The Working Catholic: Forgotten Organizer by Bill Droel Most grammar school and high school students encounter Cesar Chavez (1927-1993) in one or another textbook. He is heralded as a pioneer in organizing agricultural workers and as a champion of Mexican-Americans. So in September 1965 who were those farm workers who went on strike and whose […]
The Working Catholic: Theology of Work by Bill Droel It was in post-World War II Poland that a positive turn occurred in the theology of work. For centuries Catholicism, with some important exceptions, gave pride of place to worldly abandonment, including a degree of disdain for normal work. In the prevailing Catholic understanding a saint-worthy […]
The Working Catholic by William Droel Go to the barbershop and get a hold of The Atlantic (June/18). Its cover features a baby in a Yale University outfit. Matthew Stewart contributes a 14-page article that gives fresh perspective to our economic scene. In recent years the class divide has been termed the 99% and the […]
The Working Catholic: Public Friendship by Bill Droel Let’s say there is a society in which everyone honors contracts—formal ones and implied promises. Managers and their employees abide by their collective bargaining agreement. Car dealers transparently present their vehicles; customers pay their loans. Real estate agents advertise “open housing” and then do not discriminate. Tax […]
The Working Catholic: Cancer by Bill Droel When the diagnosis is cancer, our singular focus is properly on treatment—surgery, radiation, chemo, immunotherapy, blocking therapy and more. The bulk of cancer research is directed toward improving these treatments and finding others. Prior to a cancer diagnosis most people do not often think about cancer and we […]
The Working Catholic: Vocation of Politics by Bill Droel Can electoral politics be a vocation; a person’s response to God’s call? By one opinion, the answer is decidedly no. Political office, this opinion points out, is a place for illicit sex, ostentation, financial corruption, self-serving ideology and general boorishness. As for those politicians who invoke […]
The Working Catholic: Right to Work by Bill Droel The pastoral teaching of Catholic bishops in our country has “consistently supported the right of workers to organize for the purpose of collective bargaining,” wrote Anthony Picarello Jr. to the Supreme Court this past January. Picarello is the bishops’ general counsel in Washington, D.C. Bishop John […]
The Working Catholic by Bill Droel St. Frances Cabrini, MSC (1850-1917), the first U.S. citizen to be canonized, is the patron of immigrants. William Green (1873-1952) was for 28 years president of American Federation of Labor (before the merger with CIO). A notorious public housing project in Chicago was named for these two. Ben Austen […]
The Working Catholic: Union Reform by Bill Droel Subsidiarity is a Catholic social principle that celebrates the multiplicity of small institutions that buffer a person from the mega-forces of big business and big government; institutions like the family, the parish, an ethnic club or the precinct. Brian Dijkema, writing in National Affairs (Winter/18), correctly and […]
The Working Catholic: Workplace Behavior by Bill Droel In response to recent disclosures of predatory behavior in several workplaces, human resource departments around the country are redistributing employee handbooks. Likewise, managers are everywhere huddling with employees to review proper deportment. Rule books and company policies are important. They represent an advance over the arbitrary decisions […]