Magnifica Humanitas §66

⁶⁶ Certainly there is a right to private property, which has its own specific meaning and purpose, yet it is always subordinate to the universal destination of goods. According to John Paul II , this subordination is the golden rule of social conduct and the “first principle of the whole ethical and social order.” In the Church’s tradition, property has been viewed as a means of protecting and managing goods so that they may better serve the common good. Since “the Christian tradition has never recognized the right to private property as absolute or inviolable,” its social function must not be considered a mere theological opinion, but a doctrine of the Church, already present in Sacred Scripture and in the writings of the Church Fathers. For this reason, Pope Francis reminded us that solidarity, when lived out in its fullest sense, also means “to restore to the poor what belongs to them.”