Become Who You Are
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Saint Catherine of Siena said "Become who you are and you would set the world on fire".
Become Who You Are
#658 Pope Leo XIII's "Rerum Novarum": The Three Necessary Societies for Human Flourishing, With Veronica Burchard
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What happens when the three necessary societies, the foundational pillars for human flourishing, crumble simultaneously? Jack and Veronica Burchard, Chief Operating Officer of Sophia Institute, explores how Pope Leo XIII's groundbreaking encyclical Rerum Novarum offers extraordinary wisdom for our modern cultural crisis.
Burchard shares what motivated her to create "A Pocket Guide to Rerum Novarum," making this essential Catholic social teaching more accessible to today's readers. Together, they unpack how Leo XIII's prophetic vision of the three necessary societies—Marriage and the Family, Christ and the Church, and Polity-Civil Society—creates a framework for understanding human dignity and societal flourishing.
The discussion reveals surprising relevance for today's young adults struggling under financial burdens that delay family formation and Leo XIII's teaching that "the family predates the state" and that private property rights flow from our responsibility to care for our families, and discover a liberating alternative to both socialist promises and unchecked capitalism.
Find "A Pocket Guide to Rerum Novarum" Here!
Read Jack's Blog's including his latest: Stepping Up to True Love: The Fall and the Call to Be a Man of God
Leo XIII, you know, says several times the family predates the state.
Speaker 2:You know, the family, that original cell of society you cannot replace it Young people today, veronica, that are burdened with debt, that are looking out exactly what you said and said I can't even buy a house, I'm afraid to start a family. You know I can't afford a family and you see what happens. You know, socialism is just a practical step in Marxism and our audience understands this, you know. And what they do is they overtax these people. They put so many burdens on them.
Speaker 1:What he saw was then these promise, the promise of help from socialism, and what a lie it was. You know like, and he does not mince words, it's so refreshing. But it's true. You know, these promises of socialism, they are lies and they harm those that they are meant to help.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, a production of the John Paul II Renewal Center. I'm Jack Riggert, your host. Our returning audience will know that I speak often of the three necessary societies for human flourishing, and in fact, one of our apostolates—you see the big sword behind me—is called Claymore, and Claymore is structured on top of this Catholic social teaching. Which are these three necessary societies? These have come down to us from Pope Leo XIII, articulated in his encyclical Rerum Novarum of New Things. Here with us to discuss the importance of this for today and also for our young people that are joining us in larger and larger numbers all the time, is Veronica Burschard. She's the Chief Operating Officer of Sophia Institute and Executive Director of Sophia Teachers, which she helped found in 2013. For the last decade, she's played a role in the shaping of Sophia's catechetical programs, as well as the production of Sophia's Religion textbook series, now used in more than 1,500 schools and parishes. Veronica, it's so good to be with you.
Speaker 1:Thank you, jack, it's wonderful to be here.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So thank you, and you're coming out of New Hampshire, we're out of Chicago here, so very exciting to be able to connect this far away and talk about something very, very important, especially, like I said, it's important to everybody, but especially our young audience very, very important, especially, like I said, it's important to everybody, but especially our young audience. So we're going to dive in and I'm going to ask you what got you interested in bringing this book out, which is a pocket guide to Rerum Novarum, and I think it's going to come in handy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, I mean so. I've always. I'm a cradle Catholic, somewhat of a revert, and I'd always heard about the foundation of modern Catholic social teaching being this document. I had this kind of just passing familiarity with it, but I'd never read it. But, you know, thought well of it and just thought it was a good thing, but hadn't taken the time to read it myself. And then, when our new pope was elected and he chose the name Leo, I thought that was really interesting and it made me think of Rerum Novarum. And then when he but when he specifically said, like he told the College of Cardinals that he chose the name Leo mainly because of Rerum Novarum, I was like, oh my gosh, now I have to read it. And so then when I read it, I thought, my gosh, more people need to read this. This is so good and people need to know what it says. And so that's what prompted it.
