Yes—but I would sharpen the thesis considerably. The strongest version is not “Leo XIII invented modern rights, therefore Leo XIII caused Francis,” but rather: Leo XIII represents an important development in Catholic social vocabulary in which “rights” became a prominent way of expressing claims grounded in natural law. The theological question is whether that vocabulary remained subordinated to objective law, virtue, duties, the common good, and humanity’s ultimate end—or whether later Catholic discourse could detach “rights” from those foundations and turn them into autonomous claims of individual entitlement. That distinction matters enormously. 1. Leo XIII himself does not appear to make the separation you are worried about When you actually read Leo's Rerum Novarum , his use of “rights” is remarkably embedded in duties, natural law, divine law, justice, family, religion, and charity . For example, immediately after discussing the rights of workers and employers, Leo di...
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/love-bytes/?1=1& Love Bytes by Leonard Sax Books Reviewed Email Share Print Download Arecent survey of American teens found that 42% of boys aged 13 to 17 are now using A.I.-powered apps to create their own pornography. Thirty-two percent have created “deepfake” porn of girls their own age, then shared those images with others. In my work as a family physician and researcher, I have talked with these boys. One told me it’s almost magical: he speaks his fantasy, and—poof!—20 seconds later, there it is: professional-grade pornography, spun up in an app such as Seedream or Nano Banana. And this boy is 15 years old. He has never kissed a girl. A growing number of boys describe themselves not as heterosexual but as “pornosexual.” In my experience, a significant minority of these young men are virgins. They say that they prefer porn to the real thing. But they have never experienced the real thing. Unfortunately, the e...