Author Jane Mayer wrote of the billionaire network bankrolling authoritarian politics in her book Dark Money (Penguin, 2017). While Mayer described the origins of climate change denial and “free market” think tanks, she missed another significant propaganda node, the initiative to check the influence of Catholic Social Teaching (CST). With varying degrees of energy, elements of the Catholic hierarchy have prioritized concerns of the working class and poor at least since Pope Leo XIII. The social encyclicals (Rerum Novarum, Quadragesimo Anno, Centisimo Anno, and other documents of CST) in 1891 sought to address the conditions of the working poor through the advocacy of limited reforms that would preserve the status of the Church. Since 1890, the Church has been formally committed to acceptance of unionism and collective bargaining and the humanization of capitalism. The encyclicals have also embraced worker participation in management, employee ownership, and a broader distribution of property. In the United States, the Bishops’ Pastoral Letter on the Economy reinforced these commitments in 1986. The content of the encyclicals assured that many in the Catholic hierarchy would endorse labor causes and that Catholic business schools would emphasize curricula in labor, human resources, and ethics.