Speaker 2:You know, I do this for our, especially for our new people joining us and this will be an oversimplification. But for the young people especially, you know they're very confused. Huh, what do you see out there today? There's so much noise and so much confusion. We have to have a lens, we have to have a context to put this all in. You know, who are we? What should we do? Should we get married? Should I have children? What about the church? And what about the world out there?
Speaker 2:So I always just say look, it's like a triangle in front of us, almost looks like a two-dimensional pyramid and holding that up on the base, our marriage and the family, which always gets down to the individual human dignity of each person, and this is linked to Christ and the church. Huh, so this holds up, this whole framework, this triangle, and then we have to go out into the world. You go out into the world and this becomes polity, the third necessary society, which is the way we structure our laws and the way we look at the world. Now, this should all work together, right, the polity, with the way we structure our laws, should be reflection of marriage and the family, the truth coming out of Christ, in fact, the United States is. The founding fathers understood this framework in a sense, and that's how we're founded, and it's all coming apart.
Speaker 2:And we see it, veronica, not only in the United States, but especially Europe, where I think it was Pope Pius XI it could have been the 10th, but I think it was the 11th that's looking at Pope Leo's work and said that even if one of those necessary societies would crumble or come down, we'd have a crisis on our hands. But now we're seeing all three come down, and so again I throw this back at you Maybe you can help us unpack this a little bit more and the importance of it. And again I say for young people, it's for all of us, but young people are confused, they almost want to give up, and this will give them a new lens, an exciting lens in which to see their meaning and purpose.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, and you're so right about everything you just said, and I love the triangle image, that's really good, a nice sort of framework for thinking about it. And the family, he says Pope Leo XIII, you know, says several times the family predates the state. You know, the family, that original cell of society, you cannot replace it and it is, and it's so fundamental to everything, you know, to everything, to the common good, to the flourishing of society, not to mention, of course, the individuals that make up that family. And so he kind of has this sort of through line, like the human person has this we've been endowed you mentioned the founders so we've been correctly right, we've been endowed by our creator with these inalienable rights, is what Thomas Jefferson said. And so, of course, leo doesn't use those exact words.
Speaker 1:But he says, you know, human beings are the only ones out of material creation, creation on earth, we can plan for our futures, like we've been given this gift from God to think about the tomorrow and the next day and the next day. And so the responsibility to care for ourselves and our families, our loved ones and the broader community, it flows from this ability and our right to own property and to choose what we want to do in the world and the life we want to create. That right flows from that responsibility, and so we tend to think in terms of rights, and that's true and good. We do have the right to do a lot of these good things, but it flows from the responsibility to care for ourselves and our family, and so that is the basis.
Speaker 1:And he kind of he spends the first half of the encyclical kind of making this case like a man has a father, has the responsibility to care for his family. Therefore he must then have the right to private property that continues, that persists into the future, because his children are going to come into the world and he's going to have to care for them and provide for them. And so this it's just a really interesting way of looking at it, that is, it's so groundbreaking, you know. And so then what necessarily follows from that is that everything we choose to do with our property is it has a moral component, you know, it has a moral weight, all of our decisions. And then that then he starts talking about the what that means then for employees and employers, but that basis of the human person and how God created us, giving us those responsibilities and rights and how important the family is was just so beautiful to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everything's built on that and this is in our heart. What a lie how we're telling our young people that you don't have to get married, that children aren't important. And this is the our heart. You know what a lie how we're telling our young people, you know, that you don't have to get married, that children aren't important. And you know this is the basis of everything. When we talk about the young people today, veronica, that are burdened with debt, that are looking out exactly what you said and said I can't even buy a house, I'm afraid to start a family. You know, I can't afford a family and you see what happens. You know, socialism is just a practical step in Marxism and our audience understands this, you know. And what they do is they overtax these people. They put so many burdens on them. You know, the government, without getting into the weeds here, the government, you know, was going to help the students, you know, with going to college. And then, of course, all the prices rose because government guarantees, et cetera.
