Pius XI affirms in the encyclical Divini Redemptoris, of March 19, 1937: “It is not true that all have equal rights in civil society. It is not true that there exists no lawful social hierarchy.”
Rev. Joseph Jusslein, S.J., ed., Social Wellsprings (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1942), Vol. 2, p. 354 in Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII: A Theme Illuminating American Social History (York, Penn.: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, 1993), Documents V, p. 484.