Pastor Column: The Social Question – Unions

[Note: This is not the weekly homily.] This is an article from the bulletin of December 5, 2021      I mentioned two weeks ago that we’d address Labor Unions in the next article on Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Quadragesimo Anno. In the letter, there are a few places where the pope address the concept of labor unions. Towards the beginning, he mentions them by name only briefly. He again addresses the idea of unions later in the letter, but calls them “syndicates”      The first mention is in the context of lamenting that various revolutions and governments have forbidden Catholic...Read More

Pastor Column: The Social Question I

[Note: This is not the weekly homily.] This is an article from the bulletin of November 7, 2021      Now we turn to the next important document from Pope Pius XI, called Quadragesimo anno, which is Latin for “on the fortieth year.” He we published it on May 15, 1931, which was the 40th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s letter Rerum Novarum. That letter, translated “on new things,” addressed the social questions that were arising from the industrial revolution concerning labor, human rights, and society in general. It is not that the Church never talked about social issues before -...Read More