Speaker 1:And so what?
Speaker 2:happens is so many people are burdened. You know it's really sinful in a way what we're doing to our young people.
Speaker 1:Oh gosh, couldn't agree more. And so in Pope Leo XIII I think it shows how prophetic his voice was, I think because he was writing in 1891. So the Industrial Revolution is throwing the world into chaos. Families are being torn apart, really, moving children even into factories, husbands and wives leaving the home and what that was doing to the family.
Speaker 1:So what he saw was then these promise, the promise of help from, from socialism, and what, what a lie it was. You know like. And? And he does not mince words, words, it's so refreshing, but it's true. You know, these promises of socialism, they are lies and they harm those that they are meant to help.
Speaker 1:And really, I mean to your point, you just have to look at other societies where the government has gotten so involved, and you know, oh, we just provide free daycare or we provide, you know, all these other things that are supplanting the family.
Speaker 1:Then people will have more children, then people will be more confident to have families, but what you see is actually the opposite, right, they're having fewer children. And so the and he uses these words like the, if the state gets involved, that really this isn't his exact word, but like that, it introduces disorder, you know, it perverts the natural order of things, and so I think you know his advice to young people these days burdened with debt would be to listen to voices like yours, I think, and say you know, examine these claims with skepticism and to think about how, if you waited I mean if you waited until you were ready right financially to have children and you could get them everything they want, first of all, you'd never be able to do that. But secondly, it's not really how it's supposed to be. Anyway, you find your spouse and you could be a startup together rather than a merger, and then that leads to a happier marriage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so many of these well said and so many of these young people are looking at social. We have a mayor of New York coming in, that's a Marxist, really. And so they stand up and they just lie right. We're going to give you this, we're going to give you this, we're going to give you this, and it strips not only the human dignity of work and work is part of this right that God, right away from Genesis, says you know, be fertile, multiply right, get married, form this family. And in the next sentence he says have dominion over all of creation, go out and work, go and till the garden right. And so this brings dignity and creativity to people and a way to go out and serve the common good too, an extension of this to go out. And so the beauty of all of this framework coming together.
Speaker 2:So, what does everyone get wrong about Rerum Novarum and Catholic social teaching? Because I think what they'll hear us say is yeah, all these popes, including Pope Leo XIII, pushed back and they were very prophetic, you know. But the last nine popes before Francis always spoke about the negativity of socialism slash communism because of that right. And then they put these burdens on us where we never really own our own homes anymore because the real estate taxes go up and up and up and up and up. Right, we're living in Illinois here. You know it's the belly of the beast. Even the school systems want to take the kids apart.
Speaker 2:So, on the other hand, while the church teaching, especially John Paul, would embrace capitalism but he's also very wary about that, and so is Pope Leo XIII he just says, no, we don't just throw it into liberalism, right, because that can go too far too. It's a preferred way of doing it, because it's human freedom to build up your own businesses and stuff. But what does he say about that? He warns us a little bit about that too. He's just not giving it up to full-fledged liberalism. We take God out, let's take everything out. It's all just about personal freedom without concern for your neighbor and for the common good. Right?
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and the human person? Yes, no, that was all also true and so good. The, you know, probably, I think one of the first things that I had, the misconception that I had, was that I was going to read Rerum Novarum and see that it, you know, condemned both socialism and capitalism equally, both socialism and capitalism equally. And then so that's the expectation that I had going in, and I think that's really unfair, you know, because the and of course we have later encyclicals to your point that you know, make it totally clear like atheistic communism is incompatible with Christianity and human dignity. But what I found and we see the destruction.
Speaker 2:We see the destruction. So these are not just theories, are they, Veronica?
