YES – there is a right to private property…AND – human nature can lead to the distortion of that right. The right to private property is subordinated to the right to common use, ​to the fact that goods are meant for everyone.

Pope St. John Paul II established the need to maintain a vibrant and critical interaction among economics, culture, and politics, emphasizing that culture is the most important: “All human activity takes place within a culture and interacts with culture.”

“[T]hose oppressed by poverty are the object of ​a preferential love​ on the part of the Church which, since her origin…has not ceased to work for their relief, defense, and liberation” (CCC, 2448)

It's misunderstood primarily because of the inability to differentiate between the “twofold character of ownership”: (Pope Pius XI) As Pope Leo XIII made clear: “The right of property is distinct from its use.”

The “common good” is a critical concept and – an aspirational result: “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily”. (CCC, 1906)

This principle of subsidiarity is crucial to fully understanding Catholic social teaching and, while we may have heard the term “subsidiarity” before, we really need to understand what it means.