Words of the Holy Father
The following letter to the editor of the Towanda Daily & Sunday Review appeared on February 13, 2009:
Words of the Holy Father
EDITOR:
In a recent letter to your newspaper, Scranton Diocesan spokesman Bill Genello defended Bishop Martino’s obvious union-busting tactics, saying that the ruling of a Vatican tribunal meant that the Church was on his side. “Unions are not a necessity,” Genello claimed. However, it seems the Holy Father has recently taken exception to Genello and the bishop’s point of view.
In a recent speech, Pope Benedict XVI said labor unions have an important role to play in finding a way out of the global financial crisis and establishing a new culture of solidarity and responsibility in the marketplace. (The full text of the Pope’s speech can be found on-line at: http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0900492.htm)
In that speech, the Pope said, “The great challenge and the great opportunity posed by today’s worrisome economic crisis is to find a new synthesis between the common good and the market, between capital and labor. And in this regard, union organizations can make a significant contribution.”
The Pope emphasized that the inalienable dignity of the worker has been a cornerstone of the Church’s social teaching in the modern age, and said this teaching has helped the movement toward fair wages, improvement of working conditions and protection of vulnerable categories of employees.
“Workers are facing particular risks in the current economic crisis, and unions must be part of the solution,” he said. “In order to overcome the economic and social crisis we’re experiencing,” he continued, “we know that a free and responsible effort on the part of everyone is required. In other words, it is necessary to overcome the interests of particular groups and sectors, in order to face together and in a united way the problems that are affecting every area of society, especially the world of labor.”
“Never has this need been felt so urgently,” he warned. “The problems tormenting the world of labor push toward an effective and closer arrangement between the many and diverse components of society.”
He noted that his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, had underlined labor as the key component in social questions and had described the labor union as an indispensable element of social life in modern industrialized societies.
So whose ideas should prevail? In the past, when his brother bishops took positions opposite his, Bishop Martino said that “Other bishops don’t speak for me. There is only one teacher in this Diocese and these points are undebateable.”
It will be interesting to hear Genello’s and Bishop Martino’s response to the Holy Father’s speech. Will they consider Pope Benedict merely the Bishop of Rome or should the successor to Peter carry a bit more weight?
Michael A. Milz, President
Scranton Diocese Association of Catholic Teachers
Mc-Entee Keller Labor Center
DUNMORE, PA
Words of the Holy Father
EDITOR:
In a recent letter to your newspaper, Scranton Diocesan spokesman Bill Genello defended Bishop Martino’s obvious union-busting tactics, saying that the ruling of a Vatican tribunal meant that the Church was on his side. “Unions are not a necessity,” Genello claimed. However, it seems the Holy Father has recently taken exception to Genello and the bishop’s point of view.
In a recent speech, Pope Benedict XVI said labor unions have an important role to play in finding a way out of the global financial crisis and establishing a new culture of solidarity and responsibility in the marketplace. (The full text of the Pope’s speech can be found on-line at: http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0900492.htm)
In that speech, the Pope said, “The great challenge and the great opportunity posed by today’s worrisome economic crisis is to find a new synthesis between the common good and the market, between capital and labor. And in this regard, union organizations can make a significant contribution.”
The Pope emphasized that the inalienable dignity of the worker has been a cornerstone of the Church’s social teaching in the modern age, and said this teaching has helped the movement toward fair wages, improvement of working conditions and protection of vulnerable categories of employees.
“Workers are facing particular risks in the current economic crisis, and unions must be part of the solution,” he said. “In order to overcome the economic and social crisis we’re experiencing,” he continued, “we know that a free and responsible effort on the part of everyone is required. In other words, it is necessary to overcome the interests of particular groups and sectors, in order to face together and in a united way the problems that are affecting every area of society, especially the world of labor.”
“Never has this need been felt so urgently,” he warned. “The problems tormenting the world of labor push toward an effective and closer arrangement between the many and diverse components of society.”
He noted that his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, had underlined labor as the key component in social questions and had described the labor union as an indispensable element of social life in modern industrialized societies.
So whose ideas should prevail? In the past, when his brother bishops took positions opposite his, Bishop Martino said that “Other bishops don’t speak for me. There is only one teacher in this Diocese and these points are undebateable.”
It will be interesting to hear Genello’s and Bishop Martino’s response to the Holy Father’s speech. Will they consider Pope Benedict merely the Bishop of Rome or should the successor to Peter carry a bit more weight?
Michael A. Milz, President
Scranton Diocese Association of Catholic Teachers
Mc-Entee Keller Labor Center
DUNMORE, PA
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