Referring to the present document in his Encyclical Letter on Freemasonry, Pope Leo XIII defines precisely what purpose he had in mind when writing it: "In that Encyclical which begins Diuturnum, We describe the ideal of political government conformed to the principles of Christian wisdom, which is marvelously in harmony, on the one hand, with the natural order of things, and on the other, with the well-being of both sovereign princes and nations."
    Such, then, is the exact argument of this Encyclical which in the year of its appearance, 1881, was hailed by the eminent social authority, Father Victor Cathrein, S.J., as "the most important and widely pertinent" pronouncement which up to that date had been issued by Pope Leo XIII. (Stimmen aus Maria Laach, XXI, 225.)
    Strange to say, we have almost lost sight of this basic and authoritative document, dealing with one of the most burning questions of our age.  The only translation in fact available was found on the yellowed pages of the London Tablet for July 16, 1881.  Yet this very Encyclical is the foundation on which Pope Leo erected the magnificent edifice of his complete doctrine on Government.  Successive additions of this structure were the Immortale Dei (1885), on the Christian Constitution of States; the Libertas Humana (1888), on Human Liberty; the Sapientiae Christianae (1890), on the Chief Duties of Christian Citizens; and the Graves de Communi (1901), though incidentally only.  His work, therefore, on the one subject ranges over a period of twenty years, from 1881 to 1901.  The present Encyclical is in a manner not merely the beginning but the foreshadowing of the entire structure, as the foundation vaguely enables us to gauge the nature of the building to be erected.
    Naturally much that is said here was later to be repeated and expanded, for we have here, in concise and easily intelligible language, a complete summary of whatever pertains fundamentally to the nature, derivation, limits, and rightful use of public authority, with an equal insistance placed on the obligations imposed on it by the law of God.  In turn the people are shown their own duties towards those who hold legitimate power over them -- a power which is derived, as Christ indicated to Pilate, from no human source.
    Philosophical, theological, and patristic arguments are freely used to support the teachings of the Sovereign Pontiff.  Interesting in particular is the historic development briefly sketched to indicate the actual practice of Christians from Apostolic days to modern times.
    With this fund of varied information the Encyclical becomes a Catholic epitome on the subject of political government, supplying all the introductory information called for in our day.  Further development then follows in the Encyclicals issued in the course of the next twenty years, forcefully reminding us of the building of the mediaeval ministers, except that here the entire work had to be completed within the lifetime of one man.
    Official Test -- Acta Leonis, 2:269-287; Acta Sanctae Sedis, 14:3-14.
    H. J. "Pope Leo XIII on the Origin of the Civil Power,"  Irish Ecclesiastical Record, ser. 3-2:701-713, December, 1881.

    Deep interest is desplayed today by all classes of men in the Encyclicals of the Holy See.  The world, it has been said, is "Encyclical-conscious."  The best evidence of this fact is the attention given in the great metropolitan dailies and the entire press to every new document issued by the Vatican.
    Catholics, at all times, rightly look to the Encyclicals for authoritative application of the Church's teaching to the questions of the day.  They find in them both help and inspiration.  But non-Catholics, too, are sincerely impressed by the clear, forceful, and undeviating statements that come from the Chair of Peter, motivated as they are by neither fear nor favor, but concerned alone with the welfare, both temporal and spiritual, of all mankind.  On every word of these pronouncements they find imprinted the Pope's own deep sense of the sacredness of his commission and the profound responsibility that it involves.
    Through the Church's Encyclicals, likewise, her true spirit can most intimately be caught by those without the fold.  They behold her standing forth, unarmed and unallied with any power of the earth, a purely spiritual force, assertive of the truth, defiant of evil wherever it is found, protective of the weak and helpless and oppressed, and upholding with a strength not her own, but of God, the tottering walls of modern civilization.
    Particularly are these facts brought home to us in the social Encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII.  Their past influence and present potentialities no one can overestimate.  They are basic, not merely for any social studies that we may wish to undertake, but are the solid foundation on which other important Encyclicals have been constructed by successive Pontiffs.
    Precisely because of their basic character, these documents are in a sense timeless, and in many ways apply even more forcibly to our own generation than to that for which they were immediately written.  The Mane, Thecel, Phares, (Daniel, Chapter V.)  appearing in the days of Leo on the walls of a vaunting and debauched Materialism, was interpreted by him as by a second Daniel.  But for the modern nations there was then still time to avert the calamities predicted, if but the Church's warnings had not been unheeded.  Today the evils then foretold have in large measure already fallen on the heads of rulers and people.  But worse is yet to come if past experience does not turn men's faces up to God.  Like harbour bells in stormy nights, the strong, deep, warning notes of these social Encyclicals of Leo XIII continue to ring out across the welter of the years.
    In the fourteen documents, then, assembled in this volume, can be found the adequate expression of practically every phase of Pope Leo's social thought and teaching.  Taken together, these Encyclicals constitute a basic library of social literature, which can be placed within the reach of everyone.
    Each Encyclical given in this book has been given it's own special preface.  This is intented to serve as a brief orientation, to stimulate interest, and to lend additional zest to the reading of the accompanying document. Attention is paid in it particularly to this historic background of the Encyclical, its relation to other similar pronouncements, and its present-day significance.
    The following Encyclicals are in the book:  Evils of Society (Inscrutabili), The Socialists (Quod Apostolici Muneris), Christian Marriage (Arcanum), Civil Government (Diuturnum), Christian Constitution of States (Immortale Dei), Abolition of African Slavery (In Plurimis), Human Liberty (Libertas Humana), Chief Duties of Christian Citizens (Sapientiae Christianae), The Condition of Working Men (Rerum Novarum), Rosary and Social Question (Laetitiae Sanctae), Consecration of Mankind to the Sacred Heart (Annum Sacrum), Christian Popular Action (Graves de Commum), Appendices: Our Social Foundation and The Grand Review.

The True Answer To World Peace
Triumph Of The Church