And yet the Rerum Novarum also states that “Among the many and grave duties of rulers who would do their best for the people, the first and chief is to act with strict justice - with that justice which is called distributive - toward each and every class alike.”
...but perhaps discussion of Papal Encyclicals in this thread is a bit OT though... :-)
*chuckle* Distributive justice isn’t state-distributed income. It means that the justice itself is distributive, rather than reserved for the powerful. Rerum Novarum is unequivocable that one’s property is his own, and the state would be condemned were it to seize that property, even for the welfare of its citizens. Further, the owner of that property is entitled to the further wealth which prudent use of the property should bring.
The notion of “social justice” is found only in the fact that it is immoral (and nowhere does Rerum Novarum advocate the use of governmental force to coerce economic morality, nor to define what constitutes a “living wage”) to deprive a worker of a just pay.
How regimented is Rerum Novarum towards a free market? The only specific means that it enumerates for denying someone a just pay are illegal withholding and “the importation of labor” which it sees as depressing the labor market and which it calls “a crime which cries out to the Heavens for vengeance.” (Compare to the child-rapist protector, former slave ranch operator and paganism promoter Cardinal Mahony.)
Do you get the economic presumption to be inferred, that market-distorting excessive Immigration is necessary for an employer to contract for unfair wages. And this is not accessible only through inference: a fair wage is defined by what the market can support!
IOW, yes, the Church holds that people who work hard should get paid enough to provide for their basic necessities. Who could argue against that? But the Church explicitly denies the state the authority to forcibly redistribute wealth, rather only calls for reasonable immigration limitations so as to permit the market to force just distribution of wealth. This HAS to be regarded as all the more amazing, since, well, there weren’t to many people complaining about excessive PROTESTANT immigration very much.