Dear Friends,
Each year the Catholic bishops of the United States issue a statement on Labor Day about the concerns for the average workers in our country. I have always found them to have good insights with helpful, Catholic approaches to the problems we face. Here are some excerpts from this year’s statement:
“Economic and political forces have led to increasingly lowered economic prospects for Americans without access to higher education, which is having a direct impact on family health and stability. For example, over half of parents between the ages of 26 and 31 now have children outside of a marriage, and research shows a major factor is the lack of middle-skill jobs – careers by which someone can sustain a family above the poverty line without a college degree – in regions with high income inequality. Divorce rates and the rate of single-parent households break down along similar educational and economic lines. Financial concerns and breakdowns in family life can lead to a sense of hopelessness and despair.
The Church weeps with all of these families, with these children, whose homes and worlds are broken. As Pope Francis has said: “There are many unjust situations, but we know that God is suffering with us, experiencing them at our side. He does not abandon us. Jesus not only wanted to show solidarity with every person. He not only wanted everyone to experience his companionship, his help, his love. He identified with all those who suffer, who weep, who suffer any kind of injustice. He says this clearly: ‘I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
When we begin to look for answers to these realities, we gain less confidence from many of our political leaders these days. Instead of dialogue and constructive solutions that bring people together, we see increasing efforts to divide as a means to gain support. But more divisions are never the fruit of the Holy Spirit. When our leaders ought to be calling us toward a vision of the common good that lifts the human spirit and seeks to soothe our tendencies toward fear, we find our insecurities exploited as a means to further partisan agendas. Our leaders must never use anxiety as a means to manipulate persons in desperate situations, or to pit one group of persons against another for political gain. For our dynamics to change, we must replace fear with a fuller vision that can be powerfully supported by our faith.
Pope Francis paints a picture of a lasting answer to the growing isolation and desperation that we see all around us. To counter hopelessness, he tells us that the Christian community gets involved “by word and deed in people’s daily lives; it bridges distances . . . and it embraces human life, touching the suffering flesh of Christ in others.” In the face of endless, hectic activity and self-concern, the Church “is familiar with patient expectation and apostolic endurance,” as well as “patience and disregard for constraints of time.” The kind of encounter that we offer can be transformative, fill others with a sense of their God-given dignity, and help them to know they are not alone in their struggles. The Church’s history is filled with communities that took seriously the call to be their “brother’s keeper,” faced challenges together, and lifted up the “cry of the poor.” For those who feel left behind today, know that the Church wants to walk with you, in the company of the God who formed your “inmost being” and who knows that you are “wonderfully made.”
Dignified work is at the heart of our efforts because we draw insight into who we are as human beings from it. Saint John Paul II reminded us that human labor is an essential key to understanding our social relationships, vital to family formation and the building up of community according to our God-given dignity. He wrote “. . . man’s life is built up every day from work, from work it derives its specific dignity.” Poverty therefore appears “as a result of the violation of the dignity of human work: either because the opportunities for human work are limited as a result of the scourge of unemployment, or because a low value is put on work and the rights that flow from it, especially the right to a just wage and to the personal security of the worker and his or her family.”
In our call to rebuild community on a firmer foundation, we must rely upon the sister principles of solidarity and subsidiarity. Solidarity recognizes that each of us is connected, and that we all have the responsibility to care for one another, particularly those who are poor and vulnerable. The principle of subsidiarity recognizes that issues facing human beings should be addressed at the appropriate level of society with the capacity to do so, and often in concert with others.
The first response, then, is local, to look to our neighbors in need, our brothers and sisters who may be without sufficient work for their families, and offer them help. That help may take the form of food, money, counsel, friendship, spiritual support or other forms of love and kindness.
As we engage with our neighbors and our communities, we quickly find ways to deepen solidarity in a broader way, and to act on the structures and policies that impact meaningful work and family stability… Simply put, we must advocate for jobs and wages that truly provide a dignified life for individuals and their families, and for working conditions that are safe and allow for a full flourishing of life outside of the workplace… As the fruits of solidarity and our care for one another increase, as we begin to make real impacts toward policies that help individuals begin stable families and live in accord with their dignity.”
Peace,
Fr. Damian