Hence, by degrees it has come to pass that working men have been surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the hardheartedness of employers and the greed of unchecked competition. The mischief has been increased by rapacious usury, which, although more than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless, under a different guise, but with like injustice, still practiced by covetous and grasping men. To this must be added that the hiring of labor and the conduct of trade are concentrated in the hands of comparatively few; so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself. (Leo XIII: Rerum Novarum)
SANTO SUBITO! Papa Leo was awesome! JPII canonized everybody and their brother, why was Leo XIII not even considered? 31 encyclicals, a number of significant ones about the Rosary, not to mention Rerum Novarum, the foundation of modern Catholic social teaching. JPII even wrote on it on the 100th anniversary of its promulgation–so he must have thought it significant. All this aside, Leo XIII had visions of hell and wrote the St. Michael Prayer. This Pope gave us so much–why has he not been raised to the glory of the altars?
Good question.