Speaker 1:No, absolutely. And so my parents are Cuban exiles and so it's very personal for me too. You know, just having it was before I was born. But you know, my family just having been so affected by communism and seeing its false promises and how it harms those it purports to help, was really, and I went going into reading it, thinking, you know, how can this be Like? How can it really condemn capitalism and socialism equally?
Speaker 1:And so, again, like I just don't think that's fair the same encyclical that says that private property is sacred, you know, and that we need to keep private property. If we want to help the poor, the first thing we have to do is keep private property sacred and inviolate, because that is work, property, that is the means by which the needy can improve their situation, and if you strip away the person's right to control the fruits of their labor, you are taking away their dignity. You are kind of like calling them a non-person right, like you can't do this, the state's going to come in and do this for you. That's not a Christian worldview and that's not truly helping our neighbor. But yes, absolutely to your point the critique of unfettered or unregulated—.
Speaker 2:We would call it laissez-faire capitalism.
Speaker 1:Right, right, that very much is at the heart, I would say, of the second half, and that is where he talks about how wages, for example, should be freely agreed upon. But there is a higher law, you know, that dictates that wages I love this phrase he says they should be enough to support a well-behaved wage earner and his family. You know, we miss that part. I think, right, that the wage should be enough, and there's where I think you see some of his heart for the family, that the wage should be enough to support a well-behaved wage earner and his family. And so this principle that the employer owes, as a matter of justice, that consideration to his station in life and his family situation, his age, his or her sex, you know what type of work they're able to do, his need to rest on the Sabbath, his need to not be exposed to moral hazards. You know, these are all things that the employer must do as a matter of justice to everyone that works for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and on the flip side of that, it's this, you know, need and responsibility to work. So if I'm coming in, you know, all those things you just said so beautifully also depend on my skill set, also depend on my education, also depend on how I prepared myself to walk in. So when I walk in and do a good job, he's supposed to pay me a good wage for that. And also talks about, of course, associations and the importance of trade unions and all that stuff so we can come together and protect us. But my point being you know, if you don't have to be on welfare, if you don't have to, you know too many people now, veronica, just get so lazy from the government, right, they're just getting the handouts and they don't need to have the handouts, they just don't want to work. So there's a responsibility for that and it's a human dignity about work.
Speaker 2:But then when we do go out and work, you know it has to go both ways, doesn't it? It's so beautiful when you start to see that. So the employer has to have a heart of Christ, you know, a giving heart, and the person coming into the job, he's got to be there on time, got to put his skills, but we want to do this. This is how we become creative and how we bring the beauty and we make our money, even if it's a boring job sometimes. I know lots of people that aren't crazy about their jobs right now, but they're creative in all kinds of other ways and you're meeting people, so walk in, do a great job, and we have to demand the same thing from the employer. This is just as common sense, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and I also love how Catholic it is, because it's like that both and you know that harmony. You know to a similar degree the responsibilities that we, that workers have, that employees have, and so at the heart of those is an honest day's work, and also then to spend our resources, our wages, wisely, and so the-.
Speaker 2:Can't gamble them away, huh. Can't just buy lotto tickets, can I? No I have a responsibility not to drink it all the way you know. You're exactly right.
Speaker 1:To be a well-behaved wage earner is always kind of what it reminds me of. And then, yeah, to your point, if you're on public assistance, there's not a shame in that right, but to remember that it's taxpayers that are supporting you and so, out of respect to them and their I mean, I guess you could argue whether it's generosity if it's not voluntarily given, like out of your concern for the common good, to, if you're able-bodied and on public assistance, to do all you can to no longer be on that as soon as possible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I can't own property if I'm not willing to work, you know, or I won't hold on to it even if it's given to me, you know.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, these are beautiful teachings. And when the state does have a role you know, socialism, communism the state just grows this is what's happening in the United States right now and you know it's grown so big and so many taxes, but we're not even as bad as so much of Western Europe is has a smaller role, just like our founding fathers again said, you know. But when the state does have a role, veronica, in our Catholic social teaching, it shows that they should be protecting all of these things that we're talking about. So they do have a role to protect us from outside forces, but also from these big employers. There are needs now and then to step in. You know. It doesn't say you should step in all the time. Subsidiarity right, let them all figure this stuff out, but when they can't, I have a preferential treatment for the poor, for the worker, for the right to work and for human dignity, and all those things come into consideration.
