fbpx
  • Diocese of Charleston
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
The Catholic Miscellany
  • Home
    • Buy Photos
  • About
  • Advertising
  • Submit news
HomeNewsNation & WorldWorkers’ Memorial Day homily: ‘Profit over people’ robs work of dignity

Workers’ Memorial Day homily: ‘Profit over people’ robs work of dignity

April 30, 2020 Catholic News Service Nation & World, News
Parable of the workers in the vineyard, by Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich, 1750s. (Wikimedia Commons)

WASHINGTON—”A prevailing culture of profit over people” creates “a culture that quantifies work and robs it of its humanity and its inherent dignity,” said Father Clete Kiley in his homily for a Workers’ Memorial Day Mass sponsored and livestreamed April 28 by the Catholic Labor Network.

Father Kiley, former executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for Priestly Life and Ministry, decried a “culture that treats workers as cogs on a production line rather than as the precious human beings they are.”

In referring throughout his homily to workers who have died on the job as “these beloved dead,” Father Kiley said, “Each in our way holds these beloved dead, our union sisters and brothers, to sacred memory. To remember them signifies that we hold them in our minds. In Spanish, the word is ‘recordar,’ which signifies that we hold them still in our hearts.

“Each of these beloved dead was a person destined to be, as the church teaches, ‘an agent of her or his own development.’ Each was destined to be a fully integral human person. Each had a name, each a family, friends, neighbors. And each is held in communion with us right now in this Mass,” said Father Kiley, now director of immigration policy for the UNITE HERE labor union and chaplain of the Chicago Federation of Labor.

The Mass was held on the 50th anniversary of the enactment of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. The AFL-CIO designated April 28 as Workers’ Memorial Day in 1989.

“Working people living today still face significant challenges,” Father Kiley said. “Too often today, workers are denied those very rights the church and labor say are inherent. Too often today, work conditions in some places reflect the same unsafe and uncaring environments that (Pope) Leo XIII condemned more than a century ago” in his 1891 encyclical “Rerum Novarum,” which ushered in the age of Catholic social teaching.

“Too often today, workers are put in risky situations resulting in catastrophic accidents. Too often still today, just as back in 1891, workers lose their lives at work. Too often today, grieving families and co-workers — all of us, really — wonder if such deaths weren’t avoidable,” Father Kiley said.

“To honor our beloved union dead, and to forge the pathway of solidarity, to build a more just and equitable world, to create a culture of encounter will take courage. For that we turn to the Lord. We draw courage from the Eucharist we celebrate here. We draw courage from the spiritual communion we share now.”

Before the Mass started, a rolling display of union workers who died on the job in the past year, or had died from COVID-19, appeared on the screen as a silent tribute.

“This year’s Workers Memorial Day is especially timely with so many of our health care workers, first responders, postal and delivery workers, grocery workers, teamsters, and longshoremen continuing to go to work every day to provide the life essentials for each and every one of us,” said celebrant Father Sinclair Oubre, a diocesan priest from Beaumont, Texas, and a Catholic Labor Network founder, at the start of the Mass.

After Communion, Father Oubre told of how the Catholic Labor Network started. Coming from a union household — he is currently a member of the Seafarers International Union — Father Oubre recalled seeing a discarded pamphlet, “On the Condition of Workers.” “I picked it up and started reading it,” he said. “I could not believe that as someone who grew up in Catholic school and with a family who were strong in worker unions, and had been through some angry strikes … that the church actually taught these issues!”

Father Oubre in 1995 decided to go to Decatur, Illinois, as three brutal strikes had bitterly divided the town and a priest there had been pepper-sprayed in front of one of the struck plants.

At dinner with the Decatur priest, Father Oubre said he asked him, “How do you be a labor priest?” To which the priest responded, “Well, I was gonna ask you that question!” It was then that they decided they needed to identify priests and laity to spread the message of Catholic social teaching that began with “Rerum Novarum,” which resulted in the Catholic Labor Network being formed.

By Mark Pattison

Previous

Obispos de EE. UU., Canadá consagrarán sus naciones a María el 1 de mayo

Next

Pandemia acentúa disparidades a lo largo de líneas raciales, étnicas

Related Articles

No Picture
Nation & World

Bishops seek to share journey with migrants, not join political fray

July 11, 2018 Caroline Nation & World, News

MCALLEN, Texas—The journey for many of the new migrants entering the U.S. near the border town of McAllen involves a mix of hardship and blessings. Having made the treacherous trip through the desert landscape and […]

No Picture
News

Catholic social teaching provides the wisdom to live in holiness

September 25, 2018 Caroline News, South Carolina, Video

Learn about the social teachings of the Church through which God has revealed himself to us and called us to a covenant of love and justice with our brothers and sisters. To view the video […]

Nation & World

Bishops say EPA plan to roll back pollution rule would harm the unborn

March 26, 2019 Caroline Nation & World, News

WASHINGTON—Unborn children will face greater health risks if the Environmental Protection Agency moves to rescind a rule regulating hazardous air pollutants emitted by power plants, said the chairmen of two U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ […]

Stay connected with our free email newsletter!

Sign up below to receive updates from The Catholic Miscellany sent straight to your inbox every two weeks!

Select list(s) to subscribe to


By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: . You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact




Follow us on Facebook
The Catholic Miscellany

901 Orange Grove Rd.
Charleston, SC 29407
843-261-0522

  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Statement
  • Parental Consent

Copyright © 2025 | MH Magazine WordPress Theme by MH Themes