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Thoughts
and Prayers for Labor Day: A
column by Fr. Ken Overberg, SJ
August
18, 2005
 Along
with fireworks, gatherings to support unions, picnics to celebrate
the end of summer, Labor Day offers us a very appropriate time to
reflect and pray about work and the worker. The rich heritage of
the Catholic Social Teachings gives us wise and often challenging
insights for our musings.
Labor—or better, the laborer—has been a central theme
of the social teachings. In 1891, Pope Leo XIII wrote The Condition
of Labor (also known by its Latin title Rerum Novarum) in response
to the massive problems caused by the Industrial Revolution: exploitation
of the worker, terrible working conditions, unjust wages. In order
to defend people from such abuse, Leo stresses the basic right of
human beings to work, to receive a just wage, to form unions, to
possess private property.
Concern
for the worker is expressed throughout the social teachings, and
is developed in detail in a contemporary way in Pope John Paul II’s
On Human Work. In this very reflective statement, the Pope again
affirms the rights of workers and unions. “In order to achieve
social justice in the various parts of the world,” he says,
“there is need for ever new movements of solidarity of the
workers and with the workers” (#8). This is especially urgent,
he adds, in situations where workers are suffering from “exploitation”
or from increasing “poverty and hunger.”
John
Paul stresses that work expresses and increases human dignity and
helps build a better world. He emphasizes the primacy of people
over things and promotes systems (joint ownership, shareholding
by labor, etc.) that build unity between owners and workers. Consistent
with other social teachings, On Human Work criticizes Marxism with
its emphasis on state ownership and its rejection of private property;
it also criticizes capitalism for its neglect of the common good
and for its focus on productivity and profit rather than people.
John Paul concludes: the church “sees it as her particular
duty to form a spirituality of work which will help all people to
come closer through work to God, the creator and redeemer”
(#24).
John Paul’s On the Hundredth Anniversary of Rerum Novarum
(Centesimus Annus) celebrates one hundred years of social teachings
by reaffirming that this teaching is an essential part of evangelization.
The encyclical begins by highlighting key themes from Leo XIII’s
encyclical—the dignity of persons, the rights of workers,
private property understood in the context of the common good—and
indicating how they remain valid for today’s world.
The encyclical also concentrates on economic issues. The pope rejects
a capitalism that is not limited by a strong legal framework and
adds a strong caution about consumerism, which harms both human
beings and the environment.
The social teachings, then, raise a number of questions for reflection
and prayer. Do you find your work creative and fulfilling, enhancing
your human dignity? How do you express your commitment to the universal
common good--about the workers in sweatshops, for example, and trade
agreements that oppress people? Does your view of the relationship
between workers and owners depend more on your profession and economic
bracket than on the social teachings’ emphasis on dignity
and justice?
How do you combine spirituality with work? Will you find time to
read carefully John Paul’s On Human Work? Will you contemplate
with St. Ignatius Loyola (#236 in his Spiritual Exercises) how God,
like a potter with clay or a mother in childbirth, labors to share
God’s life and love with us?
Fr.
Kenneth R. Overberg, S.J., is professor of Theology at Xavier
University. He writes this column for the Cincinnati archdiocesan
paper The Catholic Telegraph. A collection of his essays, focusing
on the consistent ethic of life, titled 'Creating a Culture of Life'
has recently been published by Thomas
More Publishing.
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