martyrdoms than all previous centuries combined. It was a century of failed social experiments and dead-end philosophies punctuated with moments of heroism and lasting glory. For centuries to come, secular scholars will be excavating for clues that can explain these contradictory achievements. But they could save themselves a lot of trouble if they would just read Pope Leo XIII's encyclical letter Rerum Novarum, "On the Condition of the Working Classes." With prophetic brilliance, this 1891 booklet exposes the excesses of almost all the "isms" that plagued twentieth century society (capitalism, Marxism, communism, socialism, nationalism, materialism, consumerismÖ). If it were more widely read, so many intellectual controversies would be resolved that much of today's professorate could retire in peace. Here's the first two paragraphs:
1. Once the passion for revolutionary change was aroused -- a passion long disturbing governments -- it was bound to follow sooner or later that eagerness for change would pass from the political sphere over into the related field of economics. In fact, new developments in industry, new techniques striking out on new paths, changed relations of employer and employee, abounding wealth among a very small number and destitution among the masses, increased self-reliance on the part of workers as well as a closer bond of union with one another, and, in addition to all this, a decline in morals have caused conflict to break forth.
2. The momentous nature of the questions involved in this conflict is evident from the fact that it keeps men's minds in anxious expectation, occupying the talents of the learned, the discussions of the wise and experienced, the assemblies of the people, the judgment of lawmakers, and the deliberations of rulers, so that now no topic more strongly holds men's interests.
