The year was 1891. In the wake of the Industrial Revolution sweeping the Western world at the time, radical changes were taking place in society regarding working conditions, property ownership, government responsibility vs. individual responsibility, and most fundamentally regarding the critical importance of recognizing the dignity of each individual human person. Looking at these social…
U.S. Catholic—As we rethink work post-pandemic, consider Catholic social teaching. Modern Catholic social thought is typically dated back to Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum (On Capital and Labor). It’s not that Catholicism had never dealt with social ethics before, of course, but the pope’s discussion marked a new level of reflection that considered…
St. Joseph the Worker—Hanging on the wall in my childhood home was a simple image of Joseph the carpenter, working with a piece of wood. My dad for most of his life was also a carpenter, building homes for his small business, The Village Carpenter, and thus especially liked this image. On May 1, we…
Big corporations are increasingly in the business of social politics these days. It’s all under the banner of corporate social responsibility (CSR). And Boston-based Cone Communications reports that the public’s appetite for it is growing. The consulting organization’s research points to 2017 as a watershed year saying that it marked the moment when consumers demanded…
Almost 130 years ago, Pope Leo XIII published the encyclical Rerum Novarum. In this text, he defended the well-being of workers and made the Catholic Church’s position on work clear: Work and working people have a fundamental dignity that all societies are bound to respect and serve. “No man,” the pope wrote, “may with impunity…
Below is the full transcript of the talk given by the Most Rev. Salvatore Cordileone, (pictured above) Bishop of the Diocese of Oakland, Calif., to Catholic business professionals at the September meeting of Catholics at Work, Oakland chapter, a chapter of the national Catholic Professional & Business Clubs.—ed “A Reflection on Business Ethics in…
