From Tradition in Action, a conservative Catholic blog:

The Church must have differentiated states of perfection:

“There is need in the Church, which is the body of Christ, for the members to be differentiated by various duties, states and grades” (II, II, q.183, a.2, ad 2).

Lila: This is very similar to the Hindu notion of stages of life necessary for most people to go through – Brahmacharya (celibate youth/studentship), Grahastha (married house-holder’s life), Vanaprastha (retirement from active life to the forest) and Sanyasin (renunciation in search of spiritual goals).

In another place he stresses: “Our Lord in proposing the evangelical counsels, always mentions of man’s fitness for observing them. For in giving the counsel of poverty He begins with these words: ‘If thou wilt to be perfect …’” (I, II, q. 108, a. 4, ad 1).

Therefore, the state of perfection is not for everyone, but only to the elite who received such vocation. These counsels must inspire all, but be practiced only by a few, a proportionally small number, just as the head or the heart are small members compared to the whole body.

Hence, these counsels should not be transformed into laws applicable to the whole of society. This is understandable in principle, because given original sin, in a Catholic society only a few seek perfection, while the majority of persons are satisfied to lead an upright life. In practice, moreover, this becomes even clearer, because if one tries to apply the counsels of perfection to everyone, society would be destroyed. Let me demonstrate this point with regard to each of the three counsels.

The easiest to understand is the vow of chastity. As everyone knows chastity, as an evangelical counsel, is to abstain from sexual relations. If you apply chastity to the whole of society, it is doomed to live just for the period of one generation. Since no one would have children, society would disappear.

Some heresies of the past, such as that of the Albigensians, tried to apply chastity to the whole of society. The medieval world would have been defeated by nature if the Church had not condemned their doctrines and stopped their march.

Obedience, as an obligation to do always the will of another under penalty of sin, if applied to the entire society, would create the most radical despotism. It would destroy the natural liberty that the common man possesses in his actions, and would consequently create a whole society of slaves.

In some ways the ephemeral communist republic of Savonarola in Florence was an example of this.

Poverty, understood as a complete abandonment of temporal goods and living from a common burse according to one’s needs, if applied to the whole society destroys any encouragement for progress, levels the competent and the incompetent, and smashes the natural differences of personalities, creating a society of penury.

It appears that some heresies of the past, such as the Fraticelli, attempted to realize this utopia and faced complete failure and the condemnation of the Church.

I believe that this demonstrates that the practice of the evangelical counsels is for a few, not for everyone in society. As a general rule, the various members of society should marry, have property, and enjoy a proportional natural freedom. At the same time, for society to have balance, the example of those who practice the evangelical counsels is indispensable:

For couples to be faithful to one another in their matrimonial duties, for youth to be chaste until marriage, for persons to look to the pleasures of Heaven instead of earth, it is indispensable to know that some men and women live in a state of perfect chastity out of love for God and Heaven.

For subjects to properly accept the orders of their civil superiors, for citizens to not revolt against just laws, for society to respect the highest classes, it is indispensable to know that a few who chose the state of perfection obliged themselves to live in a state of perpetual obedience.

For superiors of all kinds, be they ecclesiastic or temporal, to know that some of their neighbors chose to renounce all earthly power in order to follow Our Lord Jesus Christ, gives a good example that helps them moderate their use of power and be clement with their subjects.

For all members of society to know that some of its members renounced their legitimate properties to live in complete poverty, helps them limit and balance the use they make of their own properties and money.

The conclusion is simple and clear. The practice of the evangelical counsels is an extraordinary call to a few members of society. They are not the rule for all, they are the exception. Being an exception, they balance the life of the entire society. However, if someone tries to apply these counsels to all of society, he goes against natural order, he creates a monster, and he is destined to fail.

It seems to me that Fr. Vincent McNabb missed his target. As long as he struggles for evangelical poverty to be applied to all of society, he promotes a utopia. He is proposing something that is impossible and sooner or later alienates his more sensible followers.

To promote such an error as we are seeing Distributists do in the U.S. is just another attempt to mislead traditionalist Catholics toward the long, winding and sinister river of Socialism.”