- Feb 5, 2002
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We are called to be generous, not to abandon private property
Some critics say not only that Catholics can besocialists, but that they should be socialists because that was how the first Christians lived. They cite Acts 2:45, which says, “all who believed were together and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need.” But when we examine the biblical and historical evidence a different picture emerges: the first Christians lived in communities that practiced voluntary charity rather than mandatory communism or socialism.
Classic socialism (which in many contexts is interchangeable with the term “communism”) rejects the natural right to own private property. Bhaskar Sunkara, the editor of the popular socialist magazine Jacobin wrote in 2016, “Radically changing things would mean taking away the source of capitalists’ power: the private ownership of property.” This is why Pope Leo XIII said, “the main tenet of socialism, [the] community of goods, must be utterly rejected.”
Continued below.
The First Christians Were Not Socialists
Were the first Christians socialists? Let's look at what the New Testament and other Christian writings, along with pagan sources, actually say.
