IMAGE: CNS photo/Jim West
By Mark Pattison
WASHINGTON
(CNS) — Echoing what Pope Francis said during a Mass in May, the bishop who
heads the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development said, “The
struggle of working people, of the poor” is not first a “social or political
question. No! It is the Gospel, pure and simple.”
In the
bishops’ annual Labor Day statement, Bishop Frank J. Dewane of Venice,
Florida, said the recent economic news may not “give an entirely accurate
account of the daily lives and struggles of working people, those who are still
without work, or the underemployed struggling with low wages.”
The
statement, “Just Wages and Human Flourishing,” dated Labor Day, Sept. 3 this
year, was released Aug. 30.
“Wages
for lower-income workers are, by various accounts, insufficient to support a
family and provide a secure future,” Bishop Dewane said. “A recent study examined
whether a minimum wage earner could afford an average two-bedroom apartment in
their state of residence. Shockingly, in all 50 states, the answer was no.”
He also
took note from a recent Federal Reserve report that showed that four in 10 adults
could not cover a $400 emergency expense, or would have to borrow money or sell
something to do so.
“Taking
into account inflation and the rising cost of living, workers at the lower end
of the income spectrum have seen their wages stagnate or even decrease over the
last decade,” Bishop Dewane said. “From 2015 to 2016, the rate of (income) growth
was highest at the top.”
“Another
alarming trend is the continuing disparities in median incomes between
different racial and ethnic groups and between women and men,” he added, citing
2016 data that showed the median household income of non-Hispanic whites was
$25,500 more than that of blacks, and the real median earnings of women were
$10,000 lower than that of men.
“Clearly
no examination of our economy, in light of justice, can exclude consideration
of how discrimination based on race and sex impacts the just distribution of
wages,” Bishop Dewane said, later citing three popes’ encyclicals on income and
wages.
St.
John XXIII in “Pacem in Terris” “described wages that ‘give the worker and
his family a standard of living in keeping with the dignity of the human
person,'” while St. John Paul II in “Laborem Exercens” “elaborated on the
systematic implications of just wages, describing them as ‘the concrete means
of verifying the justice of the whole socioeconomic system,'” Bishop Dewane
noted.
“However,
when a society fails in the task of ensuring workers are paid justly, questions
arise as to the underlying assumptions of that system. A society that is
willing to exclude its most vulnerable members, Pope Francis suggests in ‘Evangelii
Gaudium,’ is one where ‘the socioeconomic system is unjust at its root.’ Pope
Francis warns that absent a just response, these disparities can lead to deep
societal divisions and even violence,” Bishop Dewane said.
He also
cited the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which says, “Economic life is not
meant solely to multiply goods produced and increase profit or power; it is
ordered first of all to the service of persons, of the whole man, and of the
entire human community,” and that the fact that workers and employers have
agreed to a certain wage “is not sufficient to justify morally the amount to be
received in wages.”
“The
economy must serve people, not the other way around,” Bishop Dewane added. “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.”
The
Christian’s task, Bishop Dewane said, was threefold: “to live justly in our own
lives whether as business owners or workers. Secondly, we are called to stand
in solidarity with our poor and vulnerable brothers and sisters. Lastly, we
should all work to reform and build a more just society, one which promotes
human life and dignity and the common good of all. We also need to recognize
the gifts and responsibilities that God has entrusted to each of us.”
He
added, “As Christians, we believe that conflict or enmity between the rich and
the poor is not necessary or inevitable. These divisions are in fact sinful. But
we 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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