Posted on 09/03/2012 7:41:32 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
Port Arthur, Texas, Sep 3, 2012 / 06:32 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A Catholic priest involved in labor advocacy says that Labor Day is a time to reflect on Catholic teaching about the role of work in society and in God’s plan for mankind.
“Labor Day is just really an opportunity to focus not on the secular world, but on what our Church teaches,” Father Sinclair Oubre, spiritual moderator of the Catholic Labor Network, told CNA Aug. 30.
Fr. Oubre is pastor of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Port Arthur, Texas, in addition to his duties with the Catholic Labor Network. He said his network aims to “re-establish the wonderful tradition” of Catholic social teaching on labor, the dignity of workers, and their right to organize a union.
“The roots of Labor Day are Catholic,” he said. While the origins of the annual September holiday are disputed, the priest credits 19th-century Catholic labor activist Peter J. McGuire with founding the holiday.
Fr. Oubre said Catholic teaching has a positive view of work. Catholics should remember that they are “co-creators in God’s ongoing creation” and are called to “build up the kingdom of God” in their daily labor.
This means that those who are in positions of responsibility, like management or ownership, have “a moral responsibility to work for justice.” They should “recognize that their workers and employees are not simply another means in the production process.”
Workers, for their part, should “reflect deeply” upon their own responsibilities.
“Whether it’s working for an insurance company processing claims or working at a General Motors plant up in Michigan, they are participating in a common effort,” Fr. Oubre said.
“They owe both God and their employer a full day’s work for a full day’s wages. They are really called to work as best they can because they are participating, while they work, in God’s ongoing creation.”
He encouraged those without work to “remain hopeful” and to look to their religious or parish community as “a source of support.”
In his small, predominantly black Texas parish, the priest reported, the most pressing concern is not unemployment but underemployment.
“Either people are being forced to work part-time to avoid losing benefits that go to take care of health care and retirement, or they are having to work multiple jobs because the wages they are receiving are so low that they and their family cannot live on it,” he said.
He said Catholics should search their souls and “not get caught up in the rhetoric of the secular world saying that the market will take care of it.” The sole reliance on the market has been rejected by papal teaching, he noted.
Fr. Oubre also finds some common views of the unemployed are “troubling.” People sometimes assume that those who can’t care for themselves are “obviously just lazy.”
“I think it’s scary in the rhetoric I hear around me, as we focus so much on Ayn Rand and ‘Atlas Shrugged,’” he said, referring to the 20th century novelist who advocated radical individualism and capitalism.
The priest is wary of the mentality that says, “I’ll take care of myself and pull myself up by my own bootstraps.” He stressed that people are “social creatures” and need to care for those who are born with health problems or who suffer crippling accidents.
“I’m speaking of family members whose children are born with spina bifida and have to try to raise their child and meet their health care needs. I’m thinking of the worker who’s driving to work and suddenly is caught up in an auto accident that’s not his fault and is paralyzed from the waist down,” he said.
“We talk about ‘I just take care of myself.’ There’s somethings that happen where people can’t take care of themselves.”
In order to know how to live in the modern economy, Fr. Oubre encouraged the study of Catholic social thought.
He said Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical “Rerum Novarum” rejected both socialism and “the brutal, brutal capitalism that was crushing and killing people” in the transition from agricultural to industrial society. The encyclical stressed that workers “could not justly enter into a contract that paid them a wage that did not give them at least a wage that they and their family could live upon.”
“He clearly condemned unregulated free marketism as well as socialism as being an insult to human dignity,” Fr. Oubre said.
Catholic social teaching on the place of labor has continued through various popes to Pope Benedict XVI’s 2009 encyclical “Caritas in Veritate.”
Fr. Oubre also recommended that Catholics read the U.S. bishops’ Labor Day statement.
He noted that Labor Day has traditionally marked an increase in political activity.
“It is absolutely imperative that Catholics be authentic to their Catholic social teaching, and not be ‘cafeteria Catholics’ of the left or the right. The real challenge is to conform ourselves to what our Church calls us to.”
“That means being pro-life, that means standing up for the dignity of marriage,” he said. “That also means fighting for the rights of our immigrant community and acknowledging the rights of workers to organize unions and participate in collective bargaining.”
“We have to try to live every aspect of Catholic social teaching,” he said.
On that I agree.
On that I agree but note that the origin of the term is clerical from the early 1800s and THAT predates communism. However, it has been usurped by communism and twisted around, just like the word "gay" in other circumstances
If you want a better term, fair enough. It can be termed as imitating Christ in looking after one's brethren. It most definitely should NOT be in govt's purview.
My quote from John Paul II plainly shows what Catholic “social doctrine” involves....using the power of the state to force upon the citizenry what they might reject on their own.
