''Quamquam pluries'' is an

encyclical An encyclical was originally a circular letter sent to all the churches of a particular area in the ancient Roman Church. At that time, the word could be used for a letter sent out by any bishop. The word comes from the Late Latin (originally fr ...

Saint Joseph According to the canonical Gospels, Joseph (; ) was a 1st-century Jewish man of Nazareth who was married to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and was the legal father of Jesus. Joseph is venerated as Saint Joseph in the Catholic Church, Eastern O ...

Pope Leo XIII Pope Leo XIII (; born Gioacchino Vincenzo Raffaele Luigi Pecci; 2March 181020July 1903) was head of the Catholic Church from 20 February 1878 until his death in July 1903. He had the fourth-longest reign of any pope, behind those of Peter the Ap ...

. It was issued on August 15, 1889 in

Saint Peter's Basilica The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican (), or simply St. Peter's Basilica (; ), is a church of the Italian Renaissance architecture, Italian High Renaissance located in Vatican City, an independent microstate enclaved within the cit ...

in Rome.

Saint Joseph

Leo XIII presented

as a model at a time when the world and the Church were wrestling with the challenges posed by modernity. With the encyclical ''Quamquam pluries'', Leo XIII was the first pope to draw the lines of a theology of Saint Joseph, with clearly defined titles that fit into the history of

salvation Salvation (from Latin: ''salvatio'', from ''salva'', 'safe, saved') is the state of being saved or protected from harm or a dire situation. In religion and theology, ''salvation'' generally refers to the deliverance of the soul from sin and its c ...

, of human redemption, both at the level of the

incarnation Incarnation literally means ''embodied in flesh'' or ''taking on flesh''. It is the Conception (biology), conception and the embodiment of a deity or spirit in some earthly form or an Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic form of a god. It is used t ...

, as husband of Mary and father of

Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

, and at the level of the

Church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

's life, as its natural protector. The pope stated the challenges facing the Church and urged Catholics to pray to Saint Joseph, as the patron of the Church:

The special motives for which St. Joseph has been proclaimed Patron of the Church, and from which the Church looks for singular benefit from his patronage and protection, are that Joseph was the spouse of Mary and that he was reputed the Father of Jesus Christ. From these sources have sprung his dignity, his holiness, his glory. ...Thus in giving Joseph the Blessed Virgin as spouse, God appointed him to be not only her life's companion, the witness of her maidenhood, the protector of her honour, but also, by virtue of the conjugal tie, a participator in her sublime dignity.Pope Leo XIII. "Quamquam pluries", §3, Libreria Editrice Vaticana
/ref>

Labor as a vocation

Leo was concerned with the industrial capitalism of the end of the nineteenth century and its treatment of workers. According to D. Stephen Long, Pope Leo "viewed labor not as a mere commodity subject to free competition, but as a dignified vocation."Long, D. Stephen. ''Divine Economy'', Routledge, 2002
Referring to Saint Joseph, Pope Leo wrote, " set himself to protect with a mighty love and a daily solicitude his spouse and the Divine Infant; regularly by his work he earned what was necessary for the one and the other for nourishment and clothing" Pope Leo saw the family as the foundation of Christianity and society, therefore, a wage sufficient to support the family was essential. Long explains that the Holy Family provides an example of the

dignity of labor The dignity of labour or the dignity of work is the philosophical holding that all types of jobs are respected equally, and no occupation is considered superior and none of the jobs should be discriminated on any basis. This view holds that all ty ...

and the obligation of the employer to provide a living-wage. Leo opposes both capitalism's infringement on the family and socialism's call for common ownership. It is a subject Leo would expand upon two years later in ''

Rerum novarum ''Rerum novarum'', or ''Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor'', is an encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII on 15 May 1891. It is an open letter, passed to all Catholic patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops, which addressed the condi ...

''. The pope then prescribed that during October, a prayer to Saint Joseph be added to the

Rosary The Rosary (; , in the sense of "crown of roses" or "garland of roses"), formally known as the Psalter of Jesus and Mary (Latin: Psalterium Jesu et Mariae), also known as the Dominican Rosary (as distinct from other forms of rosary such as the ...

"Prayer to St. Joseph after the Rosary", USCCB
/ref> and granted an indulgence of seven years and seven Lents for each such act; the prayer remains enriched with a partial indulgence in the current '' Enchiridion Indulgentiarum''.

References

External links

Vatican website: ''Quamquam pluries''
{{Authority control Saint Joseph (husband of Mary) 1889 documents 1889 in Christianity August 1889 Encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII

Saint Joseph

Labor as a vocation

See also

References

External links