Doctrine, Not Indoctrination: Pope Leo XIV and the Transpolitical Nature of Catholic Social Doctrine
Editors’ Note: This essay is the first in a three-part symposium on Pope Leo XIV.
In his May 17, 2025 address to the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation, Pope Leo XIV spoke directly about Catholic Social Doctrine. This was a momentous event to begin his pontificate, given that he has explained his choice of a papal name as flowing from the priority he will give to using the treasury of Catholic Social Doctrine to address contemporary issues relating to a second industrial revolution and developments in artificial intelligence. He insisted that Catholic Social Doctrine (CSD) must be understood not as indoctrination, but as genuine doctrine—a body of knowledge animated by seriousness, rigor, and serenity. In doing so, he provides an opportunity to revisit and clarify two vital distinctions: (1) between CSD and the Deposit of Faith, and (2) within CSD itself, between its universal principles and the prudential applications they inspire. When these two distinctions get muddied, it is all too tempting to try to use CSD ideologically or as a policy platform with which to bludgeon one’s political opponents under the cover of piety.
One hundred and thirty-four years have passed since the generally acknowledged beginning of the Catholic Social Doctrine tradition of the Church with Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum. In the interim, CSD has become so voluminous that to understand it almost requires an expert commentary with concordance. Its doctrinal status has become blurred. Most Catholics have not kept CSD’s partially ad hoc character in mind. It was originally meant to address the “new things” of the modern period, especially the Industrial Revolution; already in the title “Of New Things” the pope drew attention to his objective to speak of a specific set of historical items rather than to rearticulate principles the Church has already taught.
This means that Rerum Novarum is involved with the ad hoc application of principles to a certain set of concrete, historical circumstances. Magisterial documents have not always paused to distinguish between the Church’s permanent, binding teachings on morality (like the right to a just wage or the preferential option for the poor) and its contingent judgments that necessarily venture into areas beyond faith and morals (e.g., that a just wage in California in 2025 ought to be such and such a number, or that a regulated capitalist economic system is superior to another in upholding the preferential option for the poor). The Church does not claim to have authority over the latter and leaves those matters to the laity’s prudential judgment. Pope Leo’s remarks should be read in light of these distinctions.
“Doctrine,” he explained, “can be a synonym of ‘science,’ ‘discipline’ and ‘knowledge.’ Understood in this way, doctrine appears as the product of research, and hence of hypotheses, discussions, progress, and setbacks, all aimed at conveying a reliable, organized, and systematic body of knowledge about a given issue.” Here, Pope Leo XIV seems to be echoing the 1986 Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation, issued by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith under its prefect, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. This document said: “This social teaching has established itself as a doctrine by using the resources of human wisdom and the sciences.” Catholic Social Doctrine, then, is not a static code of behavior imposed from above. Nor is it a political platform to be imposed on society from without. It is a dynamic and reasoned effort to understand human and social reality in light of the Gospel. “Indoctrination,” Pope Leo continued, “is immoral. It stifles critical judgment and undermines the sacred freedom of respect for conscience, even if erroneous.”
The best way to understand what Pope Leo is getting at is to grasp that Catholic Social Doctrine is transpolitical. That is, it engages political and social questions without being subsumed by the political order. Among contemporary commentators on Catholic Social Doctrine, J. Brian Benestad provides the most robust framework for understanding Leo XIV’s retrieval of the spirit of Rerum Novarum and a focus on CSD. Benestad points his readers to the Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation for a succinct understanding of the character of CSD. As the Instruction states: “The Church’s social teaching is born of the encounter of the Gospel message and of its demands (summarized in the supreme commandment of love of God and neighbor in justice) with the problems emanating from the life of society.” In Benestad’s monograph on CSD, Church, State, and Society: An Introduction to Catholic Social Doctrine, he emphasizes: “CSD then gives valuable guidance by helping people come to know what love and justice require in the various circumstances of life, knowledge that would escape many people without instruction.”
CSD is a disciplined mode of moral reasoning that incorporates both faith and reason and aims at the good of the person and of society as a whole, mediating between “evergreen principles” and ever-changing concrete circumstances. As the Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation puts it, “Being essentially orientated toward action, this teaching develops in accordance with the changing circumstances of history. This is why, together with principles that are always valid, it also involves contingent judgments. Far from constituting a closed system, it remains constantly open to the new questions which continually arise.” Even further, a person’s character affects his prudential judgments about contingent matters, which is why Benestad emphasizes the importance of the inner conversion of the person making them.
The principles that are always valid, such as that the direct killing of the innocent is always prohibited, or that marriage is between one man and one woman, form the stable foundation of the Church’s social teaching. These are not merely sociological claims or empirical generalizations; they are derived from revelation and natural law. Thus, they bind the conscience and are part of the universal moral teaching of the Church. The concrete circumstances, however, call for prudential judgment—precisely the realm where differences of opinion and legitimate disagreement are possible. One thinks, for example, of the disagreements during the Cold War about whether the American nuclear arms build-up or disarmament best served the cause of peace. Because human persons are political by nature, and grace perfects nature, the Church cannot abandon political realities. But neither can she be identified with them. Her mission is transpolitical, not apolitical—and the distinction is decisive.