Speaker 1:Yes, our wonderful Catholic faith and subsidiarity is a beautiful thing to point to here and, yes, the kind of ensuring those conditions that allow the common good to exist right. And so the state definitely has no choice but to step in when human dignity is being violated. But to step in when human dignity is being violated, and when the more? When the smallest or closest local level if they are unable to step in, then those higher levels need to come in and ensure that human dignity is being protected and that those rights which again flow from our responsibility to care for ourselves, so the right of employees to form unions, to govern them in keeping with Christian principles, the right to enforcement of contracts, the right again to control the fruits of your own labor, to not have usurious practices, so usury or even overly burdensome taxes he mentions in the encyclical.
Speaker 1:And then one wonderful point that Leo XIII makes that I like is that the more that laws are generally applicable you know generally just the less need there is to have special laws for the poor. And so that, I think, is a good goal for anyone in any sort of government capacity to think about like a law that protects everyone's rights. When those are enforced, then there's fewer. There's less need to invoke that preferential option for the poor which is at the heart of Catholic social teaching, but it's um. The ideal is when you don't have to exercise it right because the common good is um is in practice and happening more generally as a result of general laws we're going to ask you to join us by helping us get the word out.
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Speaker 2:The other one is really taken off too. It's Claymore Miletus Christi, soldiers for Christ. That's where you see the sword behind me. That's the big sword. That's our logo for Claymore. That's a Claymore sword. And this is for young people, especially young men, gen Z, high school, all the way through, let's call it till they're 30 years old or so. They're starting to really understand that something nefarious, very toxic, is going on in the culture, and so they're stepping into the church and we're discipling them. So we want to help get the word out about those things and, lastly, consider financially supporting us. Everything's in the show notes. Hey, god bless you. Thanks again.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And this shows that our faith is not simply a private matter, is it? Because none of those things that we're talking about. They'll just be idealistic, right, just idealism, unless we take Christ and his church into our own hearts. You know, our hearts are twisted and distorted without grace, and all of these things will just be a battle all the time, you know, until we've received this gift of grace, and then we become the self-giving person. So can you talk a little bit about that as we start to wind down on time here, the importance of our faith and to bring it out into the public square?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And I mean there's you know this word of like social justice. Justice always involves more than one individual, more than one person, whether it's ourselves and God, or us and our neighbor, and so our entire faith. You know, the one cornerstone of our faith of justice. It necessarily implies living it out in the world. Like there's just no such thing as just a purely private faith. It would be meaningless. It's sort of like faith without works is dead right. Like we have to let our Christian faith, our hearts, opened to being transformed by grace from Jesus Christ. Living that out in the world is what we're called to do. One thing that I thought was interesting about Leo XIII is that he, when he was a student, he wrote about how Christianity transformed pagan Rome. And I think, gosh, you know, that's what we need today.
Speaker 1:Like we and he and he says this several times right that without Christ at the center, it's all going to be for nothing. And so, yeah, living, living out our faith in every avenue is it's. You know, maybe it feels like a tall order, but it's. It's what we're called to do. It's what we must do if we're going to realize what God wants for us.