It's all fine and well for him to tout the socialist line about the right of association (labor unions) but what of others right of non association, those who do not wish to be forced to join a union or lose their job? Where is the justice in Catholic social doctrine for them?
Immigrants (illegal aliens) rights are held up as part of Catholic social doctrine on justice but again their supposed right to come across the border at will produces great injustice.
I go to the hospital emergency room and it costs me $2000 even with my insurance and the hospital frankly admits I'm subsidizing those who cannot and will not pay anything.
“We don't send bills to Mexico”.
“If you want a better term, fair enough. It can be termed as imitating Christ in looking after one’s brethren”....and that I do voluntarily not with the State's gun to my head as Catholic “social doctrine” calls for.
“Social justice” works very well for a few by producing injustice for others.
Secondly, this talks about society and your post has conveniently missed out what the rest of the post says namely . Rerum novarum is opposed to State control of the means of production, which would reduce every citizen to being a "cog" in the State machine.
“Rerum novarum is opposed to State control of the means of production, which would reduce every citizen to being a “cog” in the State machine.”
But behind that statement are calls for that very thing.
By what right does the State decide that the labor of a kid flipping burgers is worth over $10 an hour? Or that I should be forced to join and pay an organization against my will to have a job?
Read the Centesimus Annus and see that is the sort of State control being called for whether it be labeled “social or distributivity justice”.
You say my quote was “selective” and indeed it must be unless I'm going to display several pages of small type. Being selective it is no less accurate and is in no case a “random” statement.
What could be more “official” than John Paul II’s letter?
The simple fact of the matter is as shown by numerous examples is the “social justice” is just the vision of justice by the socialists and ends up as the injustice of the State setting wages, who can work where and demands that I join organizations with persons I don't wish to.
Quite frankly, I think the Catholic “social doctrine” betrays a profound ignorance of the Gospel message about private property, wages, employee/employer relationships, and indeed, justice itself.
“May 27, 2009
The Minimum Wage and Catholic Social Teaching
by Fr. Rob Johansen
The Family Wage
Since Rerum Novarum, the Church has fervently held that the basis of determining a just wage should be the concept of the “family wage.” The family wage is one sufficient for a working man to support himself, his wife, and his children. While the Church acknowledges that all members of the family have a contribution to make to the well-being of the family, she nonetheless insists that the norm of stable family life is founded upon there being one principal breadwinner for the family, the father; as Pius XI wrote: “Every effort must therefore be made that fathers of families receive a wage large enough to meet ordinary family needs adequately” (QA 71). John Paul II also advocated the family wage, seeing it as a protection against treating human beings themselves as a commodity, to be evaluated solely on the basis of their productive potential.”
But as is clear in the article no one can or is even willing to try to define exactly what constitutes “a wage large enough to meet ordinary family needs adequately” or what these ordinary family needs are or at what level they should be provided.
My ordinary family need of a computer for business and entertainment and record keeping may not be the need of my neighbors family so shall we be paid differing amounts for the same work? Just who is going to make this decision? Our employer? Me? Some government entity? A theologian?
Catholic social teaching ephasizes the right to form labor unions but labor unions have fought two tier wage scales of all kinds and I can imagine how a union contract paying a family head much more than a single person would be regarded.
The article is interesting for it's discussion of practical questions but really supplies no really useful answers, as expected, and we're left with either voluntary agreements between individuals wherein both parties come out ahead or government mandate favoring one class of persons over another and everyone losing.
Catholic “social doctrine” is at its heart political clap-trap, a trait it shares with the so-called “social gospel” of some Protestants.
And so is your Jehovah’s Witnesses, cyc — tied in to communism. And for that matter, Calvin’s preaching was for social justice as indicated above.
Saying “So’s yer mama!” doesn’t quite cut it. I really expected better.
Cheers!
What about the Jehovah's Witnesses links to communism?
If you are making an accusation it's up to make your point.
Even if such were so how would it negate anything stated so far?
Since your comment is far off the subject of the thread I can only assume you're going on offence as a good defence.
“If one talks about Jehovahs Witnesses blood transfusion ban killing people, then your posts have been “your momma” etc. look in the mirror”
Again not the subject of the thread but please inform me of how many people have died due to refusing a blood transfusion and compare that figure to the thousands who died a slow and painful death from AIDS after taking a transfusion.
I dare say the odds of long term survival have been better for those refusing, a subject the Canadians know a thing or two about.
If you are knowledgeable on the subject a separate thread would certainly be interesting and I'd be happy to respond to it.
“..... your posts have been “your momma” etc...”
Really? Please show me exactly which ones you're talking about. Once more, even if so, how would that negate anything said so far? Quite simply it wouldn't. No more than your previous posts.
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