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Venice, Fla., Sep 3, 2018 / 04:06 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The provision of just wages for all workers is a critical component of a moral economy, said the head of the U.S. bishops’ Domestic Justice and Human Development committee in his Labor Day message.

“Today, there are many families who, even if they have technically escaped poverty, nevertheless face significant difficulties in meeting basic needs,” said Bishop Frank J. Dewane of Venice. “Wages for lower income workers are, by various accounts, insufficient to support a family and provide a secure future.”

In his 2018 Labor Day statement, the bishop emphasized that all Christians share the responsibility of building a human-centered economy.

“The economy must serve people, not the other way around,” he said. “Work is more than a way to make a living; it is a form of participating in God’s creation. If the dignity of work is to be protected, then the basic rights of workers must be respected, including the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to organizing and joining unions, to private property, and to economic initiative.”

In recent years, Dewane noted, the economy has seen significant progress, with declines in poverty and unemployment, and record highs in production, stocks and profits.

However, he said, these statistics do not show the full story of the modern economy, specifically the daily struggles of many unemployed, underemployed, and low-wage workers.

“It is encouraging that poverty has gone down, but still almost one in three persons have a family income below 200 percent of the federal poverty line,” Dewane said.

He pointed to recent studies showing that an average two-bedroom apartment is out of reach for minimum wage earners in all 50 states, and that 40 percent of adults would be unable to cover a $400 emergency expense without borrowing or selling something.

Also concerning, the bishop said, are “the continuing disparities in median incomes between different racial and ethnic groups and between women and men.”

Faced with these challenges, Christians have an obligation to work for a more just society and to “stand in solidarity with our poor and vulnerable brothers and sisters,” Dewane said.

He called both business owners and workers to operate with integrity, recalling the words of Pope Francis in Gaudete et Exultate: “Do you work for a living? Be holy by laboring with integrity and skill in the service of your brothers and sisters…Are you in a position of authority? Be holy by working for the common good and renouncing personal gain.”

Business owners must pursue human flourishing rather than seeking profit alone, Dewane said. “[P]art of this obligation is to pay a just wage, which provides a dignified livelihood for workers and their families to meet their basic needs.”

The Church has traditionally taught that a worker’s willingness to work for a certain wage is not sufficient to make that wage just, the bishop noted. Rather, justice in wages must be evaluated “in the context of the well-being and flourishing of the individual, the family and society.”

“Every worker has a right to a just wage according to the criterion of justice, which St. John XXIII described as wages that, ‘give the worker and his family a standard of living in keeping with the dignity of the human person’.”

Implementing just wages in practice will require a change of heart, Dewane said. He suggested that politicians should address structural causes of low wages and unjust disparities, and society should give “due consideration for what justly ensures security for employees to establish and maintain all significant aspects of family life, and care for family members into the future.”

He also highlighted the rights of unions to advocate for just wages, health benefits, adequate rest, and protection against wage theft.

“[W]e live in the hope that our society can become ever more just when there is conversion of heart and mind so that people recognize the inherent dignity of all and work together for the common good.”

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CNA Staff, Mar 8, 2024 / 17:05 pm (CNA).
As interfaith marriages can carry unique theological and pastoral challenges, Orthodox and Catholic Church representatives released earlier this wee… […]

Washington D.C., Nov 1, 2017 / 05:14 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A member of the Vatican’s International Theological Commission has resigned his position as a consultant to the USCCB’s Committee on Doctrine, following the publication of a letter written to Pope Francis asking the Pope to correct the “chronic confusion” of his pontificate, which he says “fosters within the faithful a growing unease.”

Father Thomas Weinandy, OFM, Cap., who previously served as Executive Director of the USCCB’s Secretariat for Doctrine, sent the five-page letter to Pope Francis July 31, the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Weinandy told Crux that he sent the letter after a powerful experience of discernment convinced him that “Jesus wanted me to write something” that would “be of help to Pope Francis, to the Church, and to the faithful.”

In a statement released Wednesday afternoon, James Rogers, Chief Communications Officer of the USCCB, said that “after speaking with the General Secretary of the Conference today, Father Thomas Weinandy, OFM, Cap., has resigned, effective immediately, from his position as consultant to the USCCB Committee on Doctrine. The work of the Committee is done in support of, and in affective collegiality with, the Holy Father and the Church in the United States. Our prayers go with Father Weinandy as his service to the Committee comes to a close.”

