Who was the first Pope to condem Communism

[SeanF1989]

Was it Pope Pius XII?

 

[empther]

I don’t know, but Pope Leo XIII wrote an encyclical called Rerum Novarum in 1891 in which he introduced the idea of subsidiarity, the principle that political and social decisions should be taken at a local level, if possible, rather than by a central authority, into Catholic social thought.

Central authority is the basis of communism.

He also predicted that the Twentieth Century would be a century of huge wars and mass slaughter of human beings. It was.

This version of the Catholic Encyclopedia, which was written in 1903, has a good article on Communism.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04179a.htm

While the Church sanctions the principle of voluntary communism for the few who have a vocation to the religious life, she condemns universal, compulsory, or legally enforced communism, inasmuch as she maintains the natural right of every individual to possess private property. She has reprobated communism more specifically in the Encyclical “Rerum Novarum” of Pope Leo XIII. For the theories condemned in that document under the name of socialism certainly include communism as described in these pages.

This was before there were any communist countries.
Old mother Church is a smart old gal.