Pope Leo's Childhood Home Faces Eminent Domain as He Relocates to a More Eminent Domain
The last Pope Leo denounced state seizures of private property as "emphatically unjust."
"Every man has by nature the right to possess property as his own," wrote Pope Leo XIII, in his famous 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, laying down the basics of Catholic social teaching.
The plans of contemporary socialists to seize private property, Leo XIII denounced as "emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community."
The last Pope Leo's defense of private property adds no small amount of irony to the small Chicago suburb of Dolton, Illinois' plan to honor the new American-born Pope Leo XIV by seizing his childhood home from its private owners.
Yesterday, Chicago-area media reported that Dolton officials plan to use eminent domain to take the home where Leo XIV, formerly Robert Francis Prevost, was raised from its current private owners to create a publicly accessible historic site.
At present, the owners are auctioning off the small, 1949-built home for a reserve price of $250,000.
In a Tuesday letter to the auction house running the sale, Dolton attorney Burton Odelson cautioned buyers against purchasing the house.
"Please inform any prospective buyers that their 'purchase' may only be temporary since the Village intends to begin the eminent domain process very shortly," reads Odelson's letter, per NBC Chicago.
Odelson told Chicago's ABC7 that the village had initially tried to voluntarily purchase the home but had snagged on the sale price.
"We've tried to negotiate with the owner. [He] wants too much money, so we will either negotiate with the auction house or, as the letter stated that I sent to the auction house, we will take it through eminent domain, which is our right as a village," Odelson said.
One wonders how outrageous the owners' offered sale price was given its current auction price of $250,000.
The fact that the home was once lived in by the current pope surely doesn't enable the owners to command that much of a sale premium on what is undeniably a quite modest dwelling.
While a papal museum is certainly a lovely idea for the property, there's no reason the village can't pursue a voluntary sale.
That would seem to be more in line with Leo XIII's defense of private property. It would also seem to be more in line with the current Leo XIV's view of the Church as an institution characterized by voluntarism and love.
"The Church of Rome presides in charity and its true authority is the charity of Christ. It is never a question of capturing others by force, by religious propaganda, or by means of power. Instead, it is always and only a question of loving as Jesus did," said Leo XIV in his first Sunday homily as pope.
"[Saint] Peter must shepherd the flock without ever yielding to the temptation to be an autocrat," he added.
Autocracy is certainly a powerful temptation. It's one that not even the Village of Dolton seems able to resist.
