Pope Pius XI on Socialism: “Socialism… cannot be reconciled with the teachings of the Catholic Church because it is… utterly foreign to Christian truth.”

Given the growing allure of socialism in certain quarters, we would do well to remember Pope Pius XI's warnings about socialism's total incompatibility with the teachings and mission of the Catholic Church.  

In 1931, a group of concerned Catholics approached Pius XI to inquire whether socialism, in a more mitigated form, might be compatible with the Christian worldview. Cannot socialism be "baptized"? they asked.

Pius famously answered:

Whether considered as a doctrine, or an historical fact, or a movement, Socialism, if it remains truly Socialism, even after it has yielded to truth and justice on the points which we have mentioned, cannot be reconciled with the teachings of the Catholic Church because its concept of society itself is utterly foreign to Christian truth.

Pope Pius XI concluded: "Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist."