Washington D.C., Aug 24, 2010 / 18:21 pm
In anticipation of Labor Day, Bishop William Murphy has lamented joblessness as a “pervasive” economic failure which deprives workers of a key source of self-support and fulfillment. He called for a new “social contract” to honor work, to provide more jobs, to strengthen families and to secure just wages for workers.
The Bishop of Rockville Centre, New York, Murphy chairs the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development. The bishop issued the statement in his role as committee chair.
“Many millions are jobless or have a family member or friend who is among the fifteen million unemployed or the additional eleven million workers who only can find part time work,” Bishop Murphy commented. “Far too many have been unemployed for months, some even years. This is a pervasive failure of our economy today.”
The bishop called work “one of the major avenues for self-expression and self-fulfillment,” noting how work allows us “to care for ourselves and those we love and to contribute to the wider society.”