This distinction allows the Church to speak to the political order without being of it. When the Church, for instance, affirms the dignity of the worker, she speaks to the conscience of everyone involved in labor policy without necessarily descending to the level of specific labor policy proposals, which would involve her in the analysis of concrete particulars about which she has no special expertise, and about which people of good will might legitimately disagree. She can witness to truths that transcend the temporal order, while refusing to become an instrument of that order’s partisan rivalries. Her doctrine is not reducible to any economic model, party platform, or policy program—but neither is it indifferent to them.
That seems to be why Pope Leo emphasized that what matters most “is not something that happens by chance, but is rather an active and continuous interplay of grace and freedom.” His comments resist the temptation to weaponize doctrine, therefore reducing the Church’s evangelical witness to partisanship, and the opposite temptation to retreat into relativism or historicism. “Where social questions are concerned,” he said, “knowing how best to approach them is more important than providing immediate responses to why things happen or how to deal with them.” The Church does not impose answers from above; she teaches the faithful how to approach the world’s problems from a solid foundation, primarily by forming consciences, dispensing God’s grace through the sacraments, and preaching the Gospel.
Evergreen Principles and Prudence
The Church, therefore, does not offer political programs, and she does not insist on a particular policy. She offers an authoritative tradition of moral teaching aimed at human flourishing, grounded in a vision of the human person as created in the image of God and destined for communion with God. CSD is rooted in truths that do not change—truths about the dignity of the person, the social nature of human beings, and the reality of sin and grace. These are not up for revision or contingent on historical context. They are what the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has called the “permanently valid principles.” It is precisely because of their permanent character that they can be helpful in thinking about how to live lives dedicated to the truth in our contemporary circumstances.
However, the application of these principles to complex social situations cannot be made in an abstract or mechanical way. Such application requires prudence. That seems to be why Leo XIV highlights “discernment” as a critical component of social engagement. As he put it in his address to the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation, “knowing how best to approach social questions is more important than providing immediate responses.”
This is why the concept of the Church’s transpolitical mission is so illuminating. The Church is not apolitical. She does not float above the fray, indifferent to injustice or silent in the face of suffering. But neither is she a political subject among others. Her primary mission is to proclaim Christ and the salvation he offers. If the Church were to descend into the particulars of the give and take of the political order, she would lose her proper authority and be treated as just another special interest.
Scrutinizing the Signs of the Times: The Church’s Witness in History
In the final part of his May 17 address, Pope Leo XIV turns to a phrase that has echoed through the Church’s postconciliar discourse: “reading the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel.” Jesus’s own use of the phrase “signs of the times” in the Gospels is instructive—and decisive. In Luke 12:56 and Matthew 16:3, he rebukes the Pharisees and Sadducees for interpreting the weather but failing to interpret him: “You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times” (Matthew 16:3).
The “signs” are not abstract patterns of history: they are messianic signs referring to Christ. Jesus is not merely a datum within history; he is its interpretive key. This Christocentric focus is essential. Signs of any sort are conventional, meaning they are the product of the implied consent among the language’s users that certain series of sounds mean certain things. God is the author of history just as he is the author of a text (like Scripture). But we are not given the Rosetta Stone for history writ large in the same way we are given it for Christ: the New Testament interprets the Old Testament expectation of a Messiah in light of the Old, and the Old Testament points toward the coming of the Messiah in the New. There is no corollary for the rest of history. The intelligibility of history is in the mind of God, and we will not see it until the consummation of history, outside of the Bible and special revelation. We cannot read contemporary political, cultural, or technological trends as though they were revealed. History is not revelatory: its intelligibility will only be fully disclosed at its end.
This is why the Church’s role in history must remain transpolitical. She is not a political actor reading the room. She is a sacramental reality bearing witness to what transcends time, even as she moves through it like a pilgrim. Her task is not to predict or align with the direction of history, but to proclaim Christ crucified and risen, and to form consciences capable of pursuing justice and charity in the world as it is. As Pope Leo puts it, CSD “is not an ideology or a set of slogans, but a way of seeing reality illuminated by faith and reason.”
This biblical frame most effectively illustrates Pope Leo’s points. His emphasis on patient discernment—“knowing how best to approach social problems is more important than providing immediate responses”—signals an approach governed by prudence, not by the zeitgeist. Such prudence is incompatible with attempts to reframe every social trend or survey as a “sign of the times” in the revelatory sense. It also resists the false urgency that treats each crisis or groundswell (which are, after all, eminently manipulable by actors who do not have the Church’s mission in mind) as a theological referendum.
Ultimately, the Church’s mission is to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, offer the means of sanctification, and guide people to the salvation Christ offers. Descending into the particulars of partisan conflict will almost always bring the Church’s mission and motives into disrepute. There are some exceptions, of course. There is no set of policies using abortion or slavery, for instance, that the Church could support. In opposing those, she is not partisan so much as she is standing against actions that are always wrong. But if she seems partisan in taking the side of a particular set of anti-poverty measures, or supporting one particular approach to protecting the natural environment, then that will bring her evangelical mission under suspicion. Pope Leo XIV’s address is a good sign that he seems to understand what is at stake.