23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

On Monday we will be observing Labor Day, a national holiday to recognize the dignity of all who labor to provide for themselves and their families. It may come as a surprise to some that the Catholic Church has had a long history of encouraging the dignity of work and the rights of workers including encyclicals by Pius XI, John XXIII, and John Paul II. The “granddaddy” of them all is a papal encyclical issued on May 15, 1891, by Pope Leo XIII and it is known as “Rerum Novarum” which translates as “The Condition of Labor.” It was a groundbreaking document that addressed the dehumanizing conditions of labor that frequently existed at that time, following in the wake of what is known as the Industrial Revolution, as factories opened in major cities in Britain and then quickly spread throughout western Europe and then to the United States beginning in Lowell, Massachusetts. There were large population shifts as many people moved from rural agricultural work to factory work in the cities.

In challenging what he perceived as the greed of unbridled capitalism and the injustice of socialism, Pope Leo XIII proposed a series of concepts that would have been considered revolutionary at the time, but concepts that ultimately had their basis in respect for human dignity, a foundation of Catholic social thought ever since. From the Catholic perspective, the human worker is not simply a cog in a machine. Because human beings have been created in the image and likeness of God, there is a spark of the Divine Life within each of us. The fruits of our labors, then, acquire their value not just because of what they represent to others, but because they bear a part of ourselves – our creativity, our skills and our talent that have been given to us by God. Whether one manufactures a product or provides a service, the fruits of one’s labors are a reflection of the dignity of the human person who provided the labor.

Pope Leo XIII proposed specific duties for employers including (1) the abolition of child labor; (2) providing just wages to employees – he sought a “living wage” that was sufficient to provide for the needs of the worker and his family, and provide a little savings besides to better the family in the future; (3) providing periods of rest for workers – at a time when many workers were working seven days a week, Pope Leo proposed that workers should have a day of rest on Sundays that would allow them time for worship and to spend with their families; (4) fair treatment for employees rather than arbitrary termination; (5) safe working conditions; (6) the right of workers to form trade unions and participate in collective bargaining; and (7) the right of workers to strike. According to this papal encyclical, workers also had duties and responsibilities including (1) to fully and faithfully perform their agreed upon tasks; (2) to individually refrain from vandalism or personal attacks in the workplace; and (3) to collectively refrain from rioting or violence. In other words, the workers had an obligation to maintain order in the workplace.

This has been more of a history lesson than a reflection on today’s Scripture Readings, but I thought it was important on this eve of Labor Day to share with you a sense of how the Catholic Church has recognized the dignity of human labor, and promoted the protection of workers’ rights, so that God can, indeed, “prosper the work of our hands” (Psalm 90:17).