Listen to Leviticus

Seeing scriptural roots of the universal destination of goods

02/22/2025

Matthew 16:13-19 When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

As advertised at the end of yesterday’s homily, I would like to continue our reflection on a little-known Catholic social principle called “the universal destination of goods” especially as it is found in Scripture. And how providential that today is essentially the feast day of all the popes, the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter. It is analogous to Presidents’ Day, where we honor all the presidents, not just one.

The Chair of St. Peter literally refers to the seat of his authority, that is, the grace to teach with authority, and on some occasions even infallibly. Two popes in the last 25 years have lived during jubilee years: Pope St. John Paul II in the year 2000, and today, Pope Francis in 2025. Think of jubilee years like a wedding anniversary, where you should do something special for your beautiful bride.

Both John Paul II and Francis exercised their papal magisterium, the authority of the Chair of St. Peter, by asking first world nations (like the United States) to forgive the debts owed to them by third world or developing nations. Let me quote what Pope St. John Paul II wrote in his apostolic exhortation called Ecclesia in America (The Church in America) as we approached the year 2000.

The pope-saint urged: “In light of the imminent great Jubilee of the year 2000, and recalling the social significance that jubilees had in the Old Testament, I wrote: ‘In the spirit of the Book of Leviticus (25:8-12) Christians will have to raise their voice on behalf of all the poor in the world, proposing the Jubilee as an appropriate time to give thought, among other things, to reducing substantially, if not canceling outright, the international debt which seriously threatens the future of many nations.”

In other words, the notion of canceling debts during a jubilee – a wedding anniversary – year, goes back to the Bible, in Leviticus. If you consider yourself a Bible Christian, you should listen carefully to what the popes are proposing. The popes are recommending an economic system that is not exactly capitalism, nor is it precisely socialism. Rather it’s what Scott Hahn calls familism. The family should be the highest priority and goal of economics.

Leviticus 25 – easy to remember because 25 is a jubilee or anniversary year – is a future-oriented text. It is written during the people’s year-long stay on Mt. Sinai. But it looks forward to when they will inherit the Promised Land 40 years later. When they come into the Promised Land led by Joshua, each of the 12 tribes of Israel will be apportioned a section of the country, to be forever its ancestral land. For example, a portion was allotted to Judah, to Naphtali, to Ephraim, to Dan, and Benjamin, etc., all except the tribe of Levi.

But Leviticus 25:8-12 stipulates that even if you sold your ancestral land, or incurred an insurmountable debt, on the 50th year of jubilee your land would be restored to your family. As Scarlett O’Hara said in the movie “Gone with the Wind,” “We’ll always have the land!” This familism of the Bible does not allow anyone to be reduced to penury.

Listen to Leviticus 25:10, “You shall treat the fiftieth year as sacred. You shall proclaim liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to your own property, each of you to your own family.” This verse touches the heart of the ancient social principle of the universal destination of goods, that is, before property belongs to anyone by buying or selling, or even by the government bequeathing it on someone, it belongs to God, and thus, it belongs to all his children.

Listening to Leviticus 25, the Catechism of the Catholic Church has modernized and distilled its lessons in no. 2403. It says: “The right to private property, acquired by work or received by others from inheritance, does not do away with the original gift of the earth to the whole of mankind. The universal destination of goods remains primordial, even if the promotion of the common good requires respect for the right to private property and its exercise.

In other words, while we must carefully balance the right to private property and the universal destination of goods, the latter remains primordial and even preeminent. Put it this way: when people immigrate to another country because they find themselves in dire circumstances, they are not seeking a privilege, they are exercising a right.

A good friend of mine in San Antonio keeps reminding me how complicated the real-life application of these two moral principles are. As we often say, “the devil is in the details.” But at least now we know what principles we must try to balance. That is, the right to private property is not the highest law in the land, no matter what Ayn Rand wrote in Atlas Shrugged. We should listen to Leviticus instead.

Praised be Jesus Christ!