Heinrich Pesch

Bio

1. By Rupert J. Ederer:

"Heinrich Pesch was born in Cologne, Germa­ny, on September 17, 1854. He died in Valkenburg, Holland, on April 1, 1926. During that span of not quite 72 years he combined with his exem­plary life as a Jesuit priest many years of extraord­inary, productive scholarship. Pesch began his uni­versity studies at Bonn. After he entered the Jesuit order in 1876, he went through the intensive regi­men required by that order, and that included for him periods in Holland, Austria, Luxembourg, and England. It was during his theological studies in England — absence from Germany being forced by the Bismarckian repression of Jesuits — that Pesch was able to see firsthand the social devastation lib­eral capitalism wrought among the working classes. The experience is what prompted the young stu­dent to dedicate his life to doing what he could to improve the lot of the common working people.

Although the provincial of his order had in­tended to have him go on studying to become a professor of theology, Pesch successfully pleaded his case for studies in economics. While still a the­ology student, he began to probe the so-called Soziale Frage — the great social question of the time, namely, how to alleviate the plight of the working classes in the laissez-faire capitalist milieu of the late 19th century. Later he was assigned to co-edit with his brother, the renowned philosopher Tilmann Pesch, the prestigious journal Stimmen aus Maria Laach. He published 71 significant articles in it over a 28-year period. There were also assign­ments in various parts of Europe, including Vienna and Holland, before he was assigned to be spiritual advisor in the seminary of the Diocese of Mainz — a happy coincidence! There the Jesuit scholar dwelt in the same house in which the great pioneer of Catholic social teaching, Bishop Wilhelm Em­manuel von Ketteler, had lived; it was there that Pesch wrote his important two-volume work Liberalismus, Sozialismus und Christliche Gesellschaftsordnung (Liberalism, Socialism, and Chris­tian Social Order), which he described as an exer­cise in philosophical sociology. His studies in ethics and moral theology had convinced him of the rele­vance of morality for economic life. That set him on a course that was contrary to the positivistic or­ientation that the social sciences, including eco­nomics, were taking by that time."

(https://www.newoxfordreview.org/documents/heinrich-pesch-the-economics-of-solidarism/)

2. STEPHEN M. KRASON:

"Pesch, who died in 1926, was thought to have inspired Pope Pius XI’s great social encyclical Quadragesimo Anno five years later. In spite of Pesch’s relative obscurity, Ederer called him an economic “system builder,” on par with Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes—although the system he constructed was based firmly on Catholic teaching and the natural law. The word “solidarism” rings of the principle of solidarity, which has been stressed more recently in Catholic social teaching. In fact, solidarism is also referred to as “the solidarity work system.” There is some indication that Pesch’s solidarism influenced the famed Solidarity trade union movement in Poland that rose to prominence a generation ago and led the way to the collapse of Eastern European communism."

(https://www.crisismagazine.com/2014/rediscovering-heinrich-pesch-and-solidarism)