Speaker 2:Pope Leo XIV took the name Leo, and one of the things that he seems to see is AI, so let's just touch on that for a minute or two, if you don't mind. What is Pope Leo seeing with AI? And is there anything else that you think that he's thought about when he took the name Leo? Because he obviously is going to update this beautiful teaching. You know and when I say update, it doesn't change the truth, it just updates it to the problems of today, this minute, applying this beauty of this teaching to our problems today.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think he thinks, and I think he's probably right, that we're on sort of the brink of another revolution akin to the Industrial Revolution. So, whereas in the 1800s it was this disruption to family life to work to really every part of life because of these machines, these technological advances that were either replacing human labor or reducing humans to cogs, in these machines, right, threat as posed by artificial intelligence, and so, not only taking the work that a human being might have done, we might now be able to count on a computer to do it. Obviously, across all sorts of sectors, we're seeing this, but then, at one point, there could be a tip and then humans exist to serve the AI, which is just this nightmare vision, right, and so, yeah, I'm really eager.
Speaker 1:I've heard, I guess, rumblings that he's working on an encyclical. I obviously don't know, but it will be really interesting to see what he has to say about this. Because, yeah, if we, how many, how long, how many years, how many generations will it take of too much exposure to AI, where we stop being able to tell the difference between what's a human, you know, with a soul, with a life-giving vocation, versus an AI. You know, we already hear about people thinking of ChatGPT as their friend. You know there's guys that have girlfriends now that are. You know that.
Speaker 2:No there's guys that you know have girlfriends now that are, you know that are, that are not even there yeah, it's, it's amazing how your mind can get twisted, but this shows you again the importance of a couple things you know, keeping grounded in the faith and truth. John paul in veritatis splendor. How all young people should read that, the splendor of truth, but then speak to each other like we're doing now.
Speaker 2:You're going to have to take time to get off the phones because you don't know if it's a lie or not. I need to look into Veronica's eyes and speak to you and then I have to discern that. Well, how do I discern that? I get back to the truth again. We're going to have to read books again. You know these books, and especially these timely books like yours right now, but also the classicals. You know, when we read the classics you know there's truth that comes into us, you know, and through us, and then we can live those things out. So we're going to have to get back. I'm a book collector, so let's talk as we're going out here. A pocket guide to rerun the barm. When you call it a pocket guide, veronica, what do you here? A pocket guide to rerum novarum? Wouldn't you call it a pocket guide, veronica? What do you mean by a pocket guide, and where can we get this book?
Speaker 1:Thanks for that question. Yeah, I don't know if it could literally fit in your pocket, but it is small, it's very portable and so that was intentional to make it easy to take around with you. And it's got the text of the encyclical, obviously, but then also it's got a kind of a paragraph by paragraph summary of the key points, being very faithful to Pope Leo XIII's words and ideas, just because the language there can be a bit of a language barrier sometimes, and so we wanted to make it really accessible. There's also discussion questions in the back, also an introduction written by one of Pope Leo's former colleagues, which I think is really interesting. You know, just kind of thinking about how these themes in Rerum Novarum might connect to Leo XIII's pontificate. So, yeah, I'm really excited about it.
Speaker 1:I think everyone should read Rerum Novarum, and so it's published by Sophia Institute Press, so you can get it at sophiainstitutecom. We'd love for you to get it there. You can also get it on Amazon. But yeah, I think everyone every Catholic, every Christian, really every person really should read it, because of how fundamental it is to understanding how we're to live.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I would just I'll close on this is that so many of the young people we're to live? Yeah, and I would just I'll close on this is that so many of the young people we're meeting they're anxious, depressed, they're on. You know, 70% of the American adult population is on some kind of pharmaceutical, so we're nervous, blah blah blah.
Speaker 2:This is a way to settle us down. This is my point. Read this. You start to get grounded and you start to understand. You have a framework to put all this noise and the AI stuff and you'll be able to at least have some groundwork so you can wake up in the morning, look outside, go walk in the grass, look at the stars, read a good book and get away from that just for a little while. Hey Veronica, it's really been a pleasure to have you. I know you got to run to another meeting Time goes too fast but thanks for being with us and thanks everyone. Thanks for joining us today. We'll talk to you again soon. Bye-bye.