I first encountered the words Rerum novarum as a postgraduate theology student. I was completing a course on Catholic Social Teaching at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto’s seminary. An entire week was dedicated to Rerum novarum, the papal encyclical promulgated by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, now regarded as the foundational document underpinning Catholic Social Teaching.
I wasn’t yet Catholic, though my conversion was well underway, and my evangelical Baptist sola scriptura (“Bible alone”) roots made me wary of any “extra-biblical” guide.