Weinandy’s letter, published by Crux on Wednesday, addressed five points. Weinandy told the Pope that his pontificate had fostered confusion, diminished the importance of doctrine in the Church’s life, appointed bishops who teach and act in harmful ways, fostered a culture of fear among bishops, and caused faithful Catholics to lose confidence in the papacy.

The letter also expressed Weinandy’s “love for the Church and sincere respect” for the office of the Pope. The priest expressed hope that by recognizing “darkness, the Church will will humbly need to renew herself, and so continue to grow in holiness.”

Father Thomas Petri, OP, academic dean of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC, told CNA that Weinandy “is a theologian of the highest caliber,” and that the “letter to His Holiness is quite obviously written with a deep filial piety and loyalty to both our Holy Father Pope Francis and to the Church.”

“There is no need to continue to litigate theological points in the public square and so Father Weinandy says directly but, I think, charitably what he believes is on many people’s minds. Many priests are confronted daily by members of the lay faithful expressing confusion and concern in reports they read or hear about Pope Francis and his advisors,” Petri added.

Chad Pecknold, professor of theology at the Catholic University of America, agreed. Weinandy “is arguably the most distinguished Franciscan theologian working in the English language today,” Pecknold told CNA. “He is a theologian centered in the Church, and not at all at her outermost fringe. So his letter carries the weight of the center.”

“Rather than presume to correct, Father Weinandy describes the current situation, and informs the Holy Father that what seems to many like ‘intentionally ambiguous’ teaching has led to confusion, leading some of his own advisors to publicly advance error….There is something admirable about the impassioned plea of a son of St. Francis writing to Pope Francis, in truth and love, as a son to a father. His love for the pope is evident throughout his appeal.”

While Pecknold called Weinandy’s letter “deferential,” he told CNA “it is certainly reasonable to ask whether it should have been published in the media.”

Jacob Wood, theology professor at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, raised similar concerns. “If Father Weinandy’s intention is fraternal correction, publishing his letter might not be the best way to go about it,” Wood told CNA. “It is easy for our intentions to get warped when treated in the mass media by people who don’t share the perspective of faith. There does exist some danger of scandal.”

Weinandy told Crux that he published the letter because it “expresses the concerns of many more people than just me, ordinary people who’ve come to me with their questions and apprehensions,” adding: “I wanted them to know that I listened.”

RR Reno, editor of First Things magazine, and formerly a professor of theology at Creighton University, told CNA that publishing letters like Weinandy’s can be helpful to Catholics.

“Weinandy’s letter is an attempt to clearly state problems we face,” Reno said.

“Everyone in the Church has a role – priests laity and bishops – and each of us is going to have to make a discernment how best to serve the Church in the current climate. We have to discuss how to move forward in this pontificate as loyal members of the Church,” he said, adding that Weinandy’s letter is a helpful catalyst for such discussion.

Reno also said that publicizing letters like Weinandy’s “aids people who are in positions of responsibility,” in the Church, “providing some support for those who want to address the challenges the Church is facing.”

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the USCCB, issued a statement Wednesday afternoon, “on the nature of dialogue within the Church,” which he said was occasioned by the publication of Weinandy’s letter and his resignation. DiNardo said that theological debates are often the subject of media attention, which “is to be expected and is often good.”

DiNardo added that theologians and bishops should make every effort to interpret the Holy Father’s teaching charitably, and that all Catholics should “acknowledge that legitimate differences exist” among Catholics, “and that it is the work of the Church, the entire body of Christ, to work towards an ever-growing understanding of God’s truth.”

Father Charles L. Sammons, OFM Cap, told CNA that he lived with Weinandy in 2015. “I experienced Fr. Thomas as an uncomplicated and earnest person who simply loved the Lord and his Church, and didn’t seem to have many concerns apart from that. I remarked to myself more than once that this seemed like a blessed way to live,” Sammons told CNA.

Sammons said that time with Weinandy “had been given to me as a grace of good example, for my own religious life as a Capuchin friar.”

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