Upcoming Events View All
19
Labyrinth Anniversary Celebration

Tuesday, 03/19/2024 at 3:00 PM - 8:00 PM

24
St. Vincent de Paul Annual Palm Sunday Dinner

Sunday, 03/24/2024 at 11:30 AM - 6:00 PM

24
Black Women Poets: Vision and Voice

Sunday, 03/24/2024 at 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM

24
Annual Legion of Mary Acies

Sunday, 03/24/2024 at 2:00 PM - 6:00 PM

2
Speaker: Social Media and Teen Mental Health

Tuesday, 04/02/2024 at 6:30 PM

5
6
St. Mark Book Fair

Saturday, 04/06/2024 at 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM

7
Poet Laureates Alive: Smith, Harjo, and Limon with Noeli Lytton

Sunday, 04/07/2024 at 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM

7
Divine Mercy Sunday

Sunday, 04/07/2024 at 2:00 PM

10
Where Art Serves the World

Wednesday, 04/10/2024 at 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Photo Credit: Mike Blake | Reuters

Bishops’ Labor Day statement criticizes ‘excessive inequality’

WASHINGTON — "Excessive inequality" threatens cooperation among all people in society "and the social pact it supports," stated Bishop Frank J. Dewane of Venice, Fla., in the U.S. bishops' annual Labor Day statement.

In the message, Bishop Dewane cited the words of Pope Francis, who told factory workers in Genoa, Italy, "The entire social pact is built around work. This is the core of the problem. Because when you do not work, or you work badly, you work little or you work too much, it is democracy that enters into crisis, and the entire social pact."

Dated Sept. 4, the federal Labor Day holiday, the statement was released Aug. 30.

Bishop Dewane, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, pointed to a "twisted understanding of labor and laborers" that fosters deepening inequality.

In Genoa, the pope "acknowledges that 'merit' is 'a beautiful word,'" Bishop Dewane stated, "but the modern world can often use it 'ideologically,' which makes it 'distorted and perverted' when it is used for 'ethically legitimizing inequality.'"

"Wages remain stagnant or are decreasing for the vast majority of people, while a smaller percentage collect the new wealth being generated. Economic stresses contribute to a decline in marriage rates, increases in births outside of two-parent households and child poverty," Bishop Dewane added. "Economic instability also hurts the faith community, as Americans who have recently experienced unemployment are less likely to go to church, even though such communities can be a source of great support in difficult times."

He stated, "When a parent — working full time, or even working multiple jobs beyond standard working hours — cannot bring his or her family out of poverty, something is terribly wrong with how we value the work of a person."

"Pope Francis has said it is 'inhuman' that parents must spend so much time working that they cannot play with their children. Surely many wish for more time, but their working conditions do not allow it."

He quoted St. John Paul II's encyclical "Centesimus Annus": "Profit is a regulator of the life of a business, but it is not the only one; other human and moral factors must also be considered which, in the long term, are at least equally important for the life of a business."

"A culture that obsesses less over endless activity and consumption may, over time, become a culture that values rest for the sake of God and family," Bishop Dewane stated.

Bishop Dewane suggested several approaches to right the imbalance brought by inequality.

"Worker-owned businesses can be a force for strengthening solidarity, as the Second Vatican Council encouraged businesses to consider 'the active sharing of all in the administration and profits of these enterprises in ways to be properly determined,'" he stated. "The Catholic Campaign for Human Development has helped in the formation of many employee-owned companies which provide jobs in communities where work opportunities may be scarce."

Workers' legal rights to "a just wage in exchange for work, to protection against wage theft, to workplace safety and just compensation for workplace injuries, to health care and other benefits, and to organize and engage in negotiations, should be promoted," he added.

"Workers must be aided to come to know and exercise their legal rights. Labor unions play an important role in this effort, according to Bishop Dewane, as he quoted from Pope Francis' remarks in June in an audience with delegates from the Confederation of Trade Unions: "There is no good society without a good union, and there is no good union that is not reborn every day in the peripheries, that does not transform the discarded stones of the economy into its cornerstones."

Bishop Dewane added that unions should "resist the temptation of becoming too similar to the institutions and powers that it should instead criticize." He stated, "Unions are especially valuable when they speak on behalf of the poor, the immigrant, and the person returning from prison." 

Related Articles Module

Recent Articles Module

From the Archive Module

Bishops Labor Day statement criticizes excessive inequality 2138

Must Watch Videos

Now Playing

    View More Videos