Washington D.C., Aug 30, 2005 / 22:00 pm
The United States bishops are calling on people this Labor Day to consider the U.S. economy “from the ‘bottom up’”, in other words, from a justice perspective that has people considering how their economic habits, such as work, investments and spending, affect the poor and vulnerable workers.
In the bishops’ annual Labor Day statement, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio said these reflections should be based on the teaching of Pope John Paul II on work and workers.
Pope John Paul said that trade unions have “the Church’s defense and approval,” and that unions are an “indispensable element of social life, especially in modern industrial societies,” noted the chairman of the bishops’ domestic policy committee.
His successor, Pope Benedict XVI, affirmed this teaching, insisting it is “necessary to witness in contemporary society to the ‘Gospel of Work,’ of which John Paul II spoke in his encyclical Laborem Exercens.”