Evaluating Political Society in Rerum Novarum in the Context of Francisco Suárez’s Social Doctrine and Its Development in Gaudium et Spes
Evaluating Political Society in Rerum Novarum in the Context of Francisco Suárez’s Social Doctrine and Its Development in Gaudium et Spes

Summary/Abstract: Drawing on an analysis of two well-known documents of the social teachings of the Church (Rerum Novarum and Gaudium et Spes), this paper aims to demonstrate a noticeable conceptual development of the notion of politics and political authority which occurred between the end of the nineteenth century and the Second Vatican Council. The criterion used in the analysis was Francisco Suárez’s political writing of the Enlightenment period. It is argued that politics was defined not only in relation to natural familial community and to the separation of ecclesiastical and secular authority, but also in relation to the return to traditional Aristotelian and Thomistic notions.

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