We have said that the State must not absorb the individual or the family; both should be allowed free and untrammelled action so far as is consistent with the common good and the interest of others. Rulers should, nevertheless, anxiously safeguard the community and all its members; the community, because the conservation thereof is so emphatically the business of the supreme power, that the safety of the commonwealth is not only the first law, but it is a government's whole reason of existence.
Pope Leo XIIIOur Lord came to the aid of each great tribulation with a special devotion. The present and future tribulations of the Church and of nations are greater than at any other period, and this persecution is more dangerous than those of previous times. Hence, the devotion which God sends to the succor of His Church and of the nations at the present time is the devotion to the Most Holy Eucharist. It is the highest of all devotions.
Pope Leo XIIIEvery man has by nature the right to possess property as his own. This is one of the chief points of distinction between man and the animal creation.
Pope Leo XIIIIt is not the part of prudence to neglect that which antiquity in its long experience has approved and which is also taught by apostolic authority.
Pope Leo XIIIInadequacy of his own strength, learned from experience, impels and urges a man to enlist the help of others.
Pope Leo XIIIMoreover, Christians are born for combat, whereof the greater the vehemence, the more assured, God willing, the triumph: 'Have confidence; I have overcome the world'
Pope Leo XIIIFor when men know they are working on what belongs to them, they work with far greater eagerness and diligence. Nay, in a word, they learn to love the land cultivated by their own hands, whence they look not only for food but for some measure of abundance for themselves and their dependents. All can see how much this willing eagerness contributes to an abundance of produce and the wealth of a nation.
Pope Leo XIII