How the Wealthy Became the New Clergy

Thomas Piketty argues that the decline of the clerical class in early modern Europe led to a “void” in societal consciousness. Moderns subsequently filled this void by the sacralization of private property, precipitating the current popular acceptance of chasmic wealth disparities. This essay adapts and revises Piketty’s thesis by framing it within the Lockean natural rights tradition and Catholic social teaching (CST). For both Locke and CST, private property has never been a “secular” phenomenon, but always a product of ritualized labor. Locke, Leo XIII, and John Paul II understand property as the result of a clerical process through which humans act on God’s behalf in utilizing God’s creation, mixing transcendence with immanence through work. This theological postulate is crucial for challenging current regimes of inequality, because it presents wealth inequality as a sacrilegious liturgy in which the wealthy are de facto renegade priests

Capitalism · De facto · Immanence · Inequality · Liturgy · Private property · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Pentecostalism and Christianity Studies · Scottish History and National Identity