For the Poor, but Not for Marx: Christianity Against the Illusions of Utopia

From Leo XIII to John Paul II, Catholic teaching has always stood with the poor - but never by confusing love with class struggle, justice with coercion, or dignity with enforced equality.

In 1987, during a fraught visit to Chile under General Pinochet, Pope John Paul II stood before thousands of workers and declared with fire in his voice: “The poor cannot wait.” It was a line that electrified listeners. To many, it sounded like a revolutionary summons. And yet it came from the Polish pope who had done more than anyone to expose and weaken the spiritual foundations of communism, the system that had dominated his homeland for decades.

Here lay the paradox: the Catholic Church speaks with burning urgency about injustice, but it refuses to embrace Marxist remedies. It proclaims solidarity with the poor, but not through the politics of envy or the coercion of class struggle. From Rerum Novarum (1891) to Centesimus Annus (1991), the Church appears to have consistently said: for the poor, yes; for Marx, no.

The confusion persists, however. In the late twentieth century, liberation theologians in Latin America borrowed Marxist categories to reinterpret the Gospel as revolutionary class war. Today, the rhetoric of “equity” in Western societies often shades into a secular moralism that echoes the socialist dream of leveling outcomes. Critics and sympathizers alike accuse the Church of being either too capitalist or too socialist. But this is to miss the distinctive character of Catholic social teaching.

To understand the difference, one must recognize Marxism for what it truly is: not merely an economic theory, but a secular eschatology.

Karl Marx claimed that history was governed by material necessity, moving inexorably through stages of class struggle toward the inevitable triumph of the proletariat. In this scheme, private property would be abolished, contradictions resolved, and human society would at last be free. It was a parody of Christian hope: a paradise without grace, achieved by coercion.

The history of the twentieth century exposed the illusion. The Soviet Union promised liberation, but delivered gulags and famines. Mao’s China sought equality, but wrought the Great Leap Forward’s catastrophe. Pol Pot dreamed of purging classes, but created killing fields. The “dictatorship of the proletariat” meant dictatorship plain and simple.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who chronicled this world from within, diagnosed the fatal error: “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being” (The Gulag Archipelago, 1973). Marxism denied this truth, locating evil in structures, property, or classes rather than in the human heart. By externalizing sin, it bred tyranny.

Marxism denied this truth, locating evil in structures, property, or classes rather than in the human heart. By externalizing sin, it bred tyranny.

John Paul II saw this with unique clarity, having lived under both Nazi occupation and Soviet communism. In Centesimus Annus (1991), written on the centenary of Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum and just after communism’s collapse in Eastern Europe, he wrote: “The fundamental error of socialism is anthropological in nature. Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the socio-economic mechanism” (§13). When man is reduced to a class or a cog, dignity vanishes.

Against both Marxist collectivism and laissez-faire capitalism, the Church offers an alternative rooted in a different anthropology.

• Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum (1891): In the midst of industrial upheaval, he condemned the “harsh yoke of unbridled competition” but declared socialism “emphatically unjust” because it would “injure the worker, despoil lawful owners, and pervert the functions of the State.”
• Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno (1931): Warned against “the twin rocks of shipwreck”: unregulated capitalism and socialism, both of which dehumanize the worker.
• John Paul II, Laborem Exercens (1981): Emphasized that work is not merely a commodity but “a fundamental dimension of man’s existence on earth,” an expression of human creativity and participation in God’s creation.

At the heart of Catholic teaching is the doctrine of the imago Dei: man is created in God’s image, irreducible to economics, politics, or history. Property is legitimate but carries a “social mortgage.” The State has duties but must respect subsidiarity, empowering families, associations, and civil society rather than absorbing them. Solidarity with the poor is essential, but it begins by recognizing them as persons, not pawns of ideology.

Jacques Maritain, writing in Integral Humanism (1936), captured this well: “We must reject those materialist humanisms which close man within history. A humanism that is closed to the Absolute is a humanism that dehumanizes.” Christianity proposes a humanism that transcends matter and politics, without denying them.

The illusions of Marxism have not disappeared.

