Then, things start to get tense. We are presented with a text as- serting ‘the universal destination of earthly goods’. The text reads: ‘God intended the earth with everything contained in it for the use of all human beings and peoples. Thus, under the leadership of justice and in the company of charity, created goods should be in abundance for all in like manner’. While recognising a diversity of customs and contexts regarding property rights, the draft nevertheless insists upon this commonality, to the extent that ‘anyone in extreme necessity has the right to procure for himself what he needs out of the riches of others’. The proponents of the draft insist on the consistent witness of Church tradition, both ancient and modern, citing patristic support from St Augustine and St Basil, as well as Lactantius, St Gregory the Great, St Thomas Aquinas, St Bonaventure and St Albert, right up to Mater et Magistra, not only with regard to the provisionality of property rights, but even for the extreme claim that failure to feed the hungry man is equivalent to homicide: ‘in extreme necessity all goods are common, that is, all goods are to be shared’. In the end, no agreement on this issue can be reached, and the mat- ter is referred to the Pope for further consideration. The Pope is well aware of the dilemma. Either the traditional teaching must be upheld, in all its patristic and magisterial authority – but this would set the Church at odds with capitalist modernity. Alternatively, the teaching must be substantially modified so as to acknowledge contemporary economic and political realities. After several years’ consultation and still no unanimity, the Pope decides to issue an encyclical. Given the life or death gravity of the matter under discussion, he calls the encyclical Humanae Vitae....