“The Church's social teaching is a rich treasure of wisdom about building a just society and living lives of holiness amidst the challenges of modern society” (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops).
Some days, I can physically feel the duplicity of my secular workplace and the effects it has on the cultivation of my interior life.
Throughout this year, amid the discomfort of a continued global pandemic, I’ve written on themes of radical availability and bold compassion, the importance of our Catholic witness in the workplace through friendship, and achievable steps to practice detachment from our workload. There is an itch I am trying to scratch through this ongoing conversation and reflection, and it’s the desire for a truly integrated life.
Our souls don’t want to feel duplicitous. When we are practicing authenticity, we should not have to “code switch” or hide our authentic selves from the people to whom we are speaking. Understanding that all moments warrant intentionality and prudence, our souls and the work we perform in the world should not grind against each other like the buckling of tectonic plates.
7 Tenets of Catholic Social Teaching
A hidden gem of our Catholic faith is the “rich treasure of wisdom” we learn from the pillars of Catholic Social Teaching (CST). The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB’s) Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development promotes the awareness of CST as an opportunity to live out our baptismal call to love God and our neighbor. The tenets of CST are:
Life and Dignity of the Human Person: protecting life from conception to natural death and all life in between.
Call to Family, Community, and Participation: participating in the community’s economics, politics, law, and policies that uphold marriage and the family unit as our central social institutions while advocating for the dignity and common good of all members.
Rights and Responsibilities: orienting our hearts and eyes to our communities, protecting the fundamental rights and dignity of all people.
Options for the Poor and Vulnerable: defending and advocating for our society’s most marginalized.
Dignity of Work and Rights of Workers: creating an economy that serves its people and not the other way around and the right to productive work with decent and fair wages, private property, and the organization of unions. Work is the economic initiative to participate in God’s creation.
Solidarity: the pursuit of justice and peace, working as one human family of peacemakers, undivided by race, religion, color, or ethnicity.
Care for God’s Creation: interacting with the earth and environment as examples of being a good steward.
6 Ways to Practice Catholic Social Teaching in the Workplace
By following the pillars of CST as prescribed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, we can more seamlessly integrate the work we do with the quiet, interior life we abide in with Christ. Below are some examples of how to begin aligning and integrating your interior life to the work that you perform on a daily basis.
1. Are you working for a company that actively promotes the destruction of the family or human life through its financial endeavors or ethics?
Try aligning your skills with companies that see the importance of human life and dignity.
2. Are you participating in extracurriculars with your co-workers?
Show your commitment to the community where you have been placed by participating in fundraisers conducted or advertised by your co-workers (especially around the holidays). Invite your co-workers to your “extracurricular” activities, too.
3. Is a colleague growing his or her family?
Consider involving the office in a group gift for the occasion. If someone has lost a family member, consider doing something else as a group to support that co-worker.
4. Do You Have Skills That May Help the Career Development of a Co-worker?
Share your gifts with one another through mutual mentorship, or share your networks with each other. Consider leading a “lunch and learn” to share your knowledge with your team in an easy and transferable way.
5. Do You Give Power or Credit to Your Peers or Employees?
You can practice humility every day by relinquishing and distributing power to your team members. Cross-training and dividing responsibilities among members helps the team in the long run.
6. Is There Someone in the Office Who Needs a Friend?
Sometimes, all people need is a sounding board. Consider a simple solution to low morale: offering a listening ear. As Catholics, we can also pray for our co-workers’ intentions.
Each of these steps starts small, but through prayer and time, God will align the work we share with the world to the desires he’s placed in our heart. If we are in a place where they cannot be aligned, he will move us.
We do not have to take off our Catholic hats at the door to our workplace. The richness of our faith enables us to be an integrated witness to God’s embodied love every day—if we let it.
Mindy Edgington is a fiery, Midwestern Catholic convert from St. Louis, Missouri. By day, Mindy works for a Catholic health care system in group purchasing and IT contracting. Outside of work, she is a Court Appointed Special Advocate for children in foster care, Bible study leader at her local parish, and avid reader who is proud of her library card. She now lives in Omaha, NE with her husband, Octavio, who is currently in law school at Creighton University. They're accompanied by their hound dog, Brody. You can follow her on Instagram @mindy.edgington.