The Virtue of the Wealthy

Rediscovering munificence

It’s only appropriate that the Christmas season be refulgent with the sentiment of generosity. It’s the season of giving. And perhaps an apt time, therefore, to rediscover a classic virtue that has suffered neglect in our egalitarian times: munificence, the virtue of the wealthy.

Munificence—magnificentia in Latin; sometimes translated “magnificence”—was among the virtues identified by Aristotle and taken up by St. Thomas Aquinas. As late as 1931, when Pope Pius XI wrote his social encyclical Quadragesimo Anno—still basking in the glow of the Thomistic revival catalyzed by Leo XIII’s 1879 encyclical Aeterni Patris—the virtue received attention in the pontiff’s discussion of the responsibilities of wealth.

In the vein of another Leonine encyclical, the seminal Rerum Novarum (1891), which inaugurated the era of modern Catholic social teaching, Pius’s twofold treatment of property comprised both a defense of the rights of private property and an insistence on the obligations attending its ownership. Citing Rerum Novarum, Pius affirmed that “the right of property is distinct from its use.” Justice, the pontiff stated, “commands sacred respect for the division of possessions and forbids invasion of others’ rights through the exceeding of the limits of one's own property,” while “the duty of owners to use their property only in a right way does not come under this type of justice, but under other virtues.” It followed that “a person’s superfluous income, that is, income which he does not need to sustain life fittingly and with dignity, is not left wholly to his own free determination.” On the authority of Sacred Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church, Pius concluded, “the rich are bound by a very grave precept to practice almsgiving, beneficence, and munificence.”

We see that there is therefore an obligation for “the rich”—once their own needs are met—to use their wealth to the benefit of others; but also there is more than one way to do so. Following Aquinas, Leo, and Pius, the American Jesuit William Drummond unpacked these distinctions in his Social Justice (1955). Munificence, Drummond explained, is distinguished from liberality, as it “looks to the use of money not by way of gift but by way of expenses assumed in the accomplishment of some notable work.” Drummond pointed out that “the duties of stewardship, therefore, are not merely the duties of ‘giving away.’” He observed that stewardship of wealth is a concept that “describes generically all those uses of wealth which safeguard the ideal purpose of material goods: the service of all men.” The details concerning how this stewardship is effected, he wrote, “will vary with varying concrete circumstances,” because they are “determined as they must be by the prudence” of the steward.

In this way, almsgiving—the direct gift of resources from a donor to a recipient—is but one method of discharging the duties of wealth. For, Fr. Drummond notes, “the disposition of superfluous goods for the service of all need not be a gratuitous distribution.” The stewardship of property “must be carried out in an intelligent manner,” and so “it must look not only to present necessities but must also provide for the future needs of the community.” Therefore, according to Drummond, “the investment of money in a business organization” is a valid way of fulfilling the obligations entailed by wealth, as is “the loan of money or the leasing of property.”

This view accords with Pius’s encyclical, where he indicated that “expending larger incomes so that opportunity for gainful work may be abundant, provided, however, that this work is applied to producing really useful goods, ought to be considered . . . an outstanding exemplification of the virtue of munificence and one particularly suited to the needs of the times.”

Thus, while almsgiving—charitable giving, conventionally understood—is of course a praiseworthy activity, other means of disposing of excess wealth are equally meritorious when performed with the objective of the long-term well-being of the community. Investment in the development of a legitimate, ethical business is one important way of using one’s financial resources for the common good.

While munificence has traditionally been understood to apply to the well-to-do—to require, as Aquinas put it, “great expenditure”—there are two ways of thinking about munificence that render the virtue more broadly relevant. First, by historical standards, a great many people in advanced nations today are “wealthy.” A middle-class American in 2024 enjoys a standard of living that equals and in some ways exceeds that which characterized medieval nobility. In that sense, a financially secure retiree, for example, may be capable of “great expenditure” toward the common good.

The second way is suggested by Fr. Roger Landry of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts, whose 2007 article in the diocesan newspaper is one of the rare invocations of the virtue of munificence to appear in recent decades. Landry notes that “throughout history, while most Catholics did not have the resources to make munificent benefactions, they had munificent desires and dreams.” Citing the experience of nineteenth-century immigrants to the United States, Landry points out that “they pooled their efforts, their talents, and their salaries and savings together to accomplish not just good works but great ones—hospitals, parish schools, and especially magnificent churches—something that only the wealthy were able to do in Europe.”

Understood in this sense, munificence—the virtue of the wealthy—descends from its heights to become, potentially, the virtue of all. With the compounding benefit of cooperation, all of us can participate in the expenditure of large sums toward the accomplishment of something great, be it a business that provides goods, services, remunerative jobs, and meaningful work to its stakeholders, or a library, park, church or other project that will redound to the common good for generations to come.

“Real love always has a touch of the extravagant,” Landry reflects. “The desire for munificence flows naturally from the ‘greatest’ and the ‘new’ commandments given to us by Jesus, to love God with one-hundred percent of who we are and have (Mt 22:37) and to love our neighbor with the same down-to-the-last-drop-of-blood type of love with which Jesus loved us (John 13:34; 15:12).” Munificence, in the end, is not about money; it’s an expression of the desire to honor God and serve our neighbor. “When there’s no desire for munificence,” Fr. Landry concludes, “one’s love for God and for others . . . will be parsimonious as well.”