The illusions of Marxism have not disappeared. In the twenty-first century, the language of “socialism” has returned to political debate in Europe and America, fueled by discontent with inequality. New slogans—“democratic socialism,” “social justice,” or “equity”—often cloak old ideas.

The word equity deserves special attention. In its classical sense, equity meant fairness: the wise application of justice to particular cases. But in contemporary discourse it frequently denotes the equalization of outcomes, engineered from above. This logic echoes Marxism’s suspicion of difference itself. Disparity becomes injustice per se, requiring leveling by state or institution.

Catholic teaching rejects this flattening. As Leo XIII observed: “It is impossible to reduce civil society to one dead level” (Rerum Novarum, §17). Christianity affirms that differences in talent, vocation, and circumstance are inevitable—and that justice lies in ensuring these differences do not crush the weak. Equality of dignity, not sameness of outcome, is the measure.

Benedict XVI, in Deus Caritas Est (2005), drew the line: “A just society must be the achievement of politics, not of the Church. Yet the Church cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice.” The Church affirms political responsibility for justice but refuses to collapse its mission into ideology. Love of the poor is not reducible to the arithmetic of redistribution.

Love of the poor is not reducible to the arithmetic of redistribution.

Why, then, does the confusion persist—and why is it wrong?

1. Different Anthropologies.
   Marxism views man as economic matter, determined by class. Christianity views him as a free moral subject, a creature of infinite dignity.
2. Ends and Means.
   Marxism justifies coercion in pursuit of equality. Christianity insists that the dignity of the poor cannot be secured by denying the dignity of others.
3. Hope vs. Utopia.
   Marxism promises paradise through history. Christianity recognizes the persistence of sin and the need for grace. Its hope is not a perfected system but a redeemed humanity.
4. The Poor as Agents, Not Pawns.
   Marxism instrumentalizes the poor as the lever of revolution. Christianity sees the poor as ends in themselves—persons to be served, not used.

To confuse Christian solidarity with Marxist revolution is to mistake the Gospel for ideology, caritas for coercion. It is to replace love with a system and to empty justice of freedom.

Consider two examples.

• Liberation Theology. In the 1960s and 70s, some Latin American theologians adopted Marxist categories, framing Christ as liberator through class struggle. While their passion for the poor was real, Rome warned that Marxist analysis distorted the Gospel. Cardinal Ratzinger’s 1984 Instruction stated bluntly: “The fundamental error of liberation theology is to accept Marxist analysis without criticism.” The risk was not merely theological abstraction but practical complicity with revolutionary violence.
• Solidarity in Poland. In the 1980s, the labor movement Solidarność, supported by John Paul II, opposed communism not by adopting Marxist struggle but by appealing to human dignity, religious freedom, and solidarity. Here was a movement truly “for the poor,” yet distinctly non-Marxist. Its success underscored the difference: freedom, conscience, and truth—not coercion—brought change.

In our moment, when economic inequality provokes genuine concern, the temptation to confuse compassion with ideology is strong. “Equity” becomes a slogan; socialism a renewed fascination. But to collapse Catholic concern for the poor into these categories is to erase its deepest insight.

The poor need justice, but not illusions. They require solidarity, not slogans; opportunity, not forced leveling; dignity, not reduction to classes or statistics.

The poor need justice, but not illusions. They require solidarity, not slogans; opportunity, not forced leveling; dignity, not reduction to classes or statistics. Catholic teaching challenges both extremes—capitalism without conscience and socialism without freedom. Its vision remains unique because it insists that politics and economics be measured against the transcendent worth of the person.

The twentieth century revealed the wreckage of Marxism’s illusions. The twenty-first risks repeating the confusion under new names. Compassion must not be mistaken for class war; equity must not be reduced to coercion.

The Church remains, as ever, for the poor—but not for Marx. Its solidarity lies not in erasing difference but in affirming dignity; not in coercion but in love. As John Paul II wrote in Centesimus Annus: “The poor ask for the right to share in the enjoyment of material goods and to make good use of their capacity for work, thus ensuring their personal dignity” (§34).

The poor cannot wait. But neither can they afford illusions. They deserve justice rooted in truth, freedom, and love—the justice of the Gospel, not the coercion of ideology. For the poor, yes. For Marx, no.