The following is an excerpt from an article by Rev. John F. Naugle that was first published at Brownstone.org.
As I celebrated Mass for our parish on the morning of Labor Day, I was struck by the Gospel which coincidentally was given to be read for Monday of the 22nd Week in Ordinary time: Luke 4:16-30. Here we see the people of Nazareth respond favorably to Jesus’ declaration that He personally fulfills the prophecy as the one anointed to bring “bring glad tidings to the poor” only to immediately attempt to kill him as they become furious at the accusation that they are beginning to reject him just as Elijah and Elisha faced rejection.
It then occurred to me that it was the answer I had been looking for since the early days of 2020. When I saw what was being done to the poor and downtrodden, I kept asking where the “labor priests” were and why the Catholic “social justice activists” were silent? I was driven to write my first op-ed condemning lockdowns, where I expressed my outrage at the grave injustice that was taking place:
Under the guise of executive powers reserved for short-term disasters such as hurricanes, leaders across the West have done the previously unthinkable: they have FORBIDDEN entire segments of the population from working. Using a nonsensical distinction between essential and non-essential (as if providing for one’s family is ever non-essential) our entire workforce has been divided into three groups: 1.) The upper class with jobs that can be performed in their pajamas at home, 2.) Laborers lucky enough to still be able to go to work, and 3.) Those intentionally rendered unemployed.
Those who belong to that final group include those for whom the popes of yesteryear wrote with concern. Waitresses, barbers, sales employees, janitors, those who provide child care and others who often live paycheck to paycheck. Also included are those who are small business owners, those who represent best the type of world envisioned by the popes for a fair market, namely those who aren’t rich themselves but through their own labor and risk create jobs so that others can provide for their families.
The now month-long and counting prohibition against labor for these people is intrinsically evil for it is a violation of the rights of these men and women to preserve their lives. Even if they are made whole (they won’t be) by the printing of cash by their respective governments, they are being robbed of the dignity of eating by the labor of their hands. This can NEVER be approved, regardless of the consequences, just as one cannot murder the baby to save millions of people.
I was baffled as to why the shepherds and others had remained silent. Little did I know that this silence would become for many (especially among those who considered themselves “social justice activists”) a fury against those of us who were against these supposed mitigation efforts.
The same dynamic that Jesus encountered in Nazareth held true today; bringing “glad tidings to the poor” is a popular slogan but very often those who embrace it most quickly care little for being called out for their own sins which prevent delivery of these glad tidings. Sadly, this is precisely what has happened to those whose political history has been tied up with what was once called the labor movement.
The Rise and Fall of the Labor Movement
Our celebration of Labor Day in the United States of America is a historical memory of the great achievement of the labor movement in the face of the grave injustices which occurred in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. Robber barons like Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Vanderbilt effectively ruled the economy, and laborers were largely treated as cheap and replaceable. As such, their jobs included unnecessary risk of death, they were poorly compensated, and in some towns, may not have even been paid in real money but rather credit to be spent in the “Company Store.”
Reverend John F. Naugle is the Parochial Vicar at St. Augustine Parish in Beaver County. B.S., Economics and Mathematics, St. Vincent College; M.A., Philosophy, Duquesne University; S.T.B., Catholic University of America
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