“Human labor must be honored not because it is labor, but because it is human” (Anthony Elson, Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching).
Thus far, we have examined four of the seven themes of Catholic Social Teaching and discovered that each theme builds upon the previous one. The first theme, on the dignity of the human person, challenged us to recognize that each person is made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26-27).
The second theme, on the call to family, community and participation, reminded us that the family is the “basic cell of society,” as Pope St. John Paul II said. As women, we have a unique responsibility to nurture humanity.
The third theme, on rights and responsibilities, presented us with a monumental task: to love our neighbor. We learned from Simone Weil that to imitate Christ here, and so to be a true Christian, is to recognize that “the neighbor is a being of whom nothing is known, lying naked, bleeding, and unconscious on the road. It is a question of completely anonymous, and for that reason, completely universal love.”
The fourth theme, on the preferential option for the poor and vulnerable, challenged us to intimately identify with the poor and, in so doing, imitate Christ.
Now, we explore the Church’s teaching on the dignity of work and the rights of workers.
Work Is for Man, Not Man for Work
The roots for the dignity of work can be found in Genesis, prior to the fall: “The Lord God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it” (Genesis 2:15).
In this simple sentence, we discover that work is a gift from God, not a punishment from Him. And, as He invites us to work, it is an invitation to work alongside Him, to share in His cultivation of the earth and humanity.
In his 1981 encyclical Laborem Exercens, Pope St. John Paul II highlighted the unique and subjective characteristic the human person contributes to his or her work that not only transforms the raw materials into something useful and good for society but also helps transfigure the human person:
Man has to subdue the earth and dominate it, because as the “image of God” he is a person, that is to say, a subjective being capable of acting in a planned and rational way, capable of deciding about himself, and with a tendency to self-realization. As a person, man is therefore the subject of work. As a person he works, he performs various actions belonging to the work process; independently of their objective content, these actions must all serve to realize his humanity, to fulfill the calling to be a person that is his by reason of his very humanity.
As we work in any capacity, from tilling the soil of our hobby garden to replying to business emails, we are offering ourselves in a way that is unique to each of us. Even if the gardens are identical and the email responses verbatim, the human person behind each work is unique, and by doing the work, his or her heart, mind, body, and soul were also cultivated (for better or worse).
It is incumbent upon us to not objectify ourselves or others for the sake of expediency or material gain, as we will explore later. The key is to be always oriented toward one thing: the greater glory of God.
Jesus, the Man of Work
From the creation of man in Genesis to the new Adam, Jesus Christ, the reverence and the great value of work is clear in Scripture. When Jesus visited His hometown, the people listening to Him wondered: “Where did this man get such wisdom and mighty deeds? Is he not the carpenter’s son?” (Matthew 13:55).
Indeed, Jesus—God Incarnate—is a man of work. St. John Paul II called this idea the “Gospel of Work,” stating in Laborem Exercens:
… this was also “the gospel of work” because he who proclaimed it was himself a man of work, a craftsman like Joseph of Nazareth … He belongs to the “working world”, he has appreciation and respect for human work. It can indeed be said that he looks with love upon human work and the different forms that it takes, seeing in each one of these forms a particular facet of man’s likeness with God.
In addition to the example of His life, Jesus draws upon work scenarios in His various parables, such as the parable of the sower found in Matthew 13:1-23, the parable of laborers in the vineyard in Matthew 20:1-16, and the parable of the tenants in Matthew 21:33-45.
We hear echoes of Jesus’ teaching on work in the writings of His apostles as well. For example, in his second letter to the Thessalonians, St. Paul writes, “If anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10-13) and, “You recall, brothers, our toil and drudgery. Working night and day in order not to burden any of you” (2 Thessalonians 2:9).
Following the fall, work necessarily includes suffering—as St. Paul noted, “toil and drudgery.” However, even this suffering is a gift, because God Himself suffered not only in His human work but also in accomplishing the work of our salvation on the Cross. Therefore, the suffering and struggles we experience in our work are gateways to deeper unity with Christ when prayerfully and intentionally carried out in loving imitation of His Passion.
As St. John Paul II writes in Laborem Exercens:
By enduring the toil of work in union with Christ crucified for us, man in a way collaborates with the Son of God for the redemption of humanity. He shows himself a true disciple of Christ by carrying the cross in his turn every day in the activity that he is called upon to perform.
Christian Stewardship
The work we perform is a share in God’s work, from the output of our labor to the suffering we endure. We can see this relationship between our work and God’s even more acutely when we embrace leadership positions and are entrusted to care for others. Unfortunately, in our post-modern society, business leaders too often emphasize profit maximization and resource optimization, regardless of the human casualties—such as layoffs to “right size” a company’s financial statements.
Pope Leo XIII was particularly attuned to the exploitation of man for the sake of profits at the onset of the industrial revolution. In his groundbreaking encyclical Rerum Novarum, the primary thrust of his argument was that capital and labor are non-competitive and, in fact, need each other. Work is a gift, as it provides us with an opportunity to give of ourselves in a unique way and to suffer alongside Christ, thereby sharing in His redemptive work.
That said, the inherent dignity of the human person trumps the potential value of the raw materials to be worked. Pope Leo put it this way:
No man may with impunity outrage that human dignity which God Himself treats with great reverence, nor stand in the way of that higher life which is the preparation of the eternal life of heaven.
Business leaders are called to be good stewards of the capital and labor entrusted to their care, bearing in mind the personal gift of human labor. In this way, again, we are imitating the Creator by seeking to cultivate the people He entrusts to us. St. Augustine writes in his work The Literal Meaning of Genesis that as Adam was setting about working in the Garden of Eden, God was cultivating the life of virtue within Adam’s heart so that “having grasped the commandment he might yield the harvest of obedience.”
As we listen to our employees, discover their gifts, and help them share those gifts generously, we are sharing in God’s work of cultivating others into the unique expression of the imago Dei they have been created to be. As Christian stewards, we are called to vehemently resist the temptation to exploit workers for material gain; stand up against such practices; and, instead, imitate Christ (particularly His life of virtue that is accompanied by suffering) and embrace the invitation to explore with workers their role in cultivating the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
Vanessa Crescio is an accountant with Lipic’s Engagement. She earned an MBA from the University of Notre Dame, an MTS from Newman University, and worked in the real estate and banking industries prior to serving in business roles at the parish and archdiocesan levels. She is interested in thinking through co-responsibility in the Church and developing leadership programs to form Catholics to serve the Church with not only their knowledge, skills, and abilities but with the servant heart of Christ. Read more of her writing at FRESHImage, and follow her on